Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE WIDOW AND HER SHEEP
There was once a widow who kept a sheep at home. Wanting to gather more wool,
she sheared the sheep awkwardly, clipping the wool so close to the flesh that
she made the sheep bleed. Smarting with pain, the sheep said to the woman, 'Please
stop torturing me! Will my blood really add so much to the weight of the wool?
If it is my flesh that you want, mistress, there is a butcher who will be able
to put me to death quickly; but if it is my wool you want, rather than my flesh,
then the shearer can clip me without killing me.' |
 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 212: Gibbs (Oxford) 386 [English]
Perry 212: Townsend 99 [English]
Perry 212: Babrius 51 [Greek]
Perry 212: Chambry 321 [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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