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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE FARMER AND THE GODDESS FORTUNE

A farmer had started turning the earth with his plow when he saw a treasure suddenly spring into view from the depths of the furrow. His spirit soared as he abandoned the lowly plow and drove his oxen off to better pastures. He immediately built an altar to the earth goddess Tellus, worshipping her for having happily bestowed on him the wealth that had been buried inside her. While the farmer was rejoicing in his new circumstances, the goddess Fortuna was indignant that he had not considered her equally worthy of incense and offerings. She thus appeared to the man and gave him this warning about the future: 'Instead of making an offering of your new-found wealth in my temple, you are sharing it with all the other gods. Yet when your gold is stolen and you are stricken with grief, then you will turn to me first of all in your despair and deprivation!'

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 61: Gibbs (Oxford) 469 [English]
Perry 61: Chambry 84 [Greek]
Perry 61: Avianus 12 [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.