Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

Philosopher notwithstanding, Zanthus appears to have been often in hot water. On another occasion his wife left him, whether on account of her bad temper (as the report goes), or from his too frequent indulgence in liquor (as is not unlikely), matters little. He was anxious that she should return, but how to induce her was a difficulty hard to compass. Æsop, as usual, was equal to it. 'Leave it to me, master!' said he. Going to market, he gave orders to this dealer and that and the other, to send of their best to the residence of Zanthus, as, being about to take unto himself another wife, he intended to celebrate the happy occasion by a feast. The report spread like wildfire, and coming to the ears of his spouse, she quickly gathered up her belongings in the place where she had taken up her abode, and returned to the house of her lord and master. 'Take another wife, say you, Zanthus! Not whilst I am alive, my dear!' And so the ruse was successful, for, as the story affirms, she settled down to her duties, and no further cause for separation occurred between them ever after.

Phædrus relates several stories showing the characteristic readiness of the sage. A mean fellow, seeing Æsop in the street, threw a stone at him. 'Well done!' was his response to the unmannerly action. 'See! here is a penny for you; on my faith it is all I have, but I will tell you how you may get something more. See, yonder comes a rich and influential man. Throw a stone at him in the same way, and you will receive a due reward.' The rude fool, being persuaded, did as he was advised. His daring impudence, however, brought him a requital he did not hope for, though it was what he deserved, for, being seized, he paid the penalty. Æsop in this incident exhibited not only his ready wit, but his deep craft, inasmuch as he brought condign punishment upon his persecutor by the hand of another, though he himself, being only a slave, might be insulted with impunity.

An Athenian, seeing Æsop at play in the midst of a crowd of boys, stopped and laughed and jeered at him for a madman. The sage, a laugher at others rather than one to be laughed at, perceiving this, placed an unstrung bow in the middle of the road. 'Hark you, wise man,' said he; 'unriddle what this means.' The people gathered round, whilst the man tormented his invention for a long time, trying to frame an answer to the riddle; but at last he gave it up. Upon this the victorious philosopher said: 'The bow will soon break if you always keep it bent, but relax it occasionally, and it will be fit for use, and strong, when it is wanted' – a piece of sound advice which others than the wiseacre chiefly concerned would find it advantageous to practise.

A would-be author had recited some worthless composition to Æsop, in which was contained an inordinate eulogy of himself and his own powers, and, desiring to know what the sage thought about it, asked: 'Does it appear to you that I have been too conceited? I have no empty confidence in my own capacity.' Worried to death with the execrable production, Æsop replied: 'I greatly approve of your bestowing praise on yourself, for it will never be your lot to receive it from another.'

In the course of a conversation, being asked by Chilo (one of the wise men of Greece), 'What is the employment of the gods?' Æsop's answer was: 'To depress the proud and exalt the humble.' And in allusion to the sorrows inseparable from the human lot, his explanation, at once striking and poetical, was that 'Prometheus having taken earth to form mankind, moistened and tempered it, not with water, but with tears.'

Apart from wisdom in the highest sense, Æsop possessed no little share of worldly wisdom, or political wisdom – often only another name for chicane – and exercised it as occasion served. It is related by Plutarch, in the 'Life of Solon,' that 'Æsop being at the Court of Crœsus at a time when the seven sages of Greece were also present, the King, having shown them the magnificence of his Court and the vastness of his riches, asked them, "Whom do you think the happiest man?" Some of them named one, and some another. Solon (whom without injury we may look upon as superior to all the rest) in his answer gave two instances. The first was that of one Tellus, a poor Athenian, but of great virtues, who had eminently distinguished himself by his care and education of his family, and at last lost his life in fighting for his country. The other was of two brothers who had given a very remarkable proof of their filial piety, and were in reward for it taken out of this life by the gods the very night after they had performed so dutiful an action. He concluded by adding that he had given such instances because no one could be pronounced happy before his death. Æsop perceived that the King was not well satisfied with any of their answers, and being asked the same question, replied "that for his part he was persuaded that Crœsus had as much pre-eminence in happiness over all other men as the sea has over all the rivers."

'The King was so much pleased with this compliment that he eagerly pronounced that sentence which afterwards became a common proverb, "The Phrygian has hit the mark." Soon after this happened, Solon took his leave of Crœsus, and was dismissed very coolly. Æsop, on his departure, accompanied him part of his journey, and as they were on the road took an opportunity of saying to him, "Oh, Solon, either we must not speak to kings, or we must say what will please them." "On the contrary," replied Solon, "we should either not speak to kings at all, or we should give them good and useful advice." So great was the steadiness of the chief of the sages, and such the courtliness of Æsop.'28

It will be noticed that this reply of Æsop to the question of the King was evasive, though the vanity of the latter probably prevented his remarking it. He does not declare the King to be the happiest man, but leaves it to be inferred that, assuming happiness to be attained by men during life (which Solon denied), then was Crœsus pre-eminent over all others in that respect. It must be admitted that the answer does not display the character of Æsop in the best light as a moralist, however much it may exalt his reputation as a courtier. There probably was a good deal of the fox in his nature, and this, not less than his wisdom, enabled him to maintain his position at the Court of this vain and wealthy potentate.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ÆSOPIAN FABLES

'Brevity is the soul of wit.'Shakespeare: Hamlet.

It has been asserted that this same Æsop, if not a mythical personage, is at least credited with much more than is his due, and that it is only around his name that have clustered the various fables attributed to him, like rich juicy grapes round their central stalk, or, to use a more appropriate image, like swarming bees round a pendent branch. Others have endeavoured, with less or more feasibility, to prove that most of what are called Æsopian fables had their origin in the far East – 'The inquisitive amongst the Greeks,' say they, 'travelled into the East to ripen their own imperfect conceptions, and on their return taught them at home, with the mixture of fables and ornaments of fancy'29– that the ideas first propounded in India and Arabia were thus carried westward; that Æsop appropriated them and gave them forth in a modified form and in a new dress. Scholars and investigators differ in their views regarding the truth, or the extent of the truth, of these allegations, and display much erudition in their attempts to settle the question. It would appear that Æsop has indubitably the credit of certain fables of which he was not the inventor, as they were in vogue at a period anterior to the era in which he flourished. It is equally proved, on the other hand, that genuine Æsopian or Grecian fables have been attributed to Eastern sources, and are found included in collections of Eastern fables compiled in the earlier years of the Christian era. All this is only what might be expected, and does not affect to any serious extent the credit for ingenuity and originality of either Æsop or other early fabulists. Doubtless Æsop did get some of the subjects of his fables from foreign sources, but he melted them in the crucible of his mind – he distilled their very essence, and handed us the precious concentrated spirit. If he had done nothing more, that was good.

It is well known, of course, that there were fables of a very excellent kind before the time of Æsop. Amongst the Æsopian fables supposed to be borrowed from the Jātakas are The Wolf and the Crane, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, The Lion and Mouse, and The Countryman, his Son and the Snake. And Plutarch30 asserts that the language of Hesiod's nightingale to the hawk (spoken three hundred years before the era of Æsop) is the origin of the beautiful and instructive wisdom in which Æsop has employed so many tongues. Thus:

'Poor Philomel, one luckless day,Fell in a hungry falcons way."If he her life," she said, "would spare,He should have something choice and rare.""What's that?" quoth he. "A song," she says,"Melodious as Apollo's lays,That with delight all nature hears.""A hungry belly has no ears,"Replied the hawk, "I first must sup,"And ate the little siren up.When strength and resolution fail,Talents and graces nought avail.'31

Archilochus also wrote fables before Æsop;32 and even anterior to these is the fable of The Belly and the Members, and those given in Holy Scripture. But, without question, Æsop was a true inventor of fables, for it is not to be believed for a moment that Greek genius (and this was the genius of Æsop, whatever his parentage) was not equal to such a task.

Doubtless many later, as well as earlier, fables are included under the general designation of 'Æsopian,' by virtue of their resembling in the characteristics of brevity, force and wit the inventions of the sage.

Æsop in all probability did not write out his fables; they were handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. At length they were collected together, first by Diagoras (400 B.C.), and later by Demetrius Phalereus, the Tyrant of Athens (318 B.C.), under the title of 'The Assemblies of Æsopian Fables,' long after the sage's death. This collection was made use of both by the Greek freedman Phædrus, during the reign of Augustus, in the early years of the Christian era, and later by Valerius Babrius, the Roman (230 A.D.). Later again, towards the end of the fourth century, a number of them were translated into Latin by Avienus.

The Æsopian fables are distinguished by their simplicity, their mother-wit and natural humour. A score of examples exhibiting these qualities might be cited. A few, not the best known, will suffice:

The Wolf and the Shepherds.– 'A wolf peeping into a hut where a company of shepherds were regaling themselves with a joint of mutton – "Lord," said he, "what a clamour would these men have raised if they had caught me at such a banquet!"'

The compression and humour of this fable are remarkable, and the obvious moral is: 'That men are apt to condemn in others what they practise themselves without scruple.'

The Dog and the Crocodile bids us be on our guard against associating with persons of an ill reputation. 'As a dog was coursing the banks of the Nile, he grew thirsty; but fearing to be seized by the monsters of that river, he would not stop to satiate his drought, but lapped as he ran. A crocodile, raising his head above the surface of the water, asked him why he was in such a hurry. He had often, he said, wished for his acquaintance, and should be glad to embrace the present opportunity. "You do me great honour," returned the dog, "but it is to avoid such companions as you that I am in so much haste."'

Again, The Snake and the Hedgehog. 'By the intreaties of a hedgehog, half starved with cold, a snake was once persuaded to receive him into her cell. He was no sooner entered than his prickles began to be very annoying to his companion, upon which the snake desired he would provide himself another lodging, as she found, upon trial, the apartment was not large enough to accommodate both. "Nay," said the hedgehog, "let them that are uneasy in their situation exchange it; for my own part, I am very well contented where I am; if you are not, you are welcome to remove whenever you think proper!"'

The fable (or rather story, for it is more an anecdote than a fable) of Mercury and the Sculptor reads like a joke of yesterday. In Mr. Cross's 'Life of George Eliot,' it is recorded that the great novelist (in a conversation with Mr. Burne-Jones) recalled her passionate delight and total absorption in Æsop's fables, the possession of which, when a child, had opened new worlds to her imagination, and she laughed till the tears ran down her face in recalling her infantine enjoyment of the humour of this story, as follows:

'Mercury once determined to learn in what esteem he was held among mortals. For this purpose he assumed the character of a man, and visited in this disguise the studio of a sculptor. Having looked at various statues, he demanded the price of two figures of Jupiter and Juno. When the sum at which they were valued was named, he pointed to a figure of himself, saying to the sculptor: "You will certainly want much more for this, as it is the statue of the messenger of the gods, and the author of all your gain." The sculptor replied, "Well, if you will buy these, I'll fling you that into the bargain."'

Again, take The Bull and the Gnat, intended to show that the least considerable of mankind are seldom destitute of importance:

'A conceited gnat, fully persuaded of his own importance, having placed himself on the horn of a bull, expressed great uneasiness lest his weight should be incommodious; and with much ceremony begged the bull's pardon for the liberty he had taken, assuring him that he would immediately remove if he pressed too hard upon him. "Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, I beseech you," replied the bull, "for as I never perceived when you sat down, I shall probably not miss you whenever you think fit to rise up."'

Here, again, the humour is exquisite; but, indeed, that is a characteristic of nearly all the fables ascribed to Æsop.

The fable does not readily lend itself to the expression of pathos. Perhaps the only really pathetic fable is that of The Wolf and the Lamb, and it is also one of the very best. In this there is a touch of genuine pathos, unique in its character. Hesiod's Hawk and Nightingale,33 and The Old Woodcutter and Death, as told by La Fontaine, are not wanting in pathos.

The applicability of the fables of Æsop to the circumstances and occurrences of every-day life, in the highest walks as in the humblest – for the nature in both is human, after all – gives them peculiar value. This, and their epigrammatical character, so conspicuous in the best, combined with the humorous turn that is given to them, impresses them upon the memory.

In such repute have the Æsopian fables always been held, that the most learned men in all ages have occupied themselves in translating and transcribing them. Socrates relieved his prison hours in turning some of them into verse.34 In the days of ancient Greece, not to be familiar with Æsop was a sign of illiteracy.35

We have seen how other of the ancients collected and disseminated them. Coming down to later times, one of the first printed collections was by Bonus Accursius (1489,) from a MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. To this was prefixed the Life by Planudes, written a century before. Another edition of the same was published by Aldus in 1505. The edition of Robert Stephens, published in Paris in 1546, followed; then came the enlarged collection by Neveletus, from the Heidelberg Library, in 1610. Later, Gabriele Faerno's 'One Hundred Fables' are Æsop given in Latin verse. So also with most of the collections by modern fabulists, La Fontaine, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Dr. Samuel Croxall, La Motte, Richer, Brettinger, Bitteux – they are all largely Æsop, with added pieces of later invention.

'Æsop has been agreed by all ages since his era for the greatest Master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original.'36

Of the popularity of Æsop's fables in book form during last century and the beginning of this, we can scarcely form any conception in these days of cheap literature in such variety and excellence. Along with the Bible and 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Æsop may be said to have occupied a place on the meagre bookshelf of almost every cottage.

The editions of Æsop in English are innumerable, but the most noteworthy, in the different epochs from the age of the invention of printing downwards have been: Caxton's collection (1484); the one by Leonard Willans (1650); that by John Ogilby (1651); Sir Roger L'Estrange's edition (1692); Dr. Croxall's collection (1722); that of Robert Dodsley (1764); and the Rev. Thomas James's Æsop (1848).

It is remarkable that the majority of those who have busied themselves in translating and editing Æsop have won fame and (shall we say?) immortality through that circumstance alone. Take the names in order of time, and it will be seen that the men are remembered chiefly or only (most of them) by reason of their association with the Æsopian fables: Demetrius Phalereus, Phædrus, Babrius, Avienus, Planudes, Bonus Accursius, Neveletus, even down to La Fontaine, L'Estrange,37 Croxall, and James. The Æsopian fable has indeed a perennial life, and its votaries have rendered themselves immortal by association therewith.

Writers of much erudition, and in many countries, have vied with each other in learned research in this branch of literature, and in endeavours to trace the history of fable. Among the French we have Pierre Pithou (1539-96), editor of the first printed edition of Phædrus; Bachet de Meziriac, who wrote a life of Æsop (1632); Boissonade, Robert, Edelestand du Meril (1854); Hervieux and Gaston Paris. Of German writers there are Lessing, Fausboll, Hermann Oesterley, Mueller, Wagener, Heydenreich, Otto Crusius (1879), Benfey, Mall, Knoell, Gitlbauer; Niccolo, Perotti, Archbishop of Siponto (1430-80), and Jannelli, among the Italians; amongst Jewish writers, Dr. Landsberger. Of English writers we have Christopher Wase, Alsop, Boyle, Bentley, Tyrwhitt, Rutherford, James, Robinson Ellis, Rhys-Davids, G. F. Townsend, and last but not least, Joseph Jacobs, in his scholarly 'History of the Æsopic Fable.'

CHAPTER IX

PHÆDRUS AND BABRIUS

'United, yet divided, twain at once —sit two kings of Fable on one throne.'Cowper: The Task (altered).

Phædrus, who wrote the fables of Æsop in Latin iambics, and added others of his own, was born at the very source of poetic inspiration, on Mount Pierius, near to the Pierian spring, the seat of the Muses, in Thrace, at that time a portion of the Roman province of Macedonia, and of which Octavius, the father of Augustus Cæsar, was Proconsul, during the last century before the Christian era. Like Æsop, he too was a slave in early youth, but being taken to Rome, he was manumitted by Augustus, and occupied a place in the household of that Emperor. Here he acquired the pure Latinity of his style, and in later years wrote the well-known fables in the collection that bears his name. His fables are in five books, and were published during the reign of Tiberius and subsequent emperors.

In the prologue to his third book, addressed to Eutychus,38 he thus alludes to his birthplace, and disavows all mercenary aims in his literary pursuits:

'Me – whom a Grecian mother boreOn Hill Pierian, where of yoreMnemosyne in love divineBrought forth to Jove the tuneful Nine.Though sprung where genius reigned with art,I grubb'd up av'rice from my heart,And rather for applause than pay,Embrace the literary way —Yet as a writer and a wit,With some abatements they admit.What is his case then, do you think,Who toils for wealth nor sleeps a wink,Preferring to the pleasing painOf composition, sordid gain?But hap what will (as Sinon saidWhen to King Priam he was led),I book the third shall now fulfil,With Æsop for my master still,Which book I dedicate to youAs both to worth and honour due.Pleased, if you read; if not, content,As conscious of a sure event,That these my fables shall remain,And after-ages entertain.'39

His object, as he declares, was to expose vice and folly; in pursuing it he did not escape persecution, for Sejanus, the arbitrary minister of Tiberius (who had now succeeded to the imperial purple), took mortal offence at certain of the apologues which he suspected applied to himself, and, 'informer, witness, judge and all,' laid the iron hand of power heavy upon the fabulist. Phædrus, whose early years of slavery had left no taint of servility upon his character, was too independent to stoop to insolent power, and resented the treatment to which he was subjected. Thus beset, and probably largely owing to this cause, his last years were spent in poverty. Amidst the infirmities of age he compares himself to the old hound in his last apologue, which being chastised by his master for his feebleness in allowing the boar to escape, replied, 'Spare your old servant! It was the power, not the will, that failed me. Remember rather what I was than abuse me for what I am.' A lesson which even at the present day may sometimes find its application. Phædrus prophesied his own immortality as an author, and his boast was that whilst Æsop invented, he (Phædrus) perfected.

Babrius,40 a Latin, did for the Æsopian fable, in Greek choliambics, what Phædrus, a Greek, accomplished for them in Latin iambics. He is believed to have lived in the third century A.D., and to have composed his fables in his quality of tutor to Branchus, the young son of the Emperor Alexander Severus.41 His collection of Æsopian fables in two books was known to ancient writers, who refer to him and quote his apologues, but, like other literary treasures, it was lost during the Middle Ages. Early in the seventeenth century, Isaac Nicholas Neveletus, a Swiss, published (1610) an edition of the fables of Æsop, containing not only those embraced in the work of Planudes, but additional fables from MSS. in the Vatican Library, and some from Aphthonius and Babrius. He further expressed the opinion that the latter was the earliest collector and writer of the Æsopian fables in Greek. Francis Vavassor, a French Jesuit, followed with comments on Babrius on the same lines; so also another Frenchman, Bayle, in his 'Dictionnaire Historique'; Thomas Tyrwhitt and Dr. Bentley in England, and Francisco de Furia in Italy, also espoused the idea first suggested by Neveletus, and adduced further proofs in support of it. Singularly enough, the accuracy of the forecast of these scholars was established by the discovery in 1840, by M. Minoides Menas, a Greek, at the Convent of St. Laura on Mount Athos, of a veritable copy of Babrius in Greek choliambic verse. The transcript of Menas was first published in Paris in 1844. The first English edition was edited by Sir George Cornewall Lewis in the original Greek text, with Latin notes, and afterwards (1860) translated into English by the Rev. James Davies, M.A., and they now form the most trustworthy version of the Æsopian fables.

CHAPTER X

THE FABLE IN HISTORY AND MYTH

'Full of wise saws.'Shakespeare: As You Like It.

'Fables,' says Aristotle, 'are adapted to deliberate oratory, and possess this advantage: that to hit upon facts which have occurred in point is difficult; but with regard to fables it is comparatively easy. For an orator ought to construct them just as he does his illustrations, if he be able to discover the point of similitude, a thing which will be easy to him if he be of a philosophical turn of mind.'42

The truth of this is exemplified in the use which has been made of the apologue by orators in all ages, but especially in early times.

The following instances of the application of fables to particular occasions are recorded. The fable of The Belly and the Members, which is reputed to be the oldest in existence, is of sterling excellence, as well as of venerable antiquity.43 Its lucid moral is truth in essence. The logic of its conclusion is as invulnerable as the demonstration of a proposition in Euclid. There is no gainsaying it, turn it how we may, and, with all due deference to Montaigne, only one moral is deducible from it. This is solid bottom ground and bed rock, safe for chain-cable holding; safe for building upon, however high the superstructure. Striking use was made of it by Menenius Agrippa when the rabble refused to pay their share of the taxes necessary for carrying on the business of the State.