Misadventures in the Land of Fables #70
“The intolerable grievousness of extractions”
Ha, what a phrase! Dated, sure, but I think I’m going to adopt it as a response to, well, grievous extractions, or in other words, tedious demands on my time. A kind of dismissive verbal sigh: “ah, the intolerable grievousness of extractions again.”
The phrase is the caption to the image above, an etching by … which appears in the published version of Arthur Golding’s ‘A Moral Fabletalk,’ taken from the original source and not from Golding’s manuscript. The source was a hybrid collection of fables and emblems. What do I mean by ‘emblem’? I’ll let Golding’s editors explain:
“Emblems were an art form that combined visual and verbal media, and typically consisted of at least three parts: a short motto or phrase, an image, and a slightly longer poem or inscription.”
(Liza Blake and Kathryn Vomero Santos)
I’m not entirely clear whether the emblem was the illustration of a lesson or if the lesson was found in the image. I suspect it must be the latter. This accounts for why a number of the entries found in Golding and his sources seem to go nowhere. They don’t dramatise the argument. They explain it. They pull the thread out of the image and discourse upon it. It’s not as charming or as persuasive as the little scenes we find in fables. It’s commentary more than storytelling.
BAD BOSSES, BULLIES, AND LIARS
But here the image is quite potent. A grim-faced merchant or peasant wields the stick to a horse up to its knees (carpus) in mud and struggling with a heavily-loaded cart. The “extractions” are the horse’s labours and the pain required appears grievous. The elaboration in Freitag/Golding’s text piles on the pain and ends with the vicious driver giving the horse two options, haul itself out of the mire or die under his hand. What the lesson is, I’m not sure?
A biblical citation, often no better than tangential to the preceding narrative, accompanies the emblems. Here it repeats the malice of the Pharoah towards the immigrant Israelites, demanding they make their quota of bricks without their supply of raw materials. Perhaps then the lesson is that we will suffer abuse. We can only forbear and, with providence, make our way to the Promised Land. Something like that?
I’m not keen on forbearance. My elaboration, ‘The Merchant and the Mire,’ which you can read here, is more political, more a denunciation of abuse and tactics of exploitation. Among the things are like least in this world are bad bosses, bullies, and liars. Don’t listen to them.