When I was a kid, everybody knew about these stories. We saw them on filmstrips in class, we had them as bedtime stories at night, we even heard references to them in everyday speech - "sour grapes," "the lion's share," "dog in a manger," and things like that. Reading them over again, I found myself wondering if these tales are a part of kids' lives today. I hope so.
I was, on the other hand, a little surprised to see how short they are. Few of them, if any, take up more than a page, and mostly not even that. What's more, although the "fables" are famous for the morals that they conclude with, many of them don't have one, or at least not a spelled-out one. Pretty much what you and I remember from them, but enough of the unexpected to retain interest.
This collection has about 60 fables in it, and there may be other Aesop fables out there, although I don't know how you'd find out. What's more, of course, these are translated (from Greek in this case), which always makes it kind of tough to be sure that you're getting what the author or authors intended. On the other hand, if these tales were originally intended to teach lessons in an entertaining way - which seems likely - I imagine they were originally produced in simple language, so translation might not have been too difficult.
In short, the collection is a satisfying experience in many ways, which probably explains why it's survived for so long. The biggest surprise to me had nothing to do with the fables' language, comprehensibility, entertainment value - none of that. No, the biggest surprise was how conservative these lessons are.
I don't mean politically conservative, of course. It's more like these tales encourage listeners to be extraordinarily cautious in their lives, and generally to stay in the lives that fate has chosen for them. The stories frequently teach that idea overtly - they advise us to refrain from exploring new experiences too deeply lest we find danger there, or not to stick our heads up too ambitiously high lest they be chopped off. The little I know of ancient Greece suggests that this was a pretty common attitude, at least in their arts - King Oedipus, for instance, loses his sight at least in part because his ambition to better himself pushes him to leave home looking for trouble. And finding it.
Today's advice is more likely to advocate a balance of ambition and contentment than to suggest that we leave ambition behind, so the "Fables" might strike us as out of date. They might also strike us as ironic, considering the stories about Aesop himself that have come down to us. As is often the case with the ancients, there is no certainty regarding whether or not Aesop was a real person, although his name is mentioned in some primary sources like Plutarch. If he did indeed exist, we're told that he was an unusually ugly slave, who advanced by his wisdom to a pretty powerful political role as advisor to certain powerful rulers. So much for avoiding ambition. Make of that what you will.
Benshlomo says, Those ancients weren't very encouraging.
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