Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE MOUSE AND THE OYSTER
An omnivorous, gluttonous mouse was creeping through the house when he noticed
an oyster with its mouth wide open, so he bit into the false flesh of the oyster's
wet beard. Suddenly the door to the oyster's house slammed shut in a painful
clasp. The mouse was enclosed in a prison with no hope of escape: he himself
had closed the door to the tomb of his own suicide. |
 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 454: Gibbs (Oxford) 429 [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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