Reading notes: Animals' wisdom in Aesop's fables
For this week, I read a half-unit of Aesop's fables — it's been kind of a crazy week, so I'm running a little low on time, but I hope to catch up to longer readings soon.
Something I appreciated throughout the different fables was that humans were portrayed as able to make similar mistakes that animals make — in the story about the dog seeing his shadow in a pool and dropping his meat to try to steal his reflection's meat, it's clear that the moral is that the dog was unwise to be greedy for more meat, and because of his greed, he lost what he had.
In the story about the lion and the statue, a human tried to show a lion that a man is more powerful than a lion by showing him a statue of Hercules tearing a lion's mouth in two. The lion points out that if a lion had created the statue, not a man, the human would be the one on the ground. Like some of the stories about dogs, man in this fable is unwise: He doesn't realize the fallacy in pointing to a man-made statue as proof that man is stronger than a lion.
I also think it's interesting how different animals in the fables embody different traits: In the lion fables, the lion is brave, intelligent, strong and powerful. Those traits (mostly) carry throughout different fables. In the dog-related fables, the dogs are portrayed as greedy and unwise (generally). Asses are portrayed...as asses — the forgetful donkey forgets to tuck in one of his ears to his lion's skin, so his identity is revealed.
It would be fun to reimagine these stories in modern settings or in a more realistic sense, where humans would be confused to hear wisdom or mockery from talking animals. Maybe there's a reality where animals are only able to talk when there's some sort of lesson to be learned, so when a lion is talking to you at the zoo, it's because you need some sort of lesson. Maybe a human starts to pick up on the different personality traits of the animals and realizes what it might mean when one of them is able to speak to him or her.
Bibliography: Aesop's Fables (Jacobs). Source: Class website.
Something I appreciated throughout the different fables was that humans were portrayed as able to make similar mistakes that animals make — in the story about the dog seeing his shadow in a pool and dropping his meat to try to steal his reflection's meat, it's clear that the moral is that the dog was unwise to be greedy for more meat, and because of his greed, he lost what he had.
In the story about the lion and the statue, a human tried to show a lion that a man is more powerful than a lion by showing him a statue of Hercules tearing a lion's mouth in two. The lion points out that if a lion had created the statue, not a man, the human would be the one on the ground. Like some of the stories about dogs, man in this fable is unwise: He doesn't realize the fallacy in pointing to a man-made statue as proof that man is stronger than a lion.
I also think it's interesting how different animals in the fables embody different traits: In the lion fables, the lion is brave, intelligent, strong and powerful. Those traits (mostly) carry throughout different fables. In the dog-related fables, the dogs are portrayed as greedy and unwise (generally). Asses are portrayed...as asses — the forgetful donkey forgets to tuck in one of his ears to his lion's skin, so his identity is revealed.
It would be fun to reimagine these stories in modern settings or in a more realistic sense, where humans would be confused to hear wisdom or mockery from talking animals. Maybe there's a reality where animals are only able to talk when there's some sort of lesson to be learned, so when a lion is talking to you at the zoo, it's because you need some sort of lesson. Maybe a human starts to pick up on the different personality traits of the animals and realizes what it might mean when one of them is able to speak to him or her.
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| A dog looking at his reflection holding a piece of meat, as in Aesop's fable. Web source: Wikimedia Commons. |
Bibliography: Aesop's Fables (Jacobs). Source: Class website.
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