牛津英文经典（Oxford World’s Classics）为牛津大学出版社百年积淀的精品书系，译林出版社原版引进。除牛津品牌保证的*威原著版本之外，每册书附含名家导读、作品年表、文本注释、背景知识拓展、同步阅读导引、版本信息等，特别适合作为大学生和学有余力的中学生英语学习的材料。导读者包括牛津和剑桥大学的资深教授和知名学者。整套书选目精良，便携易读，实为亲近世界级名著的经典读本。
《伊索寓言》诞生于两千多年前的古希腊，被誉为西方寓言的始祖，它的出现奠定了寓言作为一种文学体裁的基石，对后世产生了深远的影响，脍炙人口的《狼来了》《龟兔赛跑》《狐狸与乌鸦》《农夫和蛇》等故事正是源自其中。本书收录了600篇寓言，由美国俄克拉何马大学教员、加州大学伯克利分校比较文学博士劳拉·吉布斯撰写导读、注释，并附有各版本索引及内容解析，为读者提供了一个完整可靠的版本。

伊索，古希腊著名的寓言家。他与俄国的克雷洛夫、法国的拉·封丹和德国的莱辛并称世界四大寓言家。他曾是爱琴海上萨摩斯岛的奴隶，但因知识渊博、聪颖过人，最终获得自由。他的寓言故事深受人民的喜爱，后人将古希腊和古罗马流传的寓言汇编成集，统归在伊索名下，成为了著名的《伊索寓言》。

本书以英译本的形式呈现了用古拉丁文和古希腊文记录的大部分故事，完整收录了600篇寓言，按照情节和寓意重新编排。这些简短的寓言故事大多由动物充当主角，它们的言行举止均表现出人类社会的特征，虽浅显易懂，却发人深省，展示了一个鲜活真实的古希腊世界。书中附有作品导读和注释，全方位解读寓言中蕴含的思想观点和道德意识。

Introduction
Note on the Text and Translation
Select Bibliography
Chronology of the Fables
AESOP’S FABLES
Aesop, the Popular Favourite
I. The Fables
II. Aetiologies, Paradoxes, Insults, and Jokes
Index of Perry Numbers
Index of Sources
General Index

AESOP, THE POPULAR FAVOURITE

Fable 1 (Chambry 96 = Perry 63)

Demades and the Athenians

The orator Demades was trying to address his Athenian audience. When he failed to get their attention, he asked if he might tell them an Aesop's fable. The audience agreed, so Demades began his story. ‘The goddess Demeter, a swallow, and an eel were walking together down the road. When they reached a river, the swallow flew up in the air and the eel jumped into the water.’ Demades then fell silent. The audience asked, ‘And what about the goddess Demeter?’ ‘As for Demeter,’ Demades replied, ‘she is angry at all of you for preferring Aesop's fables to politics!’

So it is that foolish people disregard important business in favour of frivolities.

Note: Demades (d. 319 B.C.E.) was an Athenian orator and diplomat. Demeter was a Greek agricultural goddess and was of special importance to the Athenians because of the cult of the Eleusinian Mysteries (see Fable 559).

Fable 2 (pseudo-Plutarch, Lives of the Ten Orators 848a = Perry 460)

Demosthenes and the Athenians

They say that during an assembly in Athens, Demosthenes was prevented from making his speech, so he told the audience he wanted to say just a few words. When the audience had fallen silent, Demosthenes began his tale. 'It was summertime, and a young man had hired a donkey to take him from Athens to Megara. At midday, when the sun was blazing hot, the young man and the donkey's driver both wanted to sit in the donkey's shadow. They began to jostle one another, fighting for the spot in the shade. The driver maintained that the man had rented the donkey but not his shadow, while the young man claimed that he had rented both the donkey and all the rights thereto.' Having told this much of the story, Demosthenes then turned his back on the audience and began to walk away. The Athenians shouted at him to stop and begged him to finish the story. 'Indeed!' said Demosthenes. 'You want to hear all about the donkey's shadow, but you refuse to pay attention when someone talks to you about serious matters!'

Note: Demosthenes (d. 322 B.C.E.) was a renowned orator of fourth-century Athens. Megara is a Greek city on the Saronic Gulf to the west of Athens. The 'donkey's shadow' was an ancient cliche for something of trivial importance (see, for example, Plato, Phaedrus 260c and Aristophanes, Wasps 191).

I. THE FABLES

FABLES ABOUT SLAVES AND MASTERS

Fable 3 (Babrius 100 = Perry 346 )

The Wolf, the dog, and the Collar

A comfortably plump dog happened to run into a wolf. The wolf asked the dog where he had been finding enough food to get so big and fat. ‘It is a man,’ said the dog, ‘who gives me all this food to eat.’ The wolf then asked him, ‘And what about that bare spot there on your neck?’ The dog replied, ‘My skin has been rubbed bare by the iron collar which my master forged and placed upon my neck.’ The wolf then jeered at the dog and said, ‘Keep your luxury to yourself then! I don't want anything to do with it, if my neck will have to chafe against a chain of iron!’

Note: Caxton (3.15) adds this epimythium: ‘Therfore there is no rychesse gretter than lyberte / For lyberte is better than alle the gold of the world.’

Fable 4 (Chambry 264 = Perry 183)

the donkey, and the Driver

An onager saw a donkey standing in the sunshine. The onager approached the donkey and congratulated him on his good physical condition and excellent diet. Later on, the onager saw that same donkey bearing a load on his back and being harried by a driver who was beating the donkey from behind with a club. The onager then declared, ‘Well, I am certainly not going to admire your good fortune any longer, seeing as you pay such a high price for your prosperity!’

Note: The onager, or wild ass, once roamed the plains of central Asia. The word onager is from the Greek onos, ‘donkey’, and agros, ‘field’.

Fable 5 (Syntipas 30 = Perry 411)

The Donkey, the Onager, and the Lion

An onager saw a donkey labouring under a heavy load and he made fun of the donkey’s enslavement. ‘Lucky me!’ said the onager. ‘I am free from bondage and do not have to work for anyone else, since I have grass near at hand on the hillsides, while you rely on someone else to feed you, forever oppressed by slavery and its blows!’ At that very moment a lion happened to appear on the scene. He did not come near the donkey since the donkey's driver was standing beside him. The onager, however, was all alone, so the lion attacked and devoured him.

The story shows that people who are obstinate and insubordinate come to a bad end because they get carried away by their own sense of stubbornness and refuse to ask others for assistance.