<< Home Page | Perry Index

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE SWALLOW AND THE SNAKE

Spring had arrived, and a twittering swallow (that bird who dwells in human houses) built her nest in the wall of the place which is home to the elderly jurors of the court. In that hall of justice, the mother bird gave birth to seven baby birds. But a snake came creeping out from his hole and devoured all the chicks one by one. The wretched mother bewailed the untimely demise of her children and said, 'Woe is me, and woe is my lot in life! This is the place where mankind's laws and judgments are made but I, a swallow, am the victim of injustice and have to run away.'

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 227: Gibbs (Oxford) 181 [English]
Perry 227: Townsend 83 [English]
Perry 227: Babrius 118 [Greek]
Perry 227: Chambry 347 [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.