Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
ZEUS AND THE POTSHERDS
Zeus ordered Hermes to write down people's sins and wicked deeds on potsherds
and to pile them in a designated box, so that Zeus could then peruse them and
exact a penalty from each person as appropriate. Given that the potsherds are
all piled up one on top of the other until the moment that Zeus examines them,
he gets to some of them quite soon while others have to wait. It is therefore
no surprise that there are wicked people who commit a crime in haste but who
are not punished until much later. |
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 313: Gibbs (Oxford) 524 [English]
Perry 313: L'Estrange 182 [English]
Perry 313: Babrius 127 [Greek]
Perry 313: Chambry 126 [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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