F. Sbordone, Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica, 16 (1932), pp. 47-57.
Perry 398: Gibbs (Oxford) 335 [English]
Perry 398: L'Estrange 161 [English]
Perry 398: Townsend 36 [English]
Perry 398: Aphthonius 40 [Greek]
Perry 398.THE RAVEN AND THE SWAN A story about a raven, exhorting us to do what is natural to us. The raven saw the swan and envied his white colour. Thinking that his own colour was due to the water in which he bathed, the raven abandoned the altars where he found his food and instead joined the swans in the swamps and the rivers. This did nothing at all to change the raven's colour, but he starved to death from a lack of food.
A change of habit cannot alter a person's nature. Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002) 335. THE RAVEN AND THE SWAN Perry 398 (Aphthonius 40)
A story about a raven, exhorting us to do what is natural to us. The raven saw the swan and envied his white colour. Thinking that his own colour was due to the water in which he bathed, the raven abandoned the altars where he found his food and instead joined the swans in the swamps and the rivers. This did nothing at all to change the raven's colour, but he starved to death from a lack of food.
A change of habit cannot alter a person's nature. Note: Compare the English proverb 'a crow is never the whiter for washing herself often' (John Ray, English Proverbs (1670), 121).
