<< Home Page | Perry Index

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE OLD BULL AND THE YOUNG BULL

A father had an unmanageable son who indulged his vicious adolescent temper by brutally whipping the slaves whenever his father wasn't looking. Aesop therefore shared this little story with the father. 'A farmer once yoked an old bull to a young bull. The old bull tried to escape being yoked to this mismatched partner, complaining that his strength had become feeble with age. The farmer said to the bull, "Have no fear. I am not doing this to make you work but so that you will keep the young bull in check, seeing as how he has lamed many of the other bulls with his kicking and butting." So too you must always keep that boy beside you in order to restrain his reckless inclinations with your own moderation, or else you will end up with even greater cause for complaint in your household.'
A mild disposition can put a stop to vicious behaviour.

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 540: Caxton 3.11 [English]
Perry 540: Gibbs (Oxford) 492 [English]
Perry 540: Steinhowel 3.11 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim University Library
Perry 540: Phaedrus 6.12 [Latin]
Perry 540: Rom. Anglicus 99 [Latin]
Perry 540: Walter of England 50 [Latin]


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.