Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE FARMER AND HIS DOGS
There was a farmer who was trapped on his country estate by a winter storm.
He didn't have any food, so first he ate his sheep, then his goats. When the
storm got worse, he even slaughtered the oxen who pulled his plow. When the
dogs saw what was happening, they said to one another, 'Let's get out of here
now! Since we can see that the master didn't even spare the oxen who labour
on his behalf, how can we expect to be spared?'
The story shows that you should especially avoid someone who does not even
spare his own people. |
 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 52: Gibbs (Oxford) 292 [English]
Perry 52: L'Estrange 69 [English]
Perry 52: Townsend 114 [English]
Perry 52: Chambry 80 [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.
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