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

216. THE DONKEY AND THE WILD BOAR
Perry 484 (Phaedrus 1.29)

When a foolish person just wants to get a laugh, he often teases someone in a way that is actually quite insulting, thus getting himself into serious trouble indeed.
A donkey happened to run into a wild boar and greeted him, 'Good day, brother.' The boar was indignant and, spurning the donkey's salutation, he demanded to know how the donkey could make such an outrageous claim. The donkey extended his prick and said, 'Even if you deny that you have anything in common with me, this certainly seems to have a great deal in common with your snout.' Although he wanted to launch an attack that would be worthy of his breeding, the boar checked his rage and said, 'I could easily avenge myself, but I don't want to sully myself with the blood of this worthless coward!'

Note: Caxton (1.11) tells the fable of a donkey and a lion, not a boar. In the medieval Latin tradition, the donkey's pene, 'prick' is confused with his pede, 'foot' (e.g. Ademar 12, 'the donkey stuck out his foot and showed him his hoof').


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.