THE TALKING BEASTS

CONTENTS

I. Fables of Aesop. (Greek)

II. Fables of Bidpai. (Indian)

III. Fables from the Hitopadesa. (Sanskrit)

IV. Fables from P. V. Ramaswami Raju. (Indian)

V. Malayan Fables

VI. Moorish Fables

VII. African Fables

VIII. Fables from Krilof. (Russian)

IX. Fables from the Chinese

X. Fables of La Fontaine. (French)

XI. Fables from the Spanish of Carlos Yriarte

XII. Fables of Gay, Cowper, and others. (English)




For Eastern princes, long ago,
These fables, grave and gay,
Were written as a friendly guide
On life's perplexing way.
When Rumour came to court and news
Of such a book was heard,
The monarch languished till he might
Secure the Golden Word.

Prince of To-day, this little hook
A store-house is of treasure.
Unlock it and where'er you look
Is wisdom without measure.
'Twill teach thee of the meed of greed,
Of sowing versus reaping,
Of that mad haste that makes for waste,
And looking before leaping.

'Twill teach thee what is like to hap
To self-conceit and folly;
And show that who begins in sin
Will end in melancholy.
So take the book and learn of beast
And animate creation
The lesson that the least may teach,
However mean his station.

NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH




INTRODUCTION


"Among all the different ways of giving counsel I think
the finest and that which pleases the most universally is
fable, in whatever shape it appears."

JOSEPH ADDISON



How shall I bring to your mind the time and
distance that separate us from the Age of
Fable? Think of what seemed to you the
longest week of your life. Think of fifty-two of
these in a year; then think of two thousand five
hundred years and try to realize that Aesop--sometimes
called the Eighth Wise Man--lived
twenty-five centuries ago and made these wonderful
tales that delight us to-day.

Shakespeare is even yet something of a mystery,
although he was born in our own era, less than
five hundred years ago; but men are still trying
to discover any new facts of his life that might
better explain his genius. A greater mystery
is grand old Homer, who has puzzled the world
for centuries. Scholars are not certain whether
the "Iliad" or "Odyssey" are the work of one
or more than one mind. Who can say? for the
thrilling tales were told--probably after the
fashion of all the minstrels of his day--more than
eight hundred years before Christ.

On the background of that dim distant long ago,
perhaps two hundred years later than Homer,
looms the magnificent figure of another mysterious
being--Aesop the Greek slave.

Wherever and whenever he lived, and whether,
in fact, he ever lived at all, he seems very real to
us, even though more than two thousand years have
passed. Among all the stories that scholars and
historians have told of him--sifting through the
centuries the true from the false--we get a vivid
picture of the man. He was born in Greece,
probably in Phrygia, about 620 years before Christ.
He had more than one master and it was the last,
Iadmon, who gave him his liberty because of his
talents and his wisdom. The historian Plutarch
recounts his presence at the court of Croesus,
King of Lydia, and his meeting Thales and Solon
there, telling us also that he reproved the wise
Solon for discourtesy toward the king. Aesop
visited Athens and composed the famous fable
of Jupiter and the Frogs for the instruction of
the citizens. Whether he left any written fables
is very uncertain, but those known by his name
were popular in Athens when that city was
celebrated throughout the world for its wit and its
learning. Both Socrates and Plato delighted
in them; Socrates, we read, having amused himself
during the last days of his life with turning
into verse some of Aesop's "myths" as he called
them. Think of Socrates conning these fables
in prison four hundred years before Christ, and
then think of a more familiar picture in our own
day--a gaunt, dark-faced, black-haired boy
poring over a book as he lay by the fireside in a
little Western farmhouse; for you remember that
Abraham Lincoln's literary models were "Aesop's
Fables," "The Pilgrim's Progress" and the
Bible.