Aesop's Phrases

The Ass in a Lion's skin.

The Ass in the Lion's Skin.224 by Townsend

AN ASS, having put on the Lion's skin, roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met in his wanderings. At last coming upon a Fox, he tried to frighten him also, but the Fox no sooner heard the sound of his voice than he exclaimed, "I might possibly have been frightened myself, if I had not heard your bray."

Pe188=Ch267, CS16, Jacobs49. TMI J951.1. Type214B


THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN. by Ernest Griset.

AN ASS finding the skin of a Lion, put it on, and in that disguise spread terror through all the neighbourhood round. His master, however, spying his long ears, and recognising his voice, took a stout cudgel, and soon made him sensible that he was no more than an Ass.

Babrius139=Pe358=Ch279, Avi5, Cax7.4, Laf5.21, TMI J951.1. Type214B


THE ASS IN THE TIGER SKIN. (HITOPADESA from INDIA)

Said the King to the Birds: "The Ass, who had been fed on good corn, and fell to braying ignorantly in the hide of a Tiger, was slain for his impertinence."
"How happened that?" said the Birds.
"There is," answered the King, "in a certain town a fuller, whose Ass, weakened by carrying heavey loads, was like an animal wanting to die. The master, therefore, carried him in a Tiger's skin, and left him in a wood in a field of corn. The owners of the field, taking him at a distance for a Tiger, fled; but one of them, covering himself with a piece of cloth of an Ass's colour, stooped down to bend his bow; and the Ass perceiving him, thought he was another Ass, and began braying, and ran towards him. But the keeper of the cornfield knowing, by his voice, that he was only an Ass, killed him with ease."

Pancatantra4.5, Hito3.2

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