Misadventures in the Land of Fables #56
Toward the end of Arthur Golding’s ‘A Moral Fabletalk’ there is a curious entry consisting of one long run-on sentence, plus a short explanation of the moral. It describes an ass loaded with meat and drink who must eat thistles and drink from puddles. It goes one to suggests this ass will relate a fable, or “fabulous matter,” denouncing those who spend their lives accummulating wealth only to leave it to be wasted by frivolous children.
Ironically, the reader does not get to enjoy the pleasure of that narrative, only the moral, which is a boiler plate criticims of the miser. And though the sentence is charming and its language amusing—amusing because idiosyncratic, arcane, expressive: the ass is “dizzardly” and it ‘bewrays’ base fellows—this is not enough to be satisfy. A fable is not the moral; it is a narrative, albeit short, whose structure points to the moral. And yet, the picture of this poor creature forced to scavenge for thistles and puddle water while loaded with comestibles does contain the ingredients for the narrative. The contrast is stark. What could it mean?
For Golding it is a matter of morality. He censures the man, the miser who would rather scrimp and save than enjoy their fruits of their labour, who would deprive themselves while amassing these riches. But he presents us with the victim, the labourer. The master may or may not be depriving himself but he is certainly neglecting his animals. It is one thing to deprive oneself, quite another to deny others. The ass is the one being deprived here. I think we feel the creature ought not to be forced to eat thistles and drink from puddles. It ought to fare better. It ought to share share in the wealth.
It is a matter of industrial relations, a matter more of exploitation than covetousness. And it is a tendency inherent in the pursuit of profit. Profits may be maximised by reducing costs. Labour costs are a soft target, even more so the beast of burden, bought and paid. I somehow doubt the ass would ‘bewray’ the master’s failure to enjoy his wealth. It would surely be more irritated by the thistle in its own mouth and though its placid demeanour might smother its rage, there would have to be, I imagine, a rankling discontent, if not despair.
And so I wrote of donkeys, of those abused and exploited in exchange for their labour: Two Donkeys