The Oak and the Reed

This in turn gave rise to various proverbs such as 'Better bend than break'[2] and 'A reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall', the earliest occurrence of which is in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (II.1387–1389).

There are, however, some important genre differences between these disputation texts and the Oak and Reed, insofar as the former lack narrative dialogue and principally focus on the back-and-forth speech between the two interlocutors.

In its Chinese form, 'A tree that is unbending is easily broken', it is found in the religious classic, the Tao Te Ching, with the commentary that 'The hard and strong will fall, the soft and weak will overcome'.

[5] A similar contrast, though involving a tree of a different kind, occurs in the Jewish Talmud and is commemorated on the 2016 "Parables of the Sages" series of postage stamps from Israel.

This was the version preferred by a group of 16th century fabulists who included the French author Gilles Corrozet (1547)[8] and two Italians, Gabriele Faerno (1564)[9] and Giovanni Maria Verdizotti.

[12] Among other Renaissance variants may be included the ash and the reed in the emblem book of Hadrianus Junius (1567), which cites the same situation as an example of "the patience of the triumphant mind" (l'équité de l'esprit victorieuse).

[13] Laurentius Abstemius had earlier written his own variant in his Hecatomythium (1490) concerning an elm and willow (de ulmo et silere) in which the former's roots are undermined by the stream until it topples in, which points the same lesson that those who "give way to powerful people are wiser than those who suffer a shameful defeat by trying to resist".

Thus Hadrianus Junius tells the fable in a four-line Latin poem and follows it with a lengthy commentary, part of which reads: "By contrast we see the reed obstinately holding out against the power of cloudy storms, and overcoming the onrush of the skies, its salvation lying in no other protection than a modicum of patience.

It is just the same in the case of a just and balanced spirit, which cares not for invincible strength and defeats malice and other evils by patient endurance, and achieves great riches by the acquisition of undying glory—whereas boldness more often than not has its downfall.

So current did that sly interpretation become that Achille Etna Michallon's later painting of "The Oak and the Reed", now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (1816, see left), could easily be seen as a reference to the recent fall of the Emperor Napoleon I.

From the earliest printed editions, the makers of woodcuts have taken pleasure in contrasting diagonals with the verticals and horizontals of the picture space, as well as the textures of the pliable reed and the sturdy tree trunk.

According to Hadrianus Junius (1565), 'The way the picture should be drawn is straightforward: in it, one of the winds is blowing with puffed-out cheeks, breaking up the huge trees in its way, pulling them up, uprooting them and flinging them around; but a patch of reeds survives unscathed.

[33] Jules Coignet's picturesque treatment in the Musée Jean de La Fontaine, also dating from the second quarter of the 19th century, is a study of different textures of light as it falls on the windswept reeds and the foliage of the fallen oak.

[35] Contrasting light effects are equally the subject of Henri Harpignies's sombrely coloured drawing in the Musée Jean de La Fontaine[36] and of the watercolour painted by Gustave Moreau about 1880.

[40] In the 19th century, the singer Pauline Viardot set La Fontaine's fable for piano and soprano[41] and was accompanied by Frédéric Chopin in the concert they shared in 1842.

[42] In 1964 a Czech translation by Pavel Jurkovic was set for mixed choir and orchestra by Ilja Hurník as part of his Ezop,[43] and in 1965 a poetic version by Peter Westmore was included as the last piece in Songs from Aesop's Fables for children's voices and piano by Edward Hughes (1930–1998).

Cartoons were eventually made of these versions and released on DVD under the title The Geometric Fables; "The oak and the reed" appeared in volume 3 of the series (Les Chiffres, 1991).

After the storm 'The one who thought himself so strong now among the dead belongs' (Celui qui se croyait si fort réside maintenant parmi les morts).

[53] The lyrics emphasise how holding to one's point of view isolates individuals but seem to recommend the reed's strategy for survival in the words of the refrain that one must 'fall to rise again' (tomber pour se relever) repeatedly.