Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE PRIEST AND THE LION
One of the Galli, those priests of the Great Mother Rhea, slipped inside a deserted
cave, seeking shelter from the onslaught of a winter storm. Just as the priest
was brushing the snow from his hair, a ravenous lion, who was following his
trail, burst into the entrance of the cave. The cave offered no other means
of escape, but the priest held a huge tambourine in his hand. He struck the
instrument with the flat of his palm and the whole cave resounded with the shattering
sound. The wild lion could not endure the awesome clatter of the goddess Cybele,
so he raced away and fled into the wooded mountainside, terrified by this effeminate
servant of the goddess. The priest then hung up these robes and dedicated these
fair locks of hair as an offering to the goddess. |
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 436: Gibbs (Oxford) 244 [English]
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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