Physician, Heal Thyself

Babrius 120 (tr. Ben Edwin Perry): That denizen of the swamps who likes the shade, the frog, who lives beside the ditches, once came forth on dry land and bragged to all the creatures: "I'm a physician, skilled in the use of drugs such as no one, doubtless, knows, not even Paean who lives on Olympus, physician to the gods." "And how," said a fox, " can you cure someone else, when you can't save yourself from being so deathly pale?" Ὁ τελμάτων ἔνοικος ὁ σκιῇ χαίρων, ὁ ζῶν ὀρυκτοῖς βάτραχος παρ' αὐρίποις, εἰς γῆν παρελθὼν ἔλεγε πᾶσι τοῖς ζώοις· "ἰατρός εἰμι φαρμάκων ἐπιστήμων, οἵων ταχ' οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδ' ὁ Παιήων, ὃς Ὄλυμπον οἰκεῖ καὶ θεοὺς ἰατρεύει." "καὶ πῶς" ἀλώπηξ εἶπεν "ἄλλον ἰήσῃ, ὃς σαυτὸν οὕτω χλωρὸν ὄντα μὴ σώζεις;" Haim Schwarzbaum, Mishlé Shu'alim (Fox Fables) of Rabbi Berechiah Ha-Nakdan: A Study in Comparative Folklore (1979; rpt. Leiden: Brill, 2025), p. 205 (Fable #34): A Frog espied some Oxen ploughing near his abode of reeds. In order to get acquainted with them, he…