Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE WOLF AND THE GOAT ON THE CLIFF
There was a goat grazing up high on a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff there
was a wolf who wanted to catch the goat and eat her. Since it was impossible
for the wolf to climb up the cliff, he stood down below and said to the goat,
'You poor creature! Why have you left the level plains and meadows in order
to graze upon the cliff? Are you trying to tempt death from that height?' The
goat said to the wolf in response, 'I know how often I have managed to frustrate
you! What makes you think that you can now get me to come down off this cliff
so that you can eat me for dinner?'
The fable shows that sometimes people give you advice that is to their advantage
but which is dangerous for you. |
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 157: Caxton Avyan 19 [English]
Perry 157: Gibbs (Oxford) 100 [English]
Perry 157: Townsend 213 [English]
Perry 157: Steinhowel Avyan 19 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim
University Library
Perry 157: Chambry 220 [Greek]
Perry 157: Syntipas 44 [Greek]
Perry 157: Avianus 26 [Latin]
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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