Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE DONKEY AND THE LYRE
A donkey saw a lyre lying in a field. He approached the instrument and as he
tried to strum it with his hoof, the strings resounded at his touch. 'What a
beautiful thing,' said the donkey, 'but completely inappropriate, since I don't
know anything about music. If only someone better equipped than myself had found
it, my ears would have been delighted by heavenly melodies!'
So it is that talents often go to waste because of some misfortune. |
 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 542: Gibbs (Oxford) 404 [English]
Perry 542: Phaedrus 6.14 [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.
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