{"product_id":"2940013803336","title":"THE TALKING BEASTS","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I. Fables of Aesop. (Greek)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   II. Fables of Bidpai. (Indian)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  III. Fables from the Hitopadesa. (Sanskrit)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   IV. Fables from P. V. Ramaswami Raju. (Indian)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    V. Malayan Fables\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   VI. Moorish Fables\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  VII. African Fables\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e VIII. Fables from Krilof. (Russian)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   IX. Fables from the Chinese\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    X. Fables of La Fontaine. (French)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   XI. Fables from the Spanish of Carlos Yriarte\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  XII. Fables of Gay, Cowper, and others. (English)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  For Eastern princes, long ago,\u003cbr\u003e    These fables, grave and gay,\u003cbr\u003e  Were written as a friendly guide\u003cbr\u003e    On life's perplexing way.\u003cbr\u003e  When Rumour came to court and news\u003cbr\u003e    Of such a book was heard,\u003cbr\u003e  The monarch languished till he might\u003cbr\u003e    Secure the Golden Word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Prince of To-day, this little hook\u003cbr\u003e    A store-house is of treasure.\u003cbr\u003e  Unlock it and where'er you look\u003cbr\u003e    Is wisdom without measure.\u003cbr\u003e  'Twill teach thee of the meed of greed,\u003cbr\u003e    Of sowing versus reaping,\u003cbr\u003e  Of that mad haste that makes for waste,\u003cbr\u003e    And looking before leaping.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'Twill teach thee what is like to hap\u003cbr\u003e    To self-conceit and folly;\u003cbr\u003e  And show that who begins in sin\u003cbr\u003e    Will end in melancholy.\u003cbr\u003e  So take the book and learn of beast\u003cbr\u003e    And animate creation\u003cbr\u003e  The lesson that the least may teach,\u003cbr\u003e    However mean his station.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e          NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Among all the different ways of giving counsel I think\u003cbr\u003ethe finest and that which pleases the most universally is\u003cbr\u003efable, in whatever shape it appears.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  JOSEPH ADDISON\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow shall I bring to your mind the time and\u003cbr\u003edistance that separate us from the Age of\u003cbr\u003eFable?  Think of what seemed to you the\u003cbr\u003elongest week of your life.  Think of fifty-two of\u003cbr\u003ethese in a year; then think of two thousand five\u003cbr\u003ehundred years and try to realize that Aesop--sometimes\u003cbr\u003ecalled the Eighth Wise Man--lived\u003cbr\u003etwenty-five centuries ago and made these wonderful\u003cbr\u003etales that delight us to-day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShakespeare is even yet something of a mystery,\u003cbr\u003ealthough he was born in our own era, less than\u003cbr\u003efive hundred years ago; but men are still trying\u003cbr\u003eto discover any new facts of his life that might\u003cbr\u003ebetter explain his genius.  A greater mystery\u003cbr\u003eis grand old Homer, who has puzzled the world\u003cbr\u003efor centuries.  Scholars are not certain whether\u003cbr\u003ethe \"Iliad\" or \"Odyssey\" are the work of one\u003cbr\u003eor more than one mind.  Who can say? for the\u003cbr\u003ethrilling tales were told--probably after the\u003cbr\u003efashion of all the minstrels of his day--more than\u003cbr\u003eeight hundred years before Christ.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the background of that dim distant long ago,\u003cbr\u003eperhaps two hundred years later than Homer,\u003cbr\u003elooms the magnificent figure of another mysterious\u003cbr\u003ebeing--Aesop the Greek slave.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWherever and whenever he lived, and whether,\u003cbr\u003ein fact, he ever lived at all, he seems very real to\u003cbr\u003eus, even though more than two thousand years have\u003cbr\u003epassed.  Among all the stories that scholars and\u003cbr\u003ehistorians have told of him--sifting through the\u003cbr\u003ecenturies the true from the false--we get a vivid\u003cbr\u003epicture of the man.  He was born in Greece,\u003cbr\u003eprobably in Phrygia, about 620 years before Christ.\u003cbr\u003eHe had more than one master and it was the last,\u003cbr\u003eIadmon, who gave him his liberty because of his\u003cbr\u003etalents and his wisdom.  The historian Plutarch\u003cbr\u003erecounts his presence at the court of Croesus,\u003cbr\u003eKing of Lydia, and his meeting Thales and Solon\u003cbr\u003ethere, telling us also that he reproved the wise\u003cbr\u003eSolon for discourtesy toward the king.  Aesop\u003cbr\u003evisited Athens and composed the famous fable\u003cbr\u003eof Jupiter and the Frogs for the instruction of\u003cbr\u003ethe citizens.  Whether he left any written fables\u003cbr\u003eis very uncertain, but those known by his name\u003cbr\u003ewere popular in Athens when that city was\u003cbr\u003ecelebrated throughout the world for its wit and its\u003cbr\u003elearning.  Both Socrates and Plato delighted\u003cbr\u003ein them; Socrates, we read, having amused himself\u003cbr\u003eduring the last days of his life with turning\u003cbr\u003einto verse some of Aesop's \"myths\" as he called\u003cbr\u003ethem.  Think of Socrates conning these fables\u003cbr\u003ein prison four hundred years before Christ, and\u003cbr\u003ethen think of a more familiar picture in our own\u003cbr\u003eday--a gaunt, dark-faced, black-haired boy\u003cbr\u003eporing over a book as he lay by the fireside in a\u003cbr\u003elittle Western farmhouse; for you remember that\u003cbr\u003eAbraham Lincoln's literary models were \"Aesop's\u003cbr\u003eFables,\" \"The Pilgrim's Progress\" and the\u003cbr\u003eBible.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47169765048560,"sku":"2940013803336","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013803336_p0.jpg?v=1763590435","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013803336","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}