His telling follows the Babrius version in which an ox has stepped on a brood of young frogs and the father tries equaling the beast in size when told of it. Horace places a different version of the story towards the end of a long conversation on the demented behaviour of mankind (Satires II.3) where Damasippus accuses the poet of trying to keep up with his rich patron Maecenas. It is to this that Martial alludes in a short epigram (X.79) about two citizens trying to outdo each other by building in the suburbs. The story related by Phaedrus has a frog motivated by envy of the ox, illustrating the moral that 'the needy man, while affecting to imitate the powerful, comes to ruin'.
In some sources, the frog sees the ox and tries to equal it in size in others the frog is only told of an enormous beast by another and keeps swelling, asking at intervals, 'Was it as big as this?'īoth Martial and Horace are among the Latin satiric poets who made use of the fable of the frog and the ox, although they refer to different versions of it. One by Walter of England is in verse and was followed in Renaissance times by a Neo-Latin poem by Hieronymus Osius. There are Classical versions of the story in both Greek and Latin, as well as several Latin retellings in Mediaeval times. It has usually been applied to socio-economic relations.
The story concerns a frog that tries to inflate itself to the size of an ox, but bursts in the attempt. My mom told me this so that way I would stop doing idiotic things.The Frog and the Ox appears among Aesop's Fables and is numbered 376 in the Perry Index. I do remember that I wanted to fly, so (Stupid me) I climbed a tree and jumped out of it. My mom said she told it to me when I was about 5 or so, so I don't remember much of it. K.C.T: It's short, I know, but I can't remember much of this fable. "He could not have been bigger than this," she said.īut the little Frogs all declared that the monster was much, much bigger and the old Frog kept puffing herself out more and more until, all at once, she burst. "Big, was he!" said the old Frog, puffing herself up, "Was he as big as this?" "A great big monster," said one of them, "Stepped on little brother with one of his huge feet!" The old Frog soon missed the little one and asked his brothers and sisters what had become of him.
As he splashed heavily into the water, he crushed a young Frog into the mud. An Ox came down to a reedy pool to drink.
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