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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE BEAR AND THE CRABS

Whenever the bear cannot find food in the woods, he runs down to the rocky shore and, grabbing hold of a rock, he gradually lowers his hairy legs into the water. As soon as some crabs have caught hold of his fur, he leaps up onto dry land and shakes off these spoils from the sea. The bear then feasts on the food he has cleverly collected all over his legs.
This shows how hunger can sharpen even the most dull-witted creatures.

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 550: Gibbs (Oxford) 450 [English]
Perry 550: Phaedrus 6.22 [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.