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Updated: April 30, 2025
We find AEsop in the most distant Ages of Greece; and if we look into the very Beginnings of the Commonwealth of Rome, we see a Mutiny among the Common People appeased by a Fable of the Belly and the Limbs, which was indeed very proper to gain the Attention of an incensed Rabble, at a Time when perhaps they would have torn to Pieces any Man who had preached the same Doctrine to them in an open and direct Manner.
Then Periander called for a large bowl full of wine, and drank to Chilo; and Chilo too drank to Bias. Ardalus then standing up called to Aesop, and said: Will you not hand the cup to your friends at this end of the table, when you behold those persons there swilling up all that good liquor, and imparting none to us here as if the cup were that of Bathycles.
That belief or theory has been held from the earliest times, and it is by no means certain that it is a mere idle tale or bit of nursery lore. Aesop uses it in one of his fables. Two men are assailed by a bear, and one climbs a tree while the other throws himself upon the ground and feigns death.
"How do you like it?" the King asked Dorothy. "Pretty well," she answered. "It reminds me of one of Mr. Aesop's fables." "Don't mention Aesop to me, I beg of you!" exclaimed King Dox. "I hate that man's name. He wrote a good deal about foxes, but always made them out cruel and wicked, whereas we are gentle and kind, as you may see."
It is something akin to, but something more than these predominant partial tones of Hawthorne "the grand old countenance of Homer; the decrepit form, but vivid face of Aesop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild Ariosto; Rabelais' smile of deep-wrought mirth; the profound, pathetic humor of Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for allegoric structure; the severe divinity of Milton; and Bunyan, molded of humblest clay, but instinct with celestial fire."
They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem; and I can not help thinking that, if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows. Plato
"Let him take," says the author just quoted, "the fables of Aesop and tell them in simple language, never rising above the ordinary level. Then let him pass on to a style less plain; then, again, to bolder paraphrases, sometimes shortening, sometimes amplifying the original, but always following his sense." He also suggests the writing of themes and characters.
Ardalus asked a second question, whether the Scythians had any gods among them. My friend, saith Aesop, what would you say if you saw our present pipe-makers throw away the bones of fawns and hind-calves, to use those of asses, affirming they yield the sweeter and more melodious sound?
So the tales were told ages before Aesop; and asses under lions' manes roared in Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanskrit, no doubt. The sun shines to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since there were finches.
He loved a fine free landscape by Lee, that gave him the broad plains, the green lanes, and running streams of his own land; a group of animals by Landseer, as full of speech and sentiment as if they were designed by Aesop; above all, he delighted in the household humour and homely pathos of Wilkie.
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