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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

139. THE FROG AND THE MOUSE
Perry 384 (Ademar 4)

A mouse asked a frog to help her get across the river. The frog tied the mouse's front leg to her own back leg using a piece of string and they swam out to the middle of the stream. The frog then turned traitor and plunged down into the water, dragging the mouse along with her. The mouse's dead body floated up to the surface and was drifting along when a kite flew by and noticed something he could snatch. When he grabbed the mouse he also carried off her friend the frog. Thus the treacherous frog who had betrayed the mouse's life was likewise killed and eaten.
For people who do harm to others and destroy themselves in the bargain.

Note: For a more elaborate version of this story, see Fable 140 (following). The story of the mouse and the frog occasions one of the most extensive allegorical meditations in Rumi's Mathnawi, 6.2632 ff.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.