Misadventures in the Land of Fables #66
‘The Fox and the Crow’ is one of the classics. La Fontaine places it second in his collection; it pops up early in both Jacobs and L’Estrange, and in the Penguin (Handford) edition too. The image of a fox sitting at the foot of a tree looking up at a crow is one of the […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #65
‘Bend not break’ is sound advice. Adaptability or flexibility trump rigidity as a tactics in the face of adversity. The menace is temporary. Bend under its force and you will survive and rebound. Set yourself against it and you will break. This is the message of Aesop’s fable, ‘The Oak Tree and the Reeds.’ For […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #64
You do not always get to where you intended to go. You discover the road you’re travelling does not lead where you thought it would. You watch uneasily as your path veers away and the twinkling lights of the settlement at the head of the valley disappear behind the brow of the hill. What then? […]
Aphorisms #3
~~~ “He planned to paint his shadow from dawn to dusk. At midday, he gave up.” ~~~ Is this a rebuke to those who lack resolve? Or an admonition to make better plans? This individual understood that shadows change—it was his subject—but forgot that change includes a (short) period of loss when the sun reaches […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #63
I’ve been roaming this land of fables for so long I fear I may be going around in circles, of figures of eight, infinities. I return to the same stories from different directions and forget the sights I’d seen and the thoughts I’d had. Sometimes I repeat them. I read again Arthur Golding’s curious rendering […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #62
Regular readers may have noticed I’ve been referencing a volume of fables called ‘A Moral Fabletalk’ on and off throughout the year. I forget where I first encountered it, but I confess I only recently got around to reading the accompanying introductory essays. I discovered the manuscript was never published. Golding was a Tudor author […]