1 (return)
[ A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, by K. O. Mueller. Vol.
i, p. 191. _London_, Parker, 1858.]
2 (return)
[ Select Fables of Æsop, and other Fabulists. In three books,
translated by Robert Dodsley, accompanied with a selection of notes,
and an Essay on Fable. _Birmingham_, 1864. P. 60.]
3 (return)
[ Some of these fables had, no doubt, in the first instance, a primary
and private interpretation. On the first occasion of their being
composed they were intended to refer to some passing event, or to some
individual acts of wrong-doing. Thus, the fables of the “Eagle and the
Fox” and of the “Fox and Monkey” are supposed to have been written by
Archilochus, to avenge the injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the
fables of the “Swollen Fox” and of the “Frogs asking a King” were
spoken by Æsop for the immediate purpose of reconciling the inhabitants
of Samos and Athens to their respective rulers, Periander and
Pisistratus; while the fable of the “Horse and Stag” was composed to
caution the inhabitants of Himera against granting a bodyguard to
Phalaris. In a similar manner, the fable from Phædrus, the “Marriage of
the Sun,” is supposed to have reference to the contemplated union of
Livia, the daughter of Drusus, with Sejanus the favourite, and minister
of Trajan. These fables, however, though thus originating in special
events, and designed at first to meet special circumstances, are so
admirably constructed as to be fraught with lessons of general utility,
and of universal application.]
4 (return)
[ Hesiod. Opera et Dies, verse 202.]
5 (return)
[ Æschylus. Fragment of the Myrmidons. Æschylus speaks of this fable as
existing before his day. ὡς δ’ ἐστὶ μύθων τῶν Διβυστικῶν λογος. See
Scholiast on the Aves of Aristophanes, line 808.]
6 (return)
[ Fragment. 38, ed. Gaisford. See also Mueller’s History of the
Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. pp. 190–193.]
7 (return)
[ M. Bayle has well put this in his account of Æsop. “Il n’y a point
d’apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd’hui son nom soient les
mêmes qu’il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la plupart,
quant à la matière et la pensée; mais les paroles sont d’un autre.” And
again, “C’est donc à Hésiode, que j’aimerais mieux attribuer la gloire
de l’invention; mais sans doute il laissa la chose très imparfaite.
Esope la perfectionne si heureusement, qu’on l’a regarde comme le vrai
père de cette sorte de production.”—_Bayle. Dictionnaire Historique_.]
8 (return)
[ Plato in Phædone.]
9 (return)
[ Apologos en! misit tibi
Ab usque Rheni limite
Ausonius nomen Italum
Præceptor Augusti tui
Æsopiam trimetriam;
Quam vertit exili stylo
Pedestre concinnans opus
Fandi Titianus artifex.
_Ausonii Epistola_, xvi. 75–80.]
10 (return)
[ Both these publications are in the British Museum, and are placed in
the library in cases under glass, for the inspection of the curious.]
11 (return)
[ Fables may possibly have been not entirely unknown to the mediæval
scholars. There are two celebrated works which might by some be classed
amongst works of this description. The one is the “Speculum Sapientiæ,”
attributed to St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, but of a considerably
later origin, and existing only in Latin. It is divided into four
books, and consists of long conversations conducted by fictitious
characters under the figures the beasts of the field and forest, and
aimed at the rebuke of particular classes of men, the boastful, the
proud, the luxurious, the wrathful, &c. None of the stories are
precisely those of Æsop, and none have the concinnity, terseness, and
unmistakable deduction of the lesson intended to be taught by the
fable, so conspicuous in the great Greek fabulist. The exact title of
the book is this: “Speculum Sapientiæ, B. Cyrilli Episcopi: alias
quadripartitus apologeticus vocatus, in cujus quidem proverbiis omnis
et totius sapientiæ speculum claret et feliciter incipit.” The other is
a larger work in two volumes, published in the fourteenth century by
Cæsar Heisterbach, a Cistercian monk, under the title of “Dialogus
Miraculorum,” reprinted in 1851. This work consists of conversations in
which many stories are interwoven on all kinds of subjects. It has no
correspondence with the pure Æsopian fable.]
12 (return)
[ Post-mediæval Preachers, by S. Baring-Gould. Rivingtons, 1865.]
13 (return)
[ For an account of this work see the Life of Poggio Bracciolini, by
the Rev. William Shepherd. Liverpool, 1801.]
14 (return)
[ Professor Theodore Bergh. See Classical Museum, No. viii. July,
1849.]
15 (return)
[ Vavassor’s treatise, entitled “De Ludicrâ Dictione” was written A.D.
1658, at the request of the celebrated M. Balzac (though published
after his death), for the purpose of showing that the burlesque style
of writing adopted by Scarron and D’Assouci, and at that time so
popular in France, had no sanction from the ancient classic writers.
_Francisci Vavassoris opera omnia_. Amsterdam. 1709.]
16 (return)
[ The claims of Babrias also found a warm advocate in the learned
Frenchman, M. Bayle, who, in his admirable Dictionary, (_Dictionnaire
Historique et Critique de Pierre Bayle_. Paris, 1820,) gives additional
arguments in confirmation of the opinions of his learned predecessors,
Nevelet and Vavassor.]
17 (return)
[ Scazonic, or halting, iambics; a choliambic (a lame, halting iambic)
differs from the iambic Senarius in always having a spondee or trochee
for its last foot; the fifth foot, to avoid shortness of metre, being
generally an iambic. See Fables of Babrias, translated by Rev. James
Davies. Lockwood, 1860. Preface, p. 27.]
18 (return)
[ See Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations upon the Epistles of Phalaris.]
19 (return)
[ Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris, and Fables
of Æsop examined. By the Honourable Charles Boyle.]
20 (return)
[ M. Bayle thus characterises this Life of Æsop by Planudes, “Tous les
habiles gens conviennent que c’est un roman, et que les absurdités
grossières qui l’on y trouve le rendent indigne de toute créance.”
_Dictionnaire Historique_. Art. _Esope_.]