Misadventures in the Land of Fables #59
There is no character development in the classic Aesopic fable. It is the reader who learns the lesson not the protagonist; the protagonist’s actions are constructed only to produce the lesson and for this purpose it is not necessary, or desirable, to develop what you might call a character.
It’s not surprising then that fables tend to deny the possibility of personal change, of reform or transformation. The wisdom of the fable is pragmatic and the realist. Be wary, be warned. Don’t be stupid. Pity for the vicious is not advised, for example, because they will always be bad, that is their nature. See ‘The Farmer and the Snake‘ where a man finds a snake stiff with the cold and, moved by compassion, he warms it against his breast. When the snake revives, it bites the man. This is also the plot of ‘The Old woman and the Snake,’ popularised in the song by soul singer Al Wilson.
“Take me in O tender woman, take me in for heaven’s snake.
Take me in tender woman, sighed the snake.”
The snake here is not so much anthropomorphic as a thinly-veiled avatar for a type of person: a drifter, or a hobo, a scoundrel who cynically appeals to the woman’s compassion and possibly her loneliness. Both these snakes bite their benefactor’s hand, so to speak, though one does it automatically and understandably upon realising it is in the farmer’s grasp; the ingratitude of the other is more objectionable having enjoyed the woman’s hospitality. “What did you expect?” it says, as if to pass the blame.
In ‘The Camel Driver and the Snake‘ the snake argues that it is its nature to bite people no matter whether they have done it a good turn. This is also the position adopted by the scorpion in the various tales in which it attempts to sting the creature who has agreed to carry it over the river. In one version, the conveyor is a turtle and the sting does not penetrated its shell, in another (of Russian origin?), it is a frog who is fatally struck and before both sink to their deaths in the water, the scorpion explains that this is what it does: it cannot be helped.
This is a binary world, inhabited by good people and bad ones. You have to avoid the bad ones. You’re asking for trouble. If only the bad ones were as easy to identify as a snake or a scorpion or a wolf. It’s certainly true compassion can be misplaced, but you can also overdo suspicion. (I was going to say it makes us mean, but it may equally be a justification for meanness, not a cause.)
Unless we express compassion, our hearts shrivel, the well dries up. This idea informs how I interpret Arthur Golding’s, ‘Of a She-Goat and a Wolf’s Whelp,’ another fable on the theme. The action goes something like this:
A she-goat, confident of her ability to defend herself, ventures far from the herd. She meets a lost wolf cub who begs she nurse him to health, making the point that he is too weak to do her harm. She agrees. And so it goes on. When the cub grows big enough to be a threat to her safety, she sends him on his way and regrets having added to the danger in this world.
Golding doesn’t reveal what happens next, but for me the gentle conclusion, emphasising regret rather than consequences, brings out the poignancy in the situation. The she-goat chooses to express her maternal instinct, despite the risk. A rare bond develops between surrogate mother and infant predator, a bond which cannot be sustained because once the infant becomes a youth the risk becomes too great.
Dare I say it, but I have introduced some psychology here. I like this she-goat.
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And this time, the blog post preceded the re-writing of the fable: ‘The She-Goat and the Wolf’s Whelp‘