Aesop's Fables (Penguin Classics) - Aesop [0]
AESOP’S FABLES
AESOP (circa 620 BC-560 BC). Although it is unlikely that many of the two hundred or so fables attributed to Aesop were created by him, his fame as a story-teller was so great and so widespread that practically any fable heard was likely to be ascribed to him.
According to the sparse evidence gathered about him from hearsay and the references to him in various Greek works (he is mentioned by Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle), Aesop was born either in Sardis, on the Greek island of Samos, or in Cotiaeum, the chief city in a province of Phrygia, in around 620 BC. According to legend he was enslaved and made the property of a citizen named Iadmon, who resided on the island of Samos. Impressed by Aesop’s wisdom and wit, which helped Iadmon settle ugly disputes, he gave Aesop his freedom. As a free man he is thought to have travelled to Athens, where he became a defender of the common people, using his fables to expose the unjust ways of tyrants. His fame spread quickly and brought him to the attention of the despotic Peisistratus, ruler of Athens and a fierce enemy of free speech. In 560 BC Aesop was condemned to death for sacrilege by the Oracle of Delphi and was thrown over a cliff at Hypania. Legend maintains that Aesop was an ugly and misshapen man, who also suffered from a speech impediment. However, Plutarch’s statement that the people of Athens erected a noble statue of him would seem to contradict this.
When free speech was finally established in Greek cities after Aesop’s death, the fables which had survived up to this point by word of mouth were used by scholars and rhetoricians as starting points for ethical and moralistic debates. The first collection of fables under the title Assemblies of Aesopic Tales appeared in around 300 BC in the Alexandria Library, founded by the distinguished orator and statesman Demetrius Phalereus. Later, a Greek slave by the name of Phaedrus imitated the fables in Latin, and these, together with others from India and Libya, form the basis of the fables known today. The most significant, collection of Aesop’s fables to appear in English was printed by Caxton in 1484. There have been many imitators of fables in history, from Jonathan Swift to Benjamin Franklin, and from Leo Tolstoy to Oscar Wilde. However, all share the common purpose of revealing a universal truth or a simple moral.
PENGUIN POPULAR CLASSICS
AESOP’S FABLES
Selected and Adapted
by Jack Zipes
PENGUIN BOOKS
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Published in Penguin Popular Classics 1996
20
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ISBN: 978-0-14-190702-4
Contents
I
The Fox and the Grapes
II
The Wolf and the Crane
III
The Archer and the Lion
IV
The Woman and the Fat Hen
V
The Kid and the Wolf
VI
The Hawk and the Pigeons
VII
The Eagle and the Fox
VIII
The Boy and the Scorpion
IX
The Fox and the Goat
X
The Old Hound
XI
The Ants and the Grasshopper
XII
The Fawn and Her Mother
XIII
The Horse and the Groom
XIV
The Mountain in Labor
XV
The