Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE DOG AND THE GARDENER
A gardener had a dog who had fallen into a well. The gardener lowered himself
down into the well to pull the dog out, but the dog only gave the man a nasty
bite, thinking that the man intended to plunge him even deeper into the water.
After the dog had bitten him, the gardener said, 'It serves me right for making
such an effort to pull you out of the well, when all you can do is attack me.'
This fable indicts people who are foolish and ungrateful. |
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.
Perry 120: Gibbs (Oxford) 77 [English]
Perry 120: L'Estrange 150 [English]
Perry 120: Chambry 155 [Greek]
Perry 120: Syntipas 34 [Greek]
You can find a compilation of Perry's index to the Aesopica in the gigantic appendix to his
edition of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library
(Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965). This book is an absolute must for anyone interested
in the Aesopic fable tradition. Invaluable.
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