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

3. THE WOLF, THE DOG AND THE COLLAR
Perry 346 (Babrius 100)

A comfortably plump dog happened to run into a wolf. The wolf asked the dog where he had been finding enough food to get so big and fat. 'It is a man,' said the dog, 'who gives me all this food to eat.' The wolf then asked him, 'And what about that bare spot there on your neck?' The dog replied, 'My skin has been rubbed bare by the iron collar which my master forged and placed upon my neck.' The wolf then jeered at the dog and said, 'Keep your luxury to yourself then! I don't want anything to do with it, if my neck will have to chafe against a chain of iron!'

Note: Caxton (3.15) adds this epimythium: 'Therfore there is no rychesse gretter than lyberte / For lyberte is better than alle the gold of the world.'


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.