Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE LIZARD AND THE SNAKE
They say that there was once a lizard who burst into pieces right down the middle
when he was trying to equal the length of a snake.
You will hurt yourself and accomplish nothing if you try to imitate someone
who is far better than you are. |
 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.
| In Perry 268, the earthworm
envies the snake and stretches out to equal the snake in length
until it bursts into pieces. In Perry 371,
the same story is told about a lizard trying to equal the length
of a snake. The most famous fable of this type is the Perry
376 the frog who tried to puff herself up until she would be
as large as a bull.
|
Perry 371: Gibbs (Oxford) 347 [English]
Perry 371: Babrius 41 [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.
|
