Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE MONKEYS AND THE PYRRHIC DANCE
They say that the king of Egypt once taught some monkeys how to dance the Pyrrhic
dance. Since monkeys are creatures that readily imitate human behaviour, they
quickly learned their lesson and did the dance, dressed in purple robes and
masks. For a while everyone was impressed by the sight, until a more discerning
member of the audience threw some nuts which he had in his pocket into the midst
of the dancers. When the monkeys saw the nuts they forgot all their performance;
instead of dancing, they started acting like monkeys again. They crushed their
masks and ripped their robes, fighting one other for the nutmeats. The whole
pattern of the dance was thrown into confusion, much to the audience's amusement. |
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 463: Gibbs (Oxford) 352 [English]
Perry 463: Townsend 151 [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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