Perry's Index to the Aesopica
Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:
THE RAVEN AND THE BIRDS
The raven pretended that it was his birthday and invited the birds to a party.
Once the birds were inside, he locked the door and began to kill them one by
one.
This fable is meant for people who rush off to some merry feast but who
find that things are the opposite of what they expected. |
 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.
| In Perry 389, a cat invites
the birds to his birthday party and eats all the guests. In Perry
577, the same story is told about a predatory bird (a crow in
Romulus, a hawk in Caxton).
|
Perry 577: Caxton 4.11 [English]
Perry 577: Gibbs (Oxford) 96 [English]
Perry 577: Steinhowel 4.11 [Latin, illustrated] Mannheim
University Library
Perry 577: Rom. Anglicus 106 [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.
|
