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| Aesop and Venus |
Did Aesop, the famous collector of Greek fables, even exist? Possibly not, but the Greeks and Romans attributed their many animal fables to him. Several of those fables concern cats, the most famous being the tale of the cat who prayed to Venus, the goddess of love, to be turned into a woman.
Venus did so, and the cat, now an attractive young maiden, married the man of her dreams. Venus, however, suspected that the maiden was still a cat on the inside. So on the wedding night the goddess set loose a mouse in the bedroom, and the lovely young woman showed her true self by chasing after it. Venus changed her back into a cat.
