THE MERCHANT AND THE RAVENS

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE MERCHANT AND THE RAVENS

Some merchants were making a journey when they happened to meet a raven who was blind in one eye. The travellers halted and one of them said that the sign given to them by the raven meant that they should turn back home. Another member of the company protested, 'But how can such a bird predict what is going to happen to us, when he couldn't even predict the loss of his own eye in time to take preventive measures?'
The same is true of people: someone who cannot manage his own affairs is not qualified to give advice to his neighbours.

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 236: Gibbs (Oxford) 318 [English]
Perry 236: Chambry 255 [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.