The Cock, the Dog and the Fox

In its journey westwards, the tale was eventually included in The Thousand and One Nights and was translated by Richard F. Burton as The Pleasant History of the Cock and the Fox.

[3] This version, enlarged by the fox's many flights of rhetoric, recounts how the beast tries to lure the cock down from a wall with the news that universal friendship has been declared between the hunters and the hunted.

The cock refuses even to acknowledge the fox's fine words but finally announces that he is convinced for he can see greyhounds running towards them who must be messengers from the King of the Beasts.

It is to be found early among the humorous tales of Poggio Bracciolini's Facetiae (1450), where the fleeing fox explains only that the dogs have not yet heard that peace has been declared.

In Francis Barlow's illustrated edition of the fables (1687), Aphra Behn's English verse summary tells the Eastern tale with the cock concluding that "I'le not my strength forgoe, If true today, tomorrow 'twill be so."