Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE FARMER AND THE CRANES
There were some cranes who came to nibble at a field which a farmer had recently
sown with wheat. For a while the farmer was able to chase the cranes away by
waving an empty sling to frighten them. Eventually the cranes realized that
the swinging of the sling in the air did them no harm, so they ignored the farmer
whenever he tried to chase them away. Finally the farmer abandoned his initial
strategy and began throwing rocks at the cranes, crippling a good many of them.
As the cranes abandoned the field they cried to one another, 'Let's run away
to the land of the Pygmies! This man is no longer just trying to frighten us:
he has actually started to do something about it!' |
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 297: Gibbs (Oxford) 294 [English]
Perry 297: Townsend 30 [English]
Perry 297: Babrius 26 [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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