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

339. THE DONKEY ON THE ROOF
Perry 359 (Babrius 125)

A donkey went up on the top of a house and while he was frisking about he broke some of the roof tiles. A man came running up and dragged the donkey back down to the ground, beating him with a club. The donkey, his back aching from the blows, said to the man, 'But just yesterday and the day before you were so amused when the monkey did the very same thing!'

Note: 'The donkey on the roof' was a Latin proverb (e.g., Petronius, Satyricon 63.1), equivalent to our 'bull in a china shop.'


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.