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

387. THE HARE AND THE COWHERD
Perry 22 (Phaedrus App. 28)

A swift-footed hare was fleeing from a hunter. A cowherd happened to see where the hare had concealed himself in a thicket. The hare then said to the cowherd, 'I beg you by the power of the gods on high and all that you hold dear, do not give me away! I have never done any harm to this field.' The cowherd replied, 'Do not be afraid! Hide yourself, and do not worry.' Then the hunter arrived hot on the trail of the hare, shouting, 'Hey there, cowherd, did a hare happen to come this way?' 'He did,' said the cowherd, 'but then he ran off that way, to the left.' Yet as he spoke, the cowherd actually turned his head to the right and winked. The hunter did not take the hint and quickly vanished out of sight. At this point the cowherd said to the hare, 'So, are you going to thank me for having concealed you?' The hare replied, 'Well, I cannot deny that I am grateful to your tongue, many thanks. But as for your lying eyes, I wish someone would just rip them right out of your head!'

Note: In the Greek tradition (e.g., Chambry 34), the story is told about a fox, not a hare. In the Latin tradition, represented here, Phaedrus's lepus, 'hare,' became a lupus, 'wolf' in later Latin texts.

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.