 A contemporary English reference in "The Conversations at Little Gidding" (about 1630) also mentions ‘Aesops Asse interpreting the Prostrate Worship of the People that was offered to the Golden Image on his back as intended to his Beastliness’.This, however, was in the context of making a distinction between a man and his religious office.George Herbert (who may have taken part in these conversations) again alluded to this matter in his poem “The Church Porch” (lines 265-8) 

The story had another retelling in a Neo-Latin poem by Gabriele Faerno which, in its single-lined moral, draws the parallel with a magistrate who is only honoured for his office.