Thanks for posting this! The group is rollin'.
Here is another version I found so you don't have to stress over
typing it in exactly. Howeve,r it seems to be a little more complex
grammatically (note the subjunctive), and has the moral tacked on:
http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%BB%CE%AD%CF%80%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%B9_%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9_%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%BA%CF%84%CF%81%CF%85%CF%8E%CE%BD
Κλέπται καὶ ἀλεκτρυών
Κλέπται εἴς τινα εἰσελθόντες οἰκίαν οὐδὲν εὗρον ὅτι μὴ ἀλεκτρυόνα, καὶ
τοῦτον λαβόντες ἀπῄεσαν. Ὁ δὲ μέλλων ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν θύεσθαι ἐδεῖτο ὡς ἂν
αὐτὸν ἀπολύσωσι, λέγων χρήσιμος εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις νυκτὸς αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ
τὰ ἔργα ἐγείρων. Οἱ δὲ ἔφασαν· Αλλὰ διὰ τοῦτό σε μᾶλλον θύομεν·
ἐκείνους γὰρ ἐγείρων κλέπτειν ἡμᾶς οὐκ ἐᾷς.
Ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι ταῦτα μάλιστα τοῖς πονηροῖς ἐναντιοῦται ἃ τοῖς
χρηστοῖς ἐστιν εὐεργετήματα.
Here is my shot at a literal translation:
Thieves and a Rooster
Thieves entering a certain house discovered nothing besides a rooster,
and seizing him, they departed. But the rooster, about the be
slaughtered by the thieves, stopped them so that they would free him,
saying that he is useful to men, at night awakening them for their
work. Yet the thieves said, "But we want to slaughter you because of
this; for waking up those men you do not permit us to steal."
This myth shows that what greatly hinders wicked men is a boon for
good men.
A question is the function of νυκτὸς. As I see, in the genitive it
means "by night" (
http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/
getobject.pl?c.4:618.minilsj). Is the idea the cock wakes up farmers
for the fields while it is still dark outside... early morning?
Second, how is the verb δέω used, as in ἐδεῖτο? I gather that it's
used in the sense, "to stop one from a thing," so here does it mean
"the rooster stopped the thieves [from killing him]" (http://
artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.19:368.minilsj)?
And I take it the voice is middle, because it's for his own life?
Generally, I recommend using this resource for morphology:
http://grade-devel.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/morph.pl?unistring=
It uses the tools of Perseus, but it doesn't suck to use like Perseus.
(More to be found on this website,
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/PERSEUS/)
At my level I like these Aesop tales, so I'd welcome more if others
are so inclined.