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

489. THE ROOSTER AND THE CATS
Perry 546 (Phaedrus App. 18)

There was a rooster who employed cats as his litter bearers. When the fox saw the rooster being proudly carried about in this way, she said to him, 'I advise you to beware of treachery: if you look into the faces of those cats, you will realize that they are not bearing a burden -- they are carting off loot!' Afterwards, when the pack of cats began to grow hungry, they tore their lord to pieces and divided his remains amongst themselves.

Note: There is a promythium appended to the fable in Perotti's Appendix: 'Overconfidence often leads people into danger.'


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.