Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
DEMOSTHENES AND THE ATHENIANS
They say that during an assembly in Athens, Demosthenes was prevented from making
his speech, so he told the audience he wanted to say just a few words. When
the audience had fallen silent, Demosthenes began his tale. 'It was summertime,
and a young man had hired a donkey to take him from Athens to Megara. At midday,
when the sun was blazing hot, the young man and the donkey's driver both wanted
to sit in the donkey's shadow. They began to jostle one another, fighting for
the spot in the shade. The driver maintained that the man had rented the donkey
but not his shadow, while the young man claimed that he had rented both the
donkey and all the rights thereto.' Having told this much of the story, Demosthenes
then turned his back on the audience and began to walk away. The Athenians shouted
at him to stop and begged him to finish the story. 'Indeed!' said Demosthenes.
'You want to hear all about the donkey's shadow, but you refuse to pay attention
when someone talks to you about serious matters!' |
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 460: Gibbs (Oxford) 2 [English]
Perry 460: Townsend 125 [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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