<< Home Page | Oxford (Gibbs) Index

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

84. THE MAN, THE MARE AND THE FOAL
Perry 401 (Syntipas 45)

A man was riding a pregnant mare and she gave birth to her foal while they were still on the road. The new-born foal followed directly behind his mother but soon became unsteady on his feet. The foal then said to the man, 'Look, you can see that I am very small and not strong enough to travel. If you leave me here, I am sure to die. But if you carry me away from here back to your home and bring me up, then later on, when I am grown, I shall let you ride me.'
The fable shows that we should do favours for someone who can do us a good deed in return.

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.