Misadventures in the Land of Fables, #1
Fables are not literary texts. They are both less and more.
They are brief, simple fictions with an exemplary message whose value resides almost exclusively in the quality of that message. Their pleasures are to be found primarily in the clarity and economy with which that message is rendered. Think of fables as a proverb expressed in narrative, a narrative short enough to be recounted in conversation as you might an anecdote or a poem.
It’s hard to establish authorship of a fable, unless of course the author is modern (e.g. James Thurber). The most enduring collection is attributed to Aesop, a slave who rose to the rank of diplomat in Ancient Greek, but many likely pre-dated this period and no original texts survive. What survives are adaptations, rendering in prose or verse. (Plato relates that his mentor, Socrates set some in verse while awaiting trial.)
The Fox and the Grapes
Fables persist because their insights are true and recognizable. Consider this three-line tale ‘The Fox and the Grapes’: A fox sees some tasty-looking grapes but despite her best efforts cannot reach them; giving up, she tells itself the grapes weren’t ripe and would have been sour anyway. A succinct analysis of what we might now call ‘re-framing’ that gave us the expression ‘sour grapes’.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Typically, a fable features animal protagonists, or inanimate objects, conversing like humans—proud, boastful, cunning, foolish—but one of the most enduring fables ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ is an entirely human drama. This may be part of its allure. There are also disadvantages. With human characters, we tend to introduce psychology and motivation and these concerns undermine metaphor and can therefore interfere with the clarity of the message.
There was a boy tending the sheep who would continually go up to the embankment and shout, ‘Help, there’s a wolf!’ The farmers would all come running only to find out that what the boy said was not true. Then one day there really was a wolf but when the boy shouted, they didn’t believe him and no one came to his aid. The whole flock was eaten by the wolf.
Its lesson, stated at the end (in an epimythium), goes something like this “There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.”
False Alarms, or a Liar’s Comeuppance
But this meaning can be contested. When the boy cried wolf he was raising the alarm without good reason and thus the phrase has come to refer to a loss of credibility through persistent exaggeration rather than dishonesty. It is popular with political commentators seeking to play down fears or stress the value of credible reputation.
Victorian adaptations tended to supply the boy with motivation for his misbehaviour. The boy was amusing himself, or covering up for his negligence. In short, a lack of application to his work.
But there are more angles to the events in this simple story, which can offer additional and competing insights. See this adaptation, published on Twitter last year: ‘The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf’
