Aesop's Fables

Aesop · c. 6th century BCE

Premise

A collection of very short stories, mostly about animals who talk and act like people, each ending in a lesson; together they set out a practical, often unsentimental wisdom about how the world works, how the weak survive the strong and how people deceive others and themselves.

This guide discusses the endings of the fables it describes.

The main ideas

Steady effort and foresight beat talent and short-term pleasure.
People disparage what they cannot have, to protect their pride.
A liar loses the power to be believed, even when telling the truth.
Greed destroys the source of what it wants.
Persuasion achieves what force cannot.
The weak and small can be of use to the strong, and should not be despised.
Be careful what kind of ruler you ask for.

Who was Aesop

Aesop is said to have been a slave belonging to Iadmon, a man of the Greek island of Samos, in the sixth century BCE; the historian Herodotus mentions him. Little else about him is certain, and many of the fables attributed to him were composed or adapted by others over centuries. The collection grew through ancient compilations and retellings, including the Latin verse of Phaedrus and the Greek verse of Babrius in the first centuries CE, and later collectors added many more. The morals now attached to the fables were often added later as well.

The fables were part of ancient education and conversation. Plato reports that Socrates, in prison awaiting execution, put some of Aesop's fables into verse.

Their form is simple. Animals stand for human types: the cunning fox, the proud lion, the vain crow. A brief situation leads to a sharp turn, and the lesson follows.

Implication: read the fables as a store of folk wisdom about human behavior, shaped by many tellers rather than one author.

Slow and steady

In the most famous fable, a hare mocks a tortoise for its slowness, and the tortoise challenges him to a race. The hare, far ahead, lies down to sleep, confident of winning. When he wakes, the tortoise has crossed the finish line.

In another, an ant works all summer storing grain while a grasshopper sings. When winter comes, the hungry grasshopper begs for food, and the ant asks why he did not gather food in summer. The grasshopper says he was too busy singing. The ant tells him that if he sang all summer, he can dance all winter.

The mechanism is that consistent effort accumulates, while overconfidence and pleasure taken now leave a person exposed later.

Implication: do not rely on talent or a head start. Steady work and preparation for hard times win more often than brilliance.

Sour grapes

A hungry fox sees grapes hanging from a vine, jumps for them again and again and fails to reach them. As he walks away he says the grapes were sour anyway.

The fable gave English the phrase sour grapes. It captures how people protect their pride by deciding that what they could not get was not worth having.

In another, a crow sits in a tree with a piece of cheese. A fox praises her beauty and wonders whether her voice is as fine. The crow opens her beak to sing and drops the cheese, which the fox takes.

The mechanism is that people deceive themselves to avoid admitting failure, and are deceived by others through their vanity.

Implication: when you dismiss something you failed to get, ask whether you have changed your mind about it or only protected your pride. Be most careful with people who praise you.

The boy who cried wolf

A shepherd boy, bored watching his flock, cries out that a wolf is attacking. The villagers rush to help and find no wolf. He does it again, and again they come. Then a wolf really comes. The boy cries out, but no one believes him, and the wolf scatters or eats the flock.

The lesson usually attached is that a liar will not be believed even when telling the truth.

The mechanism is that credibility is built and spent over time, and each false alarm uses some of it up.

Implication: protect your credibility as an asset. Once others learn to discount your warnings, they will discount the one that matters.

The goose that laid golden eggs

A man owns a goose that lays a golden egg every day. Impatient to be rich at once, he kills the goose, expecting to find a store of gold inside. He finds nothing and has lost the goose.

In another fable, a dog carrying a piece of meat crosses a stream and sees his reflection, which seems to be another dog with a bigger piece. He snaps at it and drops his own meat into the water.

The mechanism is that greed for more, faster, leads people to destroy or abandon what is producing steady value.

Implication: protect the source of a steady return. Trying to extract everything at once can destroy it.

The north wind and the sun

The North Wind and the Sun argue over which is stronger and agree to test it on a traveler: whoever can make him take off his cloak wins. The wind blows as hard as it can, but the harder it blows, the tighter the man wraps his cloak. Then the sun shines warmly, and the man, growing hot, takes the cloak off.

In another fable, a lion spares a mouse that begs for its life, laughing at the idea that a mouse could ever repay him. Later the lion is caught in a hunter's net, and the mouse gnaws through the ropes to free him.

The mechanism is that force provokes resistance while warmth produces cooperation, and the small can help the strong in ways the strong cannot foresee.

Implication: try persuasion before force, and treat people who seem unimportant well, since you may need them.

The frogs who wanted a king

The frogs, living freely in a pond, ask the god Zeus to give them a king. He throws a log into the pond. At first they are frightened, but soon they climb all over it and complain that it does nothing. They ask for a better king. Zeus sends a water snake, or in other versions a stork or heron, which eats them.

The mechanism is that people dissatisfied with a weak or passive ruler may demand a strong one, without considering what strength will be used for.

Implication: before wishing for a more forceful leader, consider what that force might do to you.

Where it falls short

Its morals are often later additions. Many of the lessons attached to the fables were written by later collectors and do not always fit the stories, which can support more than one reading.
Its wisdom is prudential, not moral. The fables teach how to survive and avoid being fooled more than how to act justly, and some counsel the weak to accept their place.
Its authorship is collective and uncertain. The figure of Aesop may be partly legendary, so the collection reflects many periods and voices rather than a single coherent outlook.

The Prince — another unsentimental guide to how power actually works, from the fox and the lion onward.
How to Win Friends and Influence People — the north wind and the sun, applied to persuading people.
The 48 Laws of Power — the uses of flattery, cunning and credibility in the pursuit of power.