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 Plutarch[30] 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.'
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Antiquary in 'The Club.'
[30] 'Conviv. Sapient.'
[31] Boothby's translation.
[32] Priscian.
[33] _Ante_, p. 54.
[34] 'Being exhorted by a dream, I composed some verses in honour of
the god to whom the present festival [of the sacred embassy to Delos]
belongs; but after the god, considering it necessary that he who
designs to be a poet should make fables and not discourses, and knowing
that I myself was not a mythologist, on these accounts I versified the
fables of Æsop, which were at hand, and were known to me.'--Socrates in
Plato's 'Phædo.'
[35] Suidas.
[36] Sir William Temple.
[37] Goldsmith, in his 'Account of the Augustine Age of England,'
remarks: 'That L'Estrange was a standard writer cannot be disowned,
because a great many very eminent authors formed their style by his.
But his standard was far from being a just one; though, when party
considerations are set aside, he certainly was possessed of elegance,
ease, and perspicuity.' Notwithstanding this considerable estimate of
L'Estrange, it may be said that he is now remembered chiefly by his
association with the Æsopian fables.