AESOP’S FABLES

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Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media. The fables originally belonged to the oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him.

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The Tortoise and the Eagle

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The fable:

A TORTOISE, lazily basking in the sun, complained to the sea-birds of her hard fate, that no one would teach her to fly. An Eagle, hovering near, heard her lamentation and demanded what reward she would give him if he would take her aloft and float her in the air. "I will give you," she said, "all the riches of the Red Sea." "I will teach you to fly then," said the Eagle; and taking her up in his talons he carried her almost to the clouds suddenly he let her go, and she fell on a lofty mountain, dashing her shell to pieces. The Tortoise exclaimed in the moment of death: "I have deserved my present fate; for what had I to do with wings and clouds, who can with difficulty move about on the earth?'

Alternative version:

A Tortoise, weary of his condition, by which he was confined to creep upon the ground, and ambitious to look about him with a larger prospect, proclaimed that if any bird would take him up into the air, and shew him the world, he would reward him with the discovery of an invaluable treasure, which he knew was hidden in a certain place of the earth. The Eagle accepted the offer, and having performed his undertaking, gentlv set the Tortoise again on the ground, and demanded the reward. The Tortoise was obliged to confess that he could not fulfil his promise, which he had made only with the view of having his fancy gratified. The Eagle, stung with resentment at being thus duped, grasped him again in his talons, and then soaring to a great height, let him fall, by which he was dashed to pieces.

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The moral:

If men had all they wished, they would be often ruined.

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Other morals:

Never put yourself in your enemy’s clutches.

Foolish curiosity and vanity often lead to misfortune.

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Alternative version in poem:

Jefferys Taylor

ONCE a tortoise complain’d (though ’twas not of much use),

That he scarce could see over the back of a goose;

That his legs were so short, and his pace was so slow,

Of the world and its wonders he nothing could know.

So at last he determined to alter his lot,

Or at least for a season to rise from that spot;

So he mention’d his thoughts to a bird that he knew,

Who agreed to oblige him and give him a view.

So this bird, and another, supported a stick,

Which was not very heavy, or clumsy, or thick;

This the tortoise enclosed in his mouth very tight,

While the birds soon ascended a wonderful height.

But an eagle who chanced the strange creature to see,

Exclaim’d with amazement, “Pray who can that be?”

“O, the king of the tortoises! do not you know him?”

Said they; “’tis our honour his kingdom to show him.”

Said the bird, “Ere I take that as true, I must pause;”

The tortoise impatient, then open’d his jaws

To confirm his new title, when straight he descended!

So his journey, and reign, and existence were ended!

So far had the tortoise to fall, they relate,

That he’d time while descending to muse on his fate,

“Ah!”thought he, “thus I pay for my foolish ambition,

Which would not be content with a humble condition;

Yet I might have hung safely, I cannot deny,

Had my mouth not been open’d to utter a lie.”

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