Aesop’s Fables in Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)

Sep 12, 2015 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, e-books, read-2015, gutenberg, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, classics, children-ya, mythology

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

INTRODUCTION

Aesop embodies an epigram not uncommon in human history; his fame is all the more deserved because he never deserved it. The firm foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots at uncommon sense, that characterise all the Fables, belong not him but to humanity. In the earliest human history whatever is authentic is universal: and whatever is universal is anonymous. In such cases there is always some central man who had first the trouble of ...more

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Feb 26, 2024 Renate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, short-stories, own

The perfect bedtime read, especially on nights when you have very little time or are too tired to read anything else. Most stories are just a single paragraph long. Perfect little gems.

I read the Collector's Library edition. A little hard back book with a ribbon and gilded pages, illustrated throughout with adorable pen sketches. It contains 284 of Aesop's fables and ends with a brief, well written Afterword giving some background as well explaining how to read and interpret this collection of The perfect bedtime read, especially on nights when you have very little time or are too tired to read anything else. Most stories are just a single paragraph long. Perfect little gems.

I read the Collector's Library edition. A little hard back book with a ribbon and gilded pages, illustrated throughout with adorable pen sketches. It contains 284 of Aesop's fables and ends with a brief, well written Afterword giving some background as well explaining how to read and interpret this collection of fables. The 1912 translation by V.S. Vernon Jones reads very smoothly.

Wonderful to be re-acquanted with old childhood favourites and well known fables such as the Hare and the Tortoise or the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. And to find out that there are way more of these Aseop's Fables than I thought, was one of the thrills of reading this book.

Our everyday talk is till peppered with phrases such as "sour grapes", "killing the goose that lays the golden eggs", "one swallow does not make a summer", "look before you leap", "heaven helps those who help themselves", "pride comes to fall" . Our grandparents used to talk like that too, and their grandparents, and their grandparents, and so on, until we go way back into the mists of time. These stories are the unbroken, invisible thread of wisdom that connects us to our ancestors. Those who came before us thousands of years ago. Back to a time when men lived very close to the animals. Animals both wild and domesticated. A time when stories were passed on orally before being written down. They're attributed to this person called Aesop about whom is so little known that it is possible that he never actually existed. A more likely theory is that they are the collection of our folklore that gradually built up over thousands of years.

In these stories, humans, if present at all, are the supporting characters. Animals tend to have the lead roles. Animals that display all our human foibles and faults such as vanity, greed, stupidity, selfishness, laziness etc. There is a moral in almost every tale. Maybe that is why to this day we tend to look for a moral in the stories we read and movies that we watch? ...more

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Apr 10, 2019 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2019

I read most of these as a child and believe I would have rated them much higher at that time, as they are sweet, charming, and full of lovely lessons on life. But as a 56 yo woman they felt dated and too childlike.

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Jun 03, 2017 Maggie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boxall-1001, fiction, short-stories, folklore-mythology, classics, greco-roman-classics

We’ve all grown up knowing some Aesop’s fables – the hare and the tortoise, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf – but who is Aesop? As it turns out, Aesop was a slave, supposedly mute, but the man himself is legendised. It’s unclear whether the fables are actually his. I mean, sources attribute the fables to him, but it’s not clear whether he actually existed, and Aesopic fables turn into a genre, so that even Socrates, and people living centuries after Aesop supposedly did, composed We’ve all grown up knowing some Aesop’s fables – the hare and the tortoise, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf – but who is Aesop? As it turns out, Aesop was a slave, supposedly mute, but the man himself is legendised. It’s unclear whether the fables are actually his. I mean, sources attribute the fables to him, but it’s not clear whether he actually existed, and Aesopic fables turn into a genre, so that even Socrates, and people living centuries after Aesop supposedly did, composed Aesopic fables. What does bind the fables together are the morals, which can be categorised into promythiums (occurring before the fable), epimethiums (occurring after the fable), and endomythiums (occurring within the fable, often as part of someone’s speech. Laura Gibbs tells us all in this in her introduction to this wonderful book in which she presents 600 of Aesop’s fables, all categorised into fables with similar themes or morals (e.g. “fables about solidarity”, “fables about treachery and spite”), complete with her own helpful annotations on many of the fables. There are even some jokes and puns towards the end of the book, although I’m not entirely clear how these were decided to be Aesopic fables, apart from being part of the tradition.

Surprisingly, the fables are not just about animals, but also featured humans, inanimate objects, and in one fable, body parts. The fables make use of stereotypes. For example, the fox is sly, the lion is the fierce king, the donkey is good-for-nothing, the cobbler is deceitful, and so on. This keeps the fables short and easy to understand, although I did feel bad at some points for animals that were discriminated against. Style-wise, there is a wide range of story-telling styles, probably because of the variety of authors and compilers. Most are short and sweet, though some more pithy than others, and some more elaborate. Some are funny and some are serious. Many have a surprisingly vicious sense of humour, with death, destruction and punishment featuring heavily. They’re not all fables you would want to tell your children.

The fables cover a wide range of subjects and morals as well, and the morals are not always consistent across fables. For example, some tell you to show mercy, whereas others tell you to be firm in punishing others. Not all of them are morally right either, for example there are some that tell you not to help somebody who doesn’t deserve your help. Again, I wouldn’t necessarily tell these fables to children. Some of them have wider purposes too, with only the epimythium informing us that we are supposed to apply these fables to issues of national or political importance.

By the way, if you want to read the fables for free, Laura Gibbs has very helpfully and generously put them up on her website here. ...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Nola Tillman rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read, classics

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of fables, though the slightly archaic phrasing of the morals occasionally read differently than what I've grown up hearing. Still, most of these I read to my children as bedtime stories, which made for some excellent discussions. Apparently the discussions slowed the pace too much, as my kids finally snatched it to read on their own! I think that's the best review. ...more

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