: The Fables of Aesop Selected Told Anew and Their History Traced by Aesop BCE BCE Jacobs Joseph Editor - Aesop's fables Adaptations; Fables Greek Adaptations Harvard Classics

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PREFACE A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AESOPIC FABLE The Cock and the Pearl The Wolf and the Lamb The Dog and the Shadow The Lion's Share The Wolf and the Crane The Man and the Serpent The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse The Fox and the Crow The Sick Lion The Ass and the Lapdog The Lion and the Mouse The Swallow and the Other Birds The Frogs Desiring a King The Mountains in Labour The Hares and the Frogs The Wolf and the Kid The Woodman and the Serpent The Bald Man and the Fly The Fox and the Stork The Fox and the Mask The Jay and the Peacock The Frog and the Ox Androcles The Bat, the Birds, and the Beasts The Hart and the Hunter The Serpent and the File The Man and the Wood The Dog and the Wolf The Belly and the Members The Hart in the Ox-Stall The Fox and the Grapes The Horse, Hunter, and Stag The Peacock and Juno The Fox and the Lion The Lion and the Statue The Ant and the Grasshopper The Tree and the Reed The Fox and the Cat The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing The Dog in the Manger The Man and the Wooden God The Fisher The Shepherd's Boy The Young Thief and His Mother The Man and His Two Wives The Nurse and the Wolf The Tortoise and the Birds The Two Crabs The Ass in the Lion's Skin The Two Fellows and the Bear The Two Pots The Four Oxen and the Lion The Fisher and the Little Fish Avaricious and Envious The Crow and the Pitcher The Man and the Satyr The Goose With the Golden Eggs The Labourer and the Nightingale The Fox, the Cock, and the Dog The Wind and the Sun Hercules and the Waggoner The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey The Miser and His Gold The Fox and the Mosquitoes The Fox Without a Tail The One-Eyed Doe Belling the Cat The Hare and the Tortoise The Old Man and Death The Hare With Many Friends The Lion in Love The Bundle of Sticks The Lion, the Fox, and the Beasts The Ass's Brains The Eagle and the Arrow The Milkmaid and Her Pail The Cat-Maiden The Horse and the Ass The Trumpeter Taken Prisoner The Buffoon and the Countryman The Old Woman and the Wine-Jar The Fox and the Goat

There is no fixed text even for the nucleus collection contained in this book. AEsop himself is so shadowy a figure that we might almost be forgiven if we held, with regard to him, the heresy of Mistress Elizabeth Prig. What we call his fables can in most cases be traced back to the fables of other people, notably of Phaedrus and Babrius. It is usual to regard the Greek Prose Collections, passing under the name of AEsop, as having greater claims to the eponymous title; but modern research has shown that these are but medieval prosings of Babrius's verse. I have therefore felt at liberty to retell the fables in such a way as would interest children, and have adopted from the various versions that which seemed most suitable in each case, telling the fable anew in my own way.

JOSEPH JACOBS.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AESOPIC FABLE

For this statement and what follows a reference to the Pedigree of the Fables on p. 196 will be found useful.

In the Middle Ages it was naturally the Latin Phaedrus that represented the AEsopic Fable to the learned world, but Phaedrus in a fuller form than has descended to us in verse. A selection of some eighty fables was turned into indifferent prose in the ninth century, probably at the Schools of Charles the Great. This was attributed to a fictitious Romulus. Another prose collection by Ademar of Chabannes was made before 1030, and still preserves some of the lines of the lost Fables of Phaedrus. The Fables became especially popular among the Normans. A number of them occur on the Bayeux Tapestry, and in the twelfth century England, the head of the Angevin empire, became the home of the Fable, all the important adaptations and versions of AEsop being made in this country. One of these done into Latin verse by Walter the Englishman became the standard AEsop of medieval Christendom. The same history applies in large measure to the Fables of Avian, which were done into prose, transferred back into Latin verse, and sent forth through Europe from England.

With the invention of printing the European book of AEsop was compiled about 1480 by Heinrich Stainh?wel, who put together the Romulus with selections from Avian, some of the Greek prose versions of Babrius from Ranuzio's translation, and a few from Alfred's AEsop. To these he added the legendary life of AEsop and a selection of somewhat loose tales from Petrus Alphonsi and Poggio Bracciolini, corresponding to the Milesian and Sybaritic tales which were associated with the Fable in antiquity. Stainh?wel translated all this into German, and within twenty years his collection had been turned into French, English , Italian, Dutch, and Spanish. Additions were made to it by Brandt and Waldis in Germany, by L'Estrange in England, and by La Fontaine in France; these were chiefly from the larger Greek collections published after Stainh?wel's day, and, in the case of La Fontaine, from Bidpai and other Oriental sources. But these additions have rarely taken hold, and the AEsop of modern Europe is in large measure Stainh?wel's, even to the present day. The first three quarters of the present collection are Stainh?wel mainly in Stainh?wel's order. Selections from it passed into spelling and reading books, and made the Fables part of modern European folk-lore.

We may conclude this history of AEsop with a similar account of the progress of AEsopic investigation. First came collection; the Greek AEsop was brought together by Neveletus in 1610, the Latin by Nilant in 1709. The main truth about the former was laid down by the master-hand of Bentley during a skirmish in the Battle of the Books; the equally great critic Lessing began to unravel the many knotty points connected with the medieval Latin AEsop. His investigations have been carried on and completed by three Frenchmen in the present century, Robert, Du M?ril, and Hervieux; while three Germans, Crusius, Benfey, and Mall, have thrown much needed light on Babrius, on the Oriental AEsop, and on Marie de France. Lastly, I have myself brought together these various lines of inquiry, and by adding a few threads of my own, have been able to weave them all for the first time into a consistent pattern.

Aesop's Fables

The Cock and the Pearl

A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shinning amid the straw. "Ho! ho!" quoth he, "that's for me," and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. "What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? "You may be a treasure," quoth Master Cock, "to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls."

Precious things are for those that can prize them.

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