Aesop's Fables

Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

Apollonius of Tyana, a 1st-century CE 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.

[1]Earlier still, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned in passing that "Aesop the fable writer" (Αἰσώπου τοῦ λογοποιοῦ; Aisṓpou toû logopoioû) was a slave who lived in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BCE.

At least it was evidence of what was attributed to Aesop by others; but this may have included any ascription to him from the oral tradition in the way of animal fables, fictitious anecdotes, etiological or satirical myths, possibly even any proverb or joke, that these writers transmitted.

Teachers of philosophy and rhetoric often set the fables of Aesop as an exercise for their scholars, inviting them not only to discuss the moral of the tale, but also to practise style and the rules of grammar by making new versions of their own.

The work of a native translator, it adapted the stories to fit the Mexican environment, incorporating Aztec concepts and rituals and making them rhetorically more subtle than their Latin source.

This was followed two centuries later by Yishi Yuyan 《意拾喻言》 (Esop's Fables: written in Chinese by the Learned Mun Mooy Seen-Shang, and compiled in their present form with a free and a literal translation) in 1840 by Robert Thom[41] and apparently based on the version by Roger L'Estrange.

[45] In Burma, which had its own ethical folk tradition based on the Buddhist Jataka Tales, the joint Pali and Burmese language translation of Aesop's fables was published in 1880 from Rangoon by the American Missionary Press.

[68] Later dialect fables by Paul Baudot (1801–1870) from neighbouring Guadeloupe owed nothing to La Fontaine, but in 1869 some translated examples did appear in a grammar of Trinidadian French creole written by John Jacob Thomas.

More recently still there has been Ezop Pou Zanfan Lekol (2017),[76] free adaptations of 125 fables into Mauritian Creole by Dev Virahsawmy, accompanied by English texts drawn from The Aesop for Children (1919).

[83] Olivia and Robert Temple's Penguin edition is titled The Complete Fables by Aesop (1998) but in fact many from Babrius, Phaedrus and other major ancient sources have been omitted.

When King Louis XIV of France wanted to instruct his six-year-old son, he incorporated the series of hydraulic statues representing 38 chosen fables in the labyrinth of Versailles in the 1670s.

The preface to this work comments that 'we consider ourselves happy if, in giving them an attraction to useful lessons which are suited to their age, we have given them an aversion to the profane songs which are often put into their mouths and which only serve to corrupt their innocence.

First that it was printed in Birmingham by John Baskerville in 1761; second that it appealed to children by having the animals speak in character, the Lion in regal style, the Owl with 'pomp of phrase';[89] thirdly because it gathers into three sections fables from ancient sources, those that are more recent (including some borrowed from Jean de la Fontaine), and new stories of his own invention.

It is with this conviction that the author of the present selection has endeavoured to interweave the moral with the subject, that the story shall not be obtained without the benefit arising from it; and that amusement and instruction may go hand in hand.Sharpe's limerick versions of Aesop's fables appeared in 1887.

This was in a magnificently hand-produced Arts and Crafts Movement edition, The Baby's Own Aesop: being the fables condensed in rhyme with portable morals pictorially pointed by Walter Crane.

The story was also to become a favourite centuries later in Protestant England, where one commentator took the extreme position that to neglect the necessity of self-help is "blasphemy" and that it is "a great sin for a man to fail in his trade or occupation by running often to prayers".

[110] In the Jewish 'fox fables' of Berechiah ha-Nakdan, the humorous account of the hares and the frogs was made the occasion to recommend trust in God,[111] while Christian reinterpretation of animal symbolism in Mediaeval times turned The Wolf and the Crane into a parable of the rescue of the sinner's soul from Hell.

In Georgette de Montenay's Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes (1571), for example, the fable of The Oak and the Reed was depicted in the context of the lines from the Magnificat, "He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree" (Luke 1.52, AV).

An extreme example occurs in a compilation called Christian Fables from the Victorian era, where The North Wind and the Sun is referred to Biblical passages in which religion is compared to a cloak.

[118] Esope à la ville was written in French alexandrine couplets and depicted a physically ugly Aesop acting as adviser to Learchus, governor of Cyzicus under King Croesus, and using his fables as satirical comments on those seeking his favour or to solve romantic problems.

[122] In England the play was adapted under the title Aesop by John Vanbrugh and first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1697, remaining popular for the next twenty years.

In the early 1960s, animator Jay Ward created a television series of short cartoons called Aesop and Son which were first aired as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

These featured a cartoon in which the characters appeared as an assembly of animated geometric shapes, accompanied by Pierre Perret's slang versions of La Fontaine's original poem.

[130] Twelve were also set by W. Langton Williams (c. 1832–1896) in his Aesop's Fables, versified & arranged for the piano forte (London, 1870s),[131] the jocular wording of which was strongly deprecated by The Musical Times.

More recently, the American composer Robert J. Bradshaw (b.1970) dedicated his 3rd Symphony (2005) to the fables with a programme note explaining that the work's purpose "is to excite young musicians and audiences to take an interest in art music".

Australian musician David P Shortland chose ten fables for his recording Aesop Go HipHop (2012), where the stories are given a hip hop narration and the moral is underlined in a lyrical chorus.

[150] A musical, Aesop's Fables by British playwright Peter Terson, first produced in 1983,[151] was performed by the Isango Portobello company, directed by Mark Dornford-May at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010.

The fables they suggest include the Tortoise and the Hare, the Lion and the Goat, the Wolf and the Crane, the Frogs Who Desired a King and three others, brought to life through a musical score featuring mostly marimbas, vocals and percussion.

[154] And in 2010 Lefteris Kordis launched his 'Aesop Project', a setting of seven fables which mixed traditional East Mediterranean and Western Classical musical textures, combined with elements of jazz.