Some research of various illustration styles.
From fable storybooks:
From the internet:
The Most Effective Teaching Stories Don’t Have Morals
Source: http://www.best-childrens-books.com/stories-with-lessons.html
Stories with Lessons:
Learn What the Character Learns
Stories with Lessons – What You As a Parent Should Know
Parents, I’m going to share with you a secret we writers usually keep to ourselves. It’s one of the first things we learn from our fiction teachers and mentors. Are you ready?
Stories that convey a lesson are most effective when they don’t tell the reader what the lesson is.
It’s true! We even have a fancy word for stories with lessons that try too hard to convey their message. The word is “didactic.” It means, “preachy.” (In a bad way.)
What does this mean to you, the parent? Well, the first thing is that fables with morals usually are not the best way to convey a story with a lesson to your child.
The power of fiction
Aesop had a real genius for boiling a message down to a simple paragraph, and his better fables are still good for that. But has a child ever been moved by one of Aesop’s fables? Has a child ever asked to hear one of Aesop’s fables (and learn it) again and again? Probably not.
The power of fiction lies in its ability to get the reader to identify with the hero.
We cheer for the hero. And the lessons he (or she) learns are lessons that we learn. But here’s the thing…
The hero needs to learn from experience. If someone simply tells him the lesson he’s supposed to take from his adventure…
It feels like he didn’t learn it. It feels like he had to be told it. Imagine how much inspiration your child would take from a story that ended like this:
“And so Billy did exactly what his parents told him to do, even though he didn’t want to and he thought they were wrong. The End.”
We fiction writers have a phrase we all throw around just to remind us to write stories that demonstrate our message instead of just stating it outright. We say, “Show, don’t tell.”
It makes sense if you think about it. If a hero does what he’s told to do, instead of choosing to do the right thing for himself, it’s not much of a lesson. We don’t know if he learned it, or if he’s just following orders!
Your children take a lot of orders
It’s a natural function of not being old enough to take care of yourself. But that doesn’t mean they like it! And they certainly like learning for themselves more than doing what they’re told to do. When children make good choices on their own, they feel good about themselves.
When their choices are forced upon them, they’re naturally resentful.
Good fiction features heroes making good choices because they want to. And those are the characters your child is most likely to learn from and want to follow in the footsteps of.
If, as a parent, you’re looking for stories that teach a lesson, here’s what you should be looking for:
- A hero your child can identify with
- The hero is facing problems that seem familiar to your child
- In the end, the hero makes a choice you would want your child to make!
If your child is struggling with any of the issues listed, you can rest assured that my stories with lessons are written to provide your child a message that will hit home without you needing to say what the lesson is.
Your child probably already knows how you want him or her to behave! The power of fiction lies in providing an inspirational character who makes your child want to behave that way.
Now you know!
One thousand and one nights
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade
The frame tale goes that every day Shahryar (Persian: شهريار or “king”) would marry a new virgin, and every day he would send yesterday’s wife to be beheaded. This was done in anger, having found out that his first wife was betraying him. He had killed three thousand such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier‘s daughter.
In Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation of The Nights, Shahrazad was described in this way:
- “[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.”
Against her father’s protestations, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the King. Once in the King’s chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dinazade, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The King lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. The night whiled away, and Scheherazade stopped in the middle of the story. The King asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was not time, as dawn was breaking. So, the King spared her life for one day to finish the story the next night. So the next night, Scheherazade finished the story, and then began a second, even more exciting tale which she again stopped halfway through, at dawn. So the King again spared her life for one day to finish the second story.
And so the King kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of last night’s story. At the end of one thousand and one nights, and one thousand stories, Scheherazade told the King that she had no more tales to tell him. During these one thousand and one nights, the King had fallen in love with Scheherazade, and had had three sons with her. So, having been made a wiser and kinder man by Scheherazade and her tales, he spared her life, and made her his Queen.
The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hezar-afsana or the “Thousand Myths” (Persian: هزارافسانه).
The earliest forms of Scheherazade’s name include Šīrāzād (شیرازد) in Masudi and Šahrāzād (شهرازاد) in Ibn al-Nadim, the latter meaning “she whose realm or dominion (شهر šahr) is noble (ازاد āzād)”. In explaining his spelling choice for the name Burton says, “Shahrázád (Persian) = City-freer; in the older version Scheherazade (probably both from Shirzád = lion-born). ‘Dunyázá’ = world-freer. The Bres[lau] Edit[ion] corrupts the former to Shárzád or Sháhrazád; and the Mac[naghten] and Calc[utta] to Shahrzád or Shehrzád. I have ventured to restore the name as it should be.” [1]. Having introduced the name Burton does not continue to use the diacritics on the name.
Scheherazade was identified, confused with, or partly derived from the legendary queen Homāy, daughter of Bahman, who has the epithet Čehrzād or Čehrāzād (چهرازاد) “she whose appearance is noble”. Harun al-Rashid’s mother, Al-Khayzuran, is also said to have influenced the character of Scheherazade.
The Apologue
Source: http://www.lefavole.org/en/apologo.htm
THE APOLOGUE
The Apologue, different kind of Fable.
Let’s see how the Apologue is characterized and the luck of this different kind of Fable.
A kind of fable, which has no more animals as main characters but men with their faults and features, is the Apologue. The moral intention is deprived of its fanciful ornament and shows the truth as it is, with no distortions or simple personifications. In comparison with the fable, we find a greater allegorical and moral sense. We can take as an example the famous apologue of the stomach and the limbs with which Menenius Agrippa would have persuaded the plebeians of putting an end to the secession on the Mount Sacred. The fable has in fact become an apologue.
*
“THE ARROGANCE” Apologue – fable by Luciano Folgore
*
“THE STONE” Apologue – fable by Lev Tolstoj
*
“THE FRUIT OF PATIENCE” Apologue – fable by Leonardo da Vinci
Il nostro consiglio per la lettura – da stampare e conservare:
“THE TRUTH AND THE FABLE”
di Jean Pierre Claris De Florian
The following apologue was born during the absolute monarchy before the French Revolution, but it is good in every time. The Truth, when it shows herself with her plain(bare) face is humiliated and rejected, when she is dressed up with the fable’s clothes, she can make the men accept her moral teaching.
The Truth, they say, goes naked all around and lives at the bottom of a well. One day, maybe she got bored of her deep solitude, she got off the well and went among the people. Nice idea! Soon all those who saw her went off like a shot. The Truth tried to knock at some house: they all slammed the door in her face. Nobody wanted to put her up. The poor Truth, humiliated and numb, took a country road. There, she met a beautiful lady dressed with lace and silk, feathered as an ostrich, covered with jewels, most of which were imitation, but they were very glittering: it was the Fable.
- Oh, Good Morning – said the Fable friendlily – But what the hell are you doing all by yourself on this road?
- You see – answered sadly the Truth – I’m freezing with cold. There’s nobody who wants to have anything to do with me. As soon as I get near, they all run away.
- And yet, you and I, we are close relatives, and I’m welcomed wherever I go. But I understand – laughing, she added – You’re wrong: you show yourself too little dressed…No, no! You know what we’re going to do? Come and protect yourself under my cloak and let’s go together, as good sisters. You’ll see, it’d be better for both of us. The wise will welcome me thanks to the Truth I’m hiding, and the mad ones will give you their hearty welcome because you’ll be rustling thanks to my silk and glittering thanks to my jewels.
( Jean Pierre Claris De Florian )
Fable Games for children
Source: http://www.lefavole.org/en/giochi-per-bambini.htm
LET’S PLAY WITH THE FABLES
Games for children with the fables.
* Write and dramatize two dialogues starting from the suggested (prompted) situations:
-
a wolf and a dog are competing for a piece of meat next to a hen house(poultry pen);
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two children are quarrelling(arguing) in a courtyard over a pierced (perforated)ball (with holes in)
* Invent a fable in which the characters are a penguin and a seal, and its moral is “his bark is worse than his bite”.* Try to illustrate a fable with drawings and tell or make a friend tell the situation and the characters’ actions without the help of written parts (texts).
* Invent or tell some fact, realistic or real, which could reflect (mirror) the situation of the fables you have read, without omitting (neglecting)today’s moral principles in its conclusion.* Here you find two lists. Keeping in mind the fables (which you have read) where these animals are present, match each animal with the compatible (associable-right) adjective:
lion sly
fox silly
hawk tyrannical
donkey stupid
fly wise
hen conceited
Illustrate with words or drawings the peculiarities of the behaviour and of the physical appearance of these animals that you have matched with the chosen adjective.* If you had to draw some people you know in the animals’ features(appearance), how would you depict them? Choose one or more persons and depict them; then, under each drawing, write the reasons why you have chosen that animal.* Try to write a fable in order to expound a moral you have decided; otherwise you can choose one among the following ones:
a) you must not be selfish because in the end you hurt yourself
b) think before acting
c) envy can lead you to dramatic consequences.
Ancient Fables, Modern Fables
Source:
http://www.lefavole.org/en/antiche.htm
http://www.lefavole.org/en/moderne.htm
THE ANCIENT FABLE
AESOP’S FABLES – PHAEDRUS’ FABLES
Which elements form the ancient Fable? Which Authors have reached us? Two examples of ancient Fable in Aesop and Phaedrus.
Aesop: Aesop fable
Aesop is considered the fable’s inventor. He was a Greek writer who lived in the VI century B.C. and the Latin writer Phaedrus, who lived in the I century A. D., was inspired by him.
The ancients knew very little about his life. He was born in Phrygia and lived as slave in Samo in the VI cent. B.C. He soon became a legendary person; it was said that he travelled very much in the East, in Greece and above all in Delphi.
We have versions of fables by Aesop which date back to the late Hellenistic Age, and as far as the Byzantine Age, which come in part from more ancient collection. His fables are characterized by a concise and essential style, the characters are usually animals, with fixed features, men and gods, sometimes plants, too; in the end they all have a short moral.
Aesop has his own special peculiarity: through his funny tales he shows men’s merits and faults, with educational and, in a friendly manner, satirical intention.
The Romans used the Aesopic fable, translated into the vernacular and increased (augmented) by Phaedrus, for education, too.
Aesop’s creation has been and still is very successful and has been copied by writers of fables in all ages and in any countries; but even if we can find fables written by Greek and Latin writers, the one who settled the genre was precisely Phaedrus. In the medieval and humanistic world Aesop’s popularity was wide, and the genre was taken from him, with different abridgements and moralistic rewritings (adaptations).
“Di esopo, una favola come esempio per riflettere”
Raccolta favole Esopo
Phaedrus: Phaedrus’ fables
Phaedrus, who lived between 15 B.C. and 50 A.D., is almost a stranger to us: it’s only from his works that we can get the few pieces of information we have about him. He was taken to Rome from Thracia when he was still a kid and there he received some literary education (schooling-learning). Then he was assigned to Augustus’ familia, that is the group of the emperor’s slaves; as he was a good connoisseur of the Greek language, he had to perform tasks as pedagogue, (in Greek pedagogue means “the one who accompanies the boys” and he had to be present at the lessons, help the boy to repeat them, and could also punish him, if necessary) that is, as teacher. Thanks to his merits he was set free from his slavery condition and lived as freedman in the Imperial home (house) also under Tiberius, Caligola and Claudius, having taken upon himself his master’s praenomen and name: Caius Iulis Phaedrus.
He lived in the Imperial Age which goes from Tiberius to Claudius (19-45 A.D.) when, after Augustus’s death, the political system was getting closer and closer to the absolute monarchy. The civil ideals of the Roman spirit, the depth of thought and the literature itself were going through a situation of crisis, with loss of freedom and repressive measures against the intellectuals. In this period Phaedrus chose the protest, rather than the Prince adulation and the Fable became the instrument of his opposition, because those tales allow a dissenting but allusive expression, through allegory. The moral condemnation (statement-declaration) in his fables does not derive from personal reasons, but from his interest in the man’s nature; his work’s aim is to help us to reflect upon human morals and behaviours in general, not those of each single man.
Phaedrus’ fables’ characters are animals speaking the language of the men of their time: they represent men’s dispositions and faults: “the lion embodies the strength and the arrogance, the fox is the sly and the low hypocrisy, the hawk is the rapacity, the wolf the treacherous greed, the lamb is the pursued meekness, the donkey the resigned submission, the dog (more like the various human nature) embodies now the loyalty now the greed now the servility satisfied with itself.” (P. Frassinetti)
The moral, in Phaedrus’ fables, concerns both the private sphere, and the public life, sometimes well separated, sometimes intermingled in the same fable. We can find elements belonging to the private moral in :
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“The Stag at the Pool” (Beauty and good heartedness does not always coincide),
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“The dog and the meat” (greed),
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“The Fox and the Stork” (we reap as we sow),
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“The Fox and the Grapes” (there’s no way so we show that there’s no will), etc.
We can find topics, which are more political or which are about the private sphere leading to the public one, in fables like:
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“The Eagle, Carrion Crow, and Tortoise” (there’s no way out for the powerful people),
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“The Wolf and the Dog” (The value of freedom),
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“The Wolf and the Lamb” (the oppressors and the oppressed),
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“The Proud Frog” (the social ranks), etc.
He is the author of five books of fables; the first two were published under Tiberius (emperor from 14 A.D. to 37 A.D.). In them Phaedrus, openly referring to the Greek author Aesop, explains the main features of the fable. The fable matters for its contents, its wisdom and also because it takes the liberty of saying indirectly what in some circumstances it would not be easy to say openly.
“Scrive Fedro”
Raccolta favole Fedro
The Middle Age – kind of fables
The rich medieval production of fables goes back to this Latin author, through the collection of adaptations of his fables (known with the title of Romulus).
During the Middle Age new elements were added to Phaedrus work, these features came from the ancient times and from the East or from the new living and learning conditions; the North of France was the centre of spread of the medieval fables, in the VII-XIV centuries.
The Middle Age proposes another kind of fables: The animal epos, which is about the fox and the wolf and whose most remarkable example is the Roman de Renard, which is the work of different authors of the North of France and of different ages, this one was copied, continued and revised for many centuries.
The characters of the ancient fables
The characters of the ancient fables are animals, which represent some men’s behaviours, their faults and their virtues; in the fables, the animals think and act as human beings and like those they have positive and negative peculiarities.
The turning to the animal world is suggested also by the necessity of transmitting messages which could not be explicitly spread in historical periods characterized by totalitarian regimes, as in imperial Rome.
Modern fables
MORE FABLES, Fables by De La Fontaine and by Rodari.
In this section we have some other significant fables as a confirmation of the features of this genre and of the way they foster an easy and pleasant reading. Together with La Fontaine, we find some more recent authors: Lev Tolstoj, Horacio Quiroga, Alberto Moravia who, as the classical authors, let the animals speak and act as human beings.Here we find different versions of the fable of The Ant and The Cricket realized by Jean de la Fontaine, a poet who lived in France in the XVII century, and Gianni Rodari, an author for children, who died in 1980.
“THE ANT AND THE CRICKET”
The careless cricket
Sang the summer away
Just to find herself
Poor and with nothing to eat
No fly, no bread
In the winter to have.
Hungry and whining
To the ant she went
Begging for something to have
Just out of kind heart
As to be able to eat
Till the good season comes:
Swearing by her faith
Next August she would refund
With interests and capital sum.
The frugal ant, who double thinks
Before anything she lends
-“How did you spend your summer away?”
Thus asks straight out.
And the cricket:-“My dear friend,
I did nothing but sang day and night”-
“Well done, my dear friend,
Now you can also dance”
(Fable by Jean de la Fontaine)
“TO THE ANT”
I beg pardon to the ancient tale
If I do not like the mean ant
I am on the cricket’s side
Who her melodious chirping
Does not sell but just keeps giving
(Fable by Gianni Rodari)
Modern fables by author.
Fables by author, Jean de La Fontaine’s fable:
- The Ant and the Cricket:
- The Ox and the Frog
- The Fox and the Grapes
- An Ass too affectionate
Lev Tolstoj’s fable: - The Hawk and the Czar
Gianni Rodari’s fable: - To the Ant
- Monkeys on a trip
- The Young Crawfish
- To the Fox
- The Terrible Little Red Riding Hook
Trilussa’s fable: - The Cautious Lam
- The Lame Crick’t
Horacio Quiroga’s fable: - The Flamingos’ socks
Fable for children - Croco Dile
Aesop’s Fables
Source: http://www.umass.edu/aesop/history.php
Who is Aesop?
Some may say that Aesop is infamous for the life he led over 2000 years ago and mostly for the hundreds of fables that have been attributed to his name since. Aesop’s fables have reached countless generations since he is reported to have been alive, and they continue to be a part of the lives of many. Not every fable, however, that has been linked to Aesop is his own original material. In actuality, there are many fables attributed to Aesop that, for a variety of reasons, couldn’t possibly be his own. In many ways the unclear authorship of the fables is at the fault of the storytelling tradition, many details are naturally lost and/or altered. However the storytelling tradition is also responsible for the survival of the Aesop Fables—if story telling didn’t exist, neither Aesop nor his fables would have survived.
“They were among the first printed works in the vernacular European languages, and writers and thinkers throughout history have perpetuated them to such an extent that they are embraced as among the essential truths about human beings and their ways.”
-D.L. Ashliman
“Aesop was such a strong personality that his contemporaries credited him with every fable ever before heard, and his successors with every fable ever told since.”
-Willis L. Parker
The legend tells it that Aesop lived during the sixth century BC, scholars have narrowed down his birthplace to a few different places but no one knows for sure. He was born a slave, and in his lifetime two different masters owned him before being granted his freedom. The slave masters were named, Xanthus and Iadmon, the latter gave him his freedom as a reward for his wit and intelligence. As a freedman he supposedly became involved in public affairs and traveled a lot—telling his fables along the way. King Croesus of Lydia was so impressed with Aesop that he offered him residency and a job at his court.
“The popularity of Aesop is also shown by the fact that Plato records that Socrates decided to versify some of his fables while he was in jail awaiting execution.”
-Robert Temple
While on a mission for King Croesus to distribute a certain amount of gold to the people of Delphi in Greece, there was a misunderstanding about how much gold each person was supposed to receive. Aesop became discouraged because the Delphians did not seem appreciative enough of the gift from the King so Aesop decided to take it all back to King Croesus. On his journey back the people of Delhi, who thought he was actively cheating them and giving them a bad reputation, tracked him down. Lloyd W. Daly writes “Apprehensive of his spreading this low opinion of them on his travels, the Delphians lay a trap for Aesop. By stealth they [stashed] a golden bowl from [their] temple in his baggage; then as he starts off through Phocis, they overtake him, search his baggage, and find the bowl. Haled back to Delhi, Aesop is found guilty of sacrilege against Apollo for the theft of the bowl and is condemned to death by being hurled off a cliff.” (Daly, 20.)
Works Cited
Daly, Lloyd W. Aesop Without Morals. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1961.
Handford, S.A. Aesop’s Fables. England: Puffin, 1954.
Parker, Willis L. The Fables of Aesop. New York: Illustrated editions, 1931.
Stade, George, ed. Aesop’s Fables. New York: Barnes and Nobles Classics, 2003.
Temple, Olivia and Robert. Aesop: The Complete Fables. New York: Penguin Classics, 1998.
Aesop’s Fables – Wikipedia
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop%27s_Fables
Aesop’s Fables
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Greek tales. For the cartoon series, see Aesop’s Film Fables.
Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel. Here he is shown wearing 15th century German clothing
Aesop‘s Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. Aesop’s Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, especially beast fables involving anthropomorphic animals. His fables are some of the most well known in the world. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today. Many stories included in Aesop’s Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom “sour grapes” was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Ant and the Grasshopper are well-known throughout the world.
Apollonius of Tyana, a 1st century AD philosopher, is recorded as having said about Aesop:
…like those who dine well off the plainest dishes, he made use of humble incidents to teach great truths, and after serving up a story he adds to it the advice to do a thing or not to do it. Then, too, he was really more attached to truth than the poets are; for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable; but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events.
And there is another charm about him, namely, that he puts animals in a pleasing light and makes them interesting to mankind. For after being brought up from childhood with these stories, and after being as it were nursed by them from babyhood, we acquire certain opinions of the several animals and think of some of them as royal animals, of others as silly, of others as witty, and others as innocent. (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Book V:14)
1887 children’s edition by Walter Crane
Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.[1]
Aesop
Main article: Aesop
Aesop (from the Greek Αἴσωπος – Aisopos), famous for his fables, was a slave who lived mid–fifth century BC, in Ancient Greece.
The place of Aesop’s birth was and still is disputed: Thrace, Phrygia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Samos, Athens, Sardis and Amorium all claimed the honor. Little is known about him from credible records, except that he was at one point freed from slavery and that he eventually died in Delphi. In fact, the obscurity shrouding his life has led some scholars to deny his existence altogether.
Origins
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the fables were written by a slave named Aesop, who lived in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BC. While some suggested that Aesop did not actually exist, and that the fables attributed to him are folktales of Indian origins, Aesop was indeed mentioned in several other Ancient Greek works – Aristophanes, in his comedy The Wasps, represented the protagonist Philocleon as having learnt the “absurdities” of Aesop from conversation at banquets; Plato wrote in Phaedo that Socrates whiled away his jail time turning some of Aesop’s fables “which he knew” into verses; Demetrius of Phalerum compiled the fables into a set of eleven books (Lopson Aisopeion sunagogai), which have been lost, for the use of orators. There was also an edition in elegiac verse by an anonymous author, which was often cited in the Suda. Two fables of Aesop are similar to those found in Panchtantra, an Indian story book of older origin.[citation needed]
Translation and transmission
The first extensive translation of Aesop into Latin was done by Phaedrus, a freedman of Caesar Augustus in the 1st century AD, although at least one fable had already been translated by the poet Ennius. Avianus also translated forty two of the fables into Latin elegiacs, probably in the 4th century AD.
The collection under the name of Aesop’s Fables evolved from the late Greek version of Babrius, who turned them into choliambic verses, at an uncertain time between 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD. In about 100 BC, Indian philosopher Syntipas translated Babrius into Syriac, from where Andreopulos translated back to Greek, since original Greek scripts had all been lost. Aesop’s fables and the Panchatantra share about a dozen tales, leading to discussions whether the Greeks learned these fables from Indian storytellers or the other way, or if the influences were mutual. Ben E. Perry, one of the foremost authorities on Aesopic fable, argued for the second possibility in his book Babrius and Phaedrus. In his introduction he wrote:
| “ | “In the entire Greek tradition there is not, so far as I can see, a single fable that can be said to come either directly or indirectly from an Indian source; but many fables or fable-motifs which make their first appearance in Greek or Near Eastern literature are found later in the Panchatantra and other Indian story-books, including the Buddhist Jatakas.”[2] | ” |
In the 9th century, Ignatius Diaconus created a version of fifty-five fables in choliambic tetrameters, into which stories from Oriental sources were added, ultimately mutated from the Sanskrit Panchatantra. From these collections the 14th-century monk Maximus Planudes compiled the collection which has come down under the name of Aesop.[3]
Picture from Caxton’s edition
The first printed version of Aesop’s Fables in English was published on March 26, 1484 by William Caxton. Around the same time, the Scottish poet Robert Henryson was composing his poem, The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian, a sophisticated interconnected sequence of fable adaptations which made a work of high art out of the genre. At the heart of his version, Aesop himself enters in the unusual guise of a Roman. Henryson’s Scots fable version is not known to have occurred in print form until the 16th century. Caxton’s version was updated by Sir Roger L’Estrange in 1692.
Here is an example of the fables in Caxton’s collection[4] containing dialogue between the fisherman and the fish he has caught, a frequent trope in Aesopian plots:
Men ought not to leue that thynge whiche is sure & certayne / for hope to haue the vncertayn / as to vs reherceth this fable of a fyssher whiche with his lyne toke a lytyll fysshe whiche sayd to hym / My frend I pray the / doo to me none euylle / ne putte me not to dethe / For now I am nought / for to be eten / but whanne I shalle be grete / yf thow come ageyne hyther / of me shalt thow mowe haue grete auaylle / For thenne I shalle goo with the a good whyle / And the Fyssher sayd to the fysshe Syn I hold the now / thou shalt not scape fro me / For grete foly hit were to me for to seke the here another tyme.
In Henryson’s version of the fables, such Aesopic tropes are consistently developed and expanded. For example, in his dialogue between the lion and the mouse, the mouse (in a parallel predicament to the fish above) makes an extended plea which explicitly cites issues of law, justice and politics:
Mercie, lord, at thy gentrice I ase! (ask) / As thou art king of beistis coronate, / sober thy wraith and let it overpas / [...] / Without mercie justice is crueltie, / [...] / Quhen rigour sittis in the tribunall / The equitie of law quha may sustene? / Richt few or nane but (unless) mercie gang betwene / [...] / Ane thowsand myis to kill and eik devoir / Is lyttil manheid to ane strang lyoun
The most reproduced modern English translations were made by Rev. George Fyler Townsend (1814 – 1900). Ben E. Perry, the editor of Aesopic fables of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library, compiled a numbered index by type. The edition by Olivia Temple and Robert Temple is entitled The Complete Fables by Aesop; the fables are not complete here since fables from Babrius, Phaedrus and other major ancient sources have been omitted. More recently, in 2002 a translation by Laura Gibbs was published by Oxford World’s Classics, entitled Aesop’s Fables. This book includes 359 fables and has selections from all the major Greek and Latin sources.
Jewish, Biblical version of Aesop’s fables
Main article: Berechiah ha-Nakdan
See also: Aesop among the Jews
In the 1200s a Jewish author, Berechiah ha-Nakdan, wrote a Hebrew work, Mishlei Shualim, derived from a collection of Aesop’s fables. Berechiah’s work adds a layer of Biblical quotations and allusions to Aesop’s tales, adapting them as a way to teach Jewish ethics. The first edition appeared in Mantua, in 1557; another with a Latin version by M. Hanel, Prague, 1661; other editions at Berlin, 1706; Lemberg, 1809; Grodno, 1818; Sklov, n.d.; and Warsaw, 1874. An English translation appeared in 1967 by Moses Hadas, entitled Fables of a Jewish Aesop; it has recently been republished by David R. Godine, publishers.
The fables give in rhymed prose most of the animal tales passing under the name of Aesop during the Middle Ages; but in addition to these, the collection also contains fables conveying the same plots and morals as those of Marie de France, whose date has been placed only approximately toward the end of the twelfth century.
Aesop’s Fables in other languages
- The French fables of Jean de la Fontaine were inspired by the brevity and simplicity of Aesop’s Fables.[5]
- Around 1800, the fables were adapted and translated into Russian by the Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov.
- The first translation of Aesop’s Fables into Chinese was made in 1625. It included thirty-one fables conveyed orally by a Belgian Jesuit missionary to China named Nicolas Trigault and written down by a Chinese academic named Zhang Geng (Chinese: 張賡; pinyin: Zhāng Gēng). There have been various modern-day translations by Zhou Zuoren and others.
- Portuguese missionaries arriving in Japan at the end of the 16th century introduced Japan to this story. A Latin edition was translated into romanized Japanese. The title was Esopo no Fabvlas and dates to 1593. This was soon followed by a fuller translation into a three-volume kanazōshi entitled Isoppu Monogatari (伊曾保物語?) sometime between 1596 and 1624.
Adaptations
- Robert Henryson, the Scottish poet, composed his Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian in the 1480s (see above).
- Jean de la Fontaine, the French poet, took his inspiration from Aesop’s Fables to write his Fables Choisies (1668).
- The American cartoonist Paul Terry began his own series of cartoons called Aesop’s Film Fables in 1921. In 1928, the Van Beuren Studio took over the series. It ended in 1933.
- The Brazilian dramatist Guilherme Figueiredo wrote a play The Fox and the Grapes (A raposa e as uvas) (1953) about Aesop’s life.
- The American animator Jay Ward created a series of short cartoons called Aesop and Son, which first aired as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show in the early 1960s. Actual fables were spoofed to result in a pun based on the original moral.
- The Smothers Brothers, an American musical-comedy team, released a comedy album titled Aesop’s Fables: The Smothers Brothers Way in 1965. Seven of Aesop’s more famous fables and morals are related in the album.
- Bill Cosby portrayed the storyteller in a 1971 children’s program titled Aesop’s Fables.
- The famed American artist Jacob Lawrence illustrated Aesop’s Fables for the University of Washington Press in 1997.[6][7]
List of some fables by Aesop
A detail of the Fontana Maggiore (Main Fountain) in Perugia, sculpted after 1275 by Nicola Pisano and Giovanni Pisano, showing tales The Crane and the Wolf and The Wolf and the Lamb
Russian sculpture of the crow in “The Fox and the Crow” fable
Aesop’s most famous fables include:
- Lion’s Share
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Boy Who Was Vain
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and the Bone
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dog in the Manger
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Goat
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Mice in Council
- The Mischievous Dog
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
- The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
- A famous fable commonly mis-attributed to Aesop is The Scorpion and the Frog.
- It is alleged the story “The Fox and the Cat” is an Aesop Fable.
See also
Notes
- ^ Temple, Olivia, and Temple, Robert (translators), The Complete Fables By Aesop Penguin Classics, 1998. ISBN 0140446494 Cf. Introduction, pp. xi-xii.
- ^ Ben E. Perry, “Introduction”, p. xix, in Babrius and Phaedrus (1965)
- ^ D .L. Ashliman, “Introduction”, p. xxii, in Aesop’s Fables (2003)
- ^ http://www.bartleby.com/39/7.html
- ^ Préface aux Fables de La Fontaine
- ^ Aesop’s fables (illustrated by Jacob Lawrence) – Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1997. ISBN 0295976411
- ^ Exhibition: Jacob Lawrence–Aesop’s Fables, April 10 – June 20, 1999, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
Sources
- Anthony, Mayvis, 2006. “The Legendary Life and Fables of Aesop”. Toronto: Mayant Press.
- Bentley, Richard, 1697. Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris… and the Fables of Æsop. London.
- Caxton, William, 1484. The history and fables of Aesop, Westminster. Modern reprint edited by Robert T. Lenaghan (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1967).
- Caxton’s famous Epilogue to the Fables, dated March 26, 1484
- Handford, S. A., 1954. Fables of Aesop. New York: Penguin.
- Jacobs, Joseph, 1889. The Fables of Aesop: Selected, Told Anew, and Their History Traced, as first printed by William Caxton, 1484, from his French translation
- i. A short history of the Aesopic fable
- ii. The Fables of Aesop
- Lewis William Brüggemann, A View of the English Editions, Translations, and Illustrations of the Ancient Greek and Latin Authors, 1797. Burt Franklin. Provides a long list of translations with notes about each.
- Perry, Ben E. (editor), 1965. Babrius and Phaedrus, (Loeb Classical Library) Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965. English translations of 143 Greek verse fables by Babrius, 126 Latin verse fables by Phaedrus, 328 Greek fables not extant in Babrius, and 128 Latin fables not extant in Phaedrus (including some medieval materials) for a total of 725 fables.
- Rev. Thomas James M.A., (Ill. John Tenniel), Aesop’s Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources, 1848. John Murray. (includes many pictures)
- Temple, Olivia and Robert (translators), 1998. Aesop, The Complete Fables, New York: Penguin Classics. (ISBN 0-14-044649-4)
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aesop’s Fables |
- 1947 Hare and Tortoise film at Internet Archive (public domain).
- Aesop: a comparison with Panchatantra
- Aesopic fables and other stories – an online collection for children, some (links to Aesop’s Fables). See also Preface to Aesop’s Fables
- Aesopica: Over 600 English fables, plus Caxton’s Aesop, Latin and Greek texts, Content Index, and Site Search.
- Aesop’s Fables, Librivox Audio CDs
- Free audiobook of Aesop’s Fables from LibriVox
- Images of Aesopus moralitus – Vita, Fabulae
- Musical version of Aesop’s Fables for the stage
