The eagle and the fox (1)

Text
The Greek fable of the eagle and the fox has a very similar plot to the story of eagle and snake in Etana and is surely related to it. Archilochus’ story, so far as we can reconstruct it from the fragments with the help of the later Aesopic version, ran as follows. An eagle and fox became friends and neighbours. But one day, when the fox was away, the eagle flew down and carried off (one of?) its cubs to feed its own young. Its nest was on a high crag which the fox had no means of reaching. The fox appealed to Zeus, god of justice in the animal world as in the human, to right the wrong. The prayer was answered. To provide its young with another meal, the eagle seized part of the sacrificial victim from an altar and carried it back to the nest, failing to notice that it was smouldering. The wind fanned it into flame, the nest burned, and the unfledged young had no escape.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Aesop 1 (Perry)
Archilochus 174-181

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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