<< Home Page | Perry Index

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

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

THE SNAKE AND THE THORN BUSH

There was a grapevine next to a river, and a thorn bush had been planted as a fence around the vine. When the river rose, the thorn bush was swept away by the water, and a snake who had entwined himself in the thorns was also carried away. When someone saw the snake riding on the thorn bush, he said, 'A wicked ship, and worthy of its sailor!'
The story shows that a wicked person deservedly comes to a bad end by keeping company with other wicked people.

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 96: Gibbs (Oxford) 552 [English]
Perry 96: Chambry 115 [Greek]


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.