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

553. THE DONKEY AND THE THORNS
Perry 360 (Babrius 133)

A donkey was eating the spiny leaves of a thorn bush when a fox happened to see him. The fox crept up and said, 'Hey you, how can you chew and swallow such tough food with your flabby, flapping tongue?'

Note: This odd little joke may have been prompted by the Latin proverb similes habent labra latucas, 'the lips have lettuce to match,' which seems to have been associated with the motif of donkeys eating thistles (see Jerome, Epistles 7.5). Compare the English saying, 'A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth' (The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs).


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.