CHARACTERISTICS OF FABLES.
'To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to Nature.'
SHAKESPEARE: _Hamlet_.
There is an archness about the best fables that creates interest and
awakens curiosity; and it is the quality of such that, whilst simple
enough as stories to be understood and enjoyed by the young, they are
at the same time calculated to interest, amuse, instruct and admonish
those more advanced in years.
A fable should carry its moral without the telling; nevertheless the
application is often worth supplying, because it puts, or should put,
the lesson taught by the fable in a terse and impressive form. Above
and beyond all, a fable should possess the quality of simplicity, and
whilst easy to be understood, it should have force and appropriateness.
Fables treat of the follies and weaknesses, and also of the nobler
qualities, of humankind, generally through the medium of the lower
animals and the members of the vegetable and natural kingdom. These are
made to represent the characters we find in human life. Curious, that
although it is chiefly the lower animals and inanimate things that are
made the vehicle of the instruction or reproof contained in the story,
we do not feel that there is any incongruity in these having the power
of speech. We willingly accept the circumstance of their faculty of
speech and reasoning as Gospel truth for the time being. It is natural
that they in the fable should speak as the heroes or actors, and we
listen to their words, whether wise or foolish, with deference or
contempt as the case may be.
It is a question in casuistry how far justice and injustice are done to
the inferior animals and the members of the vegetable kingdom by this
liberty that is taken with them in the fable. If they had the knowledge
of the fact, and the power of remonstrance, it may be conceived that
some of them, at least, would repudiate the characters and propensities
which we in our superior conceit so glibly ascribe to them in the
fable. And, indeed, there is doubtless a good deal of unfairness
in our habit of stigmatizing this one with cunning, that one with
cowardice, and the other with cruelty, or stupidity, or dishonesty,
as suits our purpose. Possibly if some of the humbler creatures thus
branded were gifted with the power of writing fables for the benefit of
_their_ fellow creatures and associates, they might be able to point
to characteristics in the higher order of beings which it is desirable
to hold in reprobation, and this, too, with as much or more reason
and justice on their side than we have on ours. But, in truth, the
fabulists themselves tacitly admit the force of this argument, inasmuch
as the failings and defects and general qualities which they ascribe to
the characters in the fable are, of course, those of the human species.
A fable of Æsop, _The Man and the Lion_,[9] is very much to the point
here:
'Once upon a time a man and a lion were journeying together, and came
at length to high words which was the braver and stronger of the two.
As the dispute waxed warmer they happened to pass by, on the road-side,
a statue of a man strangling a lion. "See there," said the man; "what
more undeniable proof can you have of our superiority than that?"
"That," said the lion, "is your version of the story; let us be the
sculptors, and for one lion under the feet of a man, you shall have
twenty men under the paw of a lion!" Men are but sorry witnesses in
their own cause.'
A fable is generally a fiction, as has already been said. It is a
singular paradox, however, that nothing is truer than a good fable.
True to intuition, true to nature, true to fact. The great virtue of
fables consists in this quality of truthfulness, and their enduring
life and popularity are corroboration of it. If not true in the sense
of being reasonable, they are nothing, or foolish, and therefore
intolerable. We instinctively feel their truth, and are encouraged,
or amused, or conscience-smitten by the narration, for they deal with
principles which lie at the very root of our human nature.
It is a remarkable feature of this species of composition that a
departure from the natural order of things loses its incongruity in
the fable; and although this view has been controverted, the argument
against it fails to carry conviction in face of the excellent examples
that can be adduced. By way of illustration, take the fable of the
man and his goose that laid the golden eggs. We don't remember ever
meeting with a goose of this particular breed out of the fable. There
are numberless geese in the world--human and other. But the goose that
lays a golden egg every morning is a _rara avis_. Nevertheless, she
has a veritable existence in the fable, and we would as soon think of
casting a doubt on our own identity as on that of the fabled bird. The
story has always been, and will continue to be, Gospel truth to us, and
we never recall it without commiserating the untimely end of the poor
obliging goose, and thinking, at the same time, what a goose its owner
must have been to kill it and cut it up, in expectation of finding in
its inside the inexhaustible treasure his impatient greed had pictured
as existing there. _Semper avarus eget._ Had _we_ been the fortunate
owner of such an uncommon fowl, one golden egg each day would have
contented us!
Certain early authors, with the formalism which characterizes their
writings, have attempted an arrangement of fables under three
distinct heads or classes, designating them, respectively, Rational,
Emblematical, and Mixed. The Rational fable is held to be that in which
the actors are either human beings or the gods of mythology; or, if
beasts, birds, trees, and inanimate objects are introduced, the former
only are the speakers. The Emblematical fable has animals, members of
the vegetable kingdom, and even inanimate things for its heroes, and
these are accordingly gifted with the power of speech. The Mixed fable,
as the name implies, is that in which an association of the two former
kinds is to be found. The distinction, though perfectly accurate,
serves no useful purpose and need not be observed. As a matter of fact,
all fables are rational or reasonable from the fabulist's stand-point;
and all are emblematical or typical of moods, conditions, and possible
or actual occurrences in daily life, whoever and whatever be the actors
and speakers introduced.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Quoted from James's 'Fables of Æsop.' Murray, 1848.