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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE WEASEL AND THE PARTRIDGE

A man bought a partridge and let him run loose in the house since he liked the bird very much. The partridge immediately started squawking his usual song, sauntering through every room in the house until he finally perched himself on the steps. Meanwhile, the tricky weasel rushed upon the partridge, asking, 'Who are you? Where have you come from?' The partridge replied, 'The master bought me just today; I am a partridge.' The weasel said, 'Well, I have lived here a long time! My mother, the mouser-slayer, gave birth to me in this very house. Yet I keep quiet and sleep beside the hearth. What gives you the right to speak so freely and cackle so loudly if you have only just now become a member of the household?'

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 244: Gibbs (Oxford) 214 [English]
Perry 244: Babrius 135 [Greek]
Perry 244: Chambry 355 [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.