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

327. THE JACKDAW AND THE RAVENS
Perry 123 (Chambry 161)

There was a jackdaw who was bigger than the other jackdaws. Scorning his fellows, he joined the company of the ravens, having decided to spend his life as a member of their flock. The ravens, however, did not recognize the voice of this bird or his appearance, so they attacked him and drove him away. Rejected by the ravens, he went back again to the jackdaws. But the jackdaws were angry about his presumptuous behaviour and refused to accept him. The final result was that the jackdaw had nowhere to go.
This is also true of someone who leaves his homeland, preferring to live elsewhere: he is treated with contempt abroad and is rejected by his own people for his presumptuous behaviour.

Note: For the Greeks, the jackdaw was a bird who was supposed to stick to his own flock. The equivalent of the English proverb 'birds of a feather flock together' was koloios poti koloion, 'the jackdaw (stands) next to the jackdaw' (e.g., Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1155a).


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.