Volume 3 — BABRIUS
Reading edition
(First Century A.D.)
abrius, also referred to as Babrias and Gabrias, was the writer of that metrical version of the folk-fables, commonly referred to Aesop, which delights our childhood. Until the time of Richard Bentley he was commonly thought of merely as a fabulist whose remains had been preserved by a few grammarians. Bentley, in the first draft (1697) of the part of his famous 'Dissertation' treating of the fables of Aesop, speaks thus of Babrius, and goes not far out of his way to give a rap at Planudes, a late Greek, who turned works of Ovid, Cato, and Caesar into Greek:--
"... came one Babrius, that gave a new turn of the fables into choliambics. Nobody that I know of mentions him but Suidas, Avienus, and Tzetzes. There's one Gabrias, indeed, yet extant, that has comprised each fable in four sorry iambics. But our Babrius is a writer of another size and quality; and were his book now extant, it might justly be opposed, if not preferred, to the Latin of Phaedrus. There's a whole fable of his yet preserved at the end of Gabrias, of 'The Swallow and the Nightingale.' Suidas brings many citations out of him, all which show him an excellent poet.... There are two parcels of the present fables; the one, which are the more ancient, one hundred and thirty-six in number, were first published out of the Heidelberg Library by Neveletus, 1610. The editor himself well observed that they were falsely ascribed to Aesop, because they mention holy monks. To which I will add another remark,--that there is a sentence out of Job.... Thus I have proved one-half of the fables now extant that carry the name of Aesop to be above a thousand years more recent than he. And the other half, that were public before Neveletus, will be found yet more modern, and the latest of all.... This collection, therefore, is more recent than that other; and, coming first abroad with Aesop's 'Life,' written by Planudes, 'tis justly believed to be owing to the same writer. That idiot of a monk has given us a book which he calls 'The Life of Aesop,' that perhaps cannot be matched in any language for ignorance and nonsense. He had picked up two or three true stories,--that Aesop was a slave to a Xanthus, carried a burthen of bread, conversed with Croesus, and was put to death at Delphi; but the circumstances of these and all his other tales are pure invention.... But of all his injuries to Aesop, that which can least be forgiven him is the making such a monster of him for ugliness,--an abuse that has found credit so universally that all the modern painters since the time of Planudes have drawn him in the worst shapes and features that fancy could invent. 'Twas an old tradition among the Greeks that Aesop revived again and lived a second life. Should he revive once more and see the picture before the book that carries his name, could he think it drawn for himself?--or for the monkey, or some strange beast introduced in the 'Fables'? But what revelation had this monk about Aesop's deformity? For he must have it by dream or vision, and not by ordinary methods of knowledge. He lived about two thousand years after him, and in all that tract of time there's not a single author that has given the least hint that Aesop was ugly."
Thus Bentley; but to return to Babrius. Tyrwhitt, in 1776, followed this calculation of Bentley by collecting the remains of Babrius. A publication in 1809 of fables from a Florentine manuscript foreran the collection (1832) of all the fables which could be entirely restored. In 1835 a German scholar, Knoch, published whatever had up to that time been written on Babrius, or as far as then known by him. So much had been accomplished by modern scholarship. The calculation was not unlike the mathematical computation that a star should, from an apparent disturbance, be in a certain quarter of the heavens at a certain time. The manuscript of Babrius, it became clear, must have existed. In 1842 M. Mynas, a Greek, who had already discovered the 'Philosophoumena' of Hippolytus, came upon the parchment in the convent of St. Lama on Mount Athos. He was employed by the French government, and the duty of giving the new ancient to the world fell to French scholars. The date of the manuscript they referred to the tenth century. There were contained in it one hundred and twenty-three of the supposed one hundred and sixty fables, the arrangement being alphabetical and ending with the letter O. Again, in 1857 M. Mynas announced another discovery. Ninety-four fables and a prooemium were still in a convent at Mount Athos; but the monks, who made difficulty about parting with the first parchment, refused to let the second go abroad. M. Mynas forwarded a transcript which he sold to the British Museum. It was after examination pronounced to be the work of a forger, and not even what it purported to be--the tinkering of a writer who had turned the original of Babrius into barbarous Greek and halting metre. Suggestions were made that the forger was Mynas himself. And there were scholars who accounted the manuscript as genuine.
The discovery of the first part added substantially to the remains which we have of the poetry of ancient Greece. The terseness, simplicity, and humor of the poems belong to the popular classic all the world over, in whatever tongue it appears; and the purity of the Greek shows that Babrius lived at a time when the influence of the classical age was still vital. He is placed at various times. Bergk fixes him so far back as B.C. 250, while others place him at the same number of years in our own era. Both French and German criticism has claimed that he was a Roman. There is no trace of his fables earlier than the Emperor Julian, and no metrical version of the Aesopean fables existed before the writing of Babrius. Socrates tried his hand at a version or two. But when such Greek writers as Xenophon and Aristotle refer to old folk-tales and legends, it is always in their own words. His fables are written in choliambic verse; that is, imperfect iambic which has a spondee in the last foot and is fitted for the satire for which it was originally used.
The fables of Babrius have been edited, with an interesting and valuable introduction, by W.G. Rutherford (1883), and by F.G. Schneidewin (1880). They have been turned into English metre by James Davies, M.A. (1860). The reader is also referred to the article 'Aesop' in the present work.
THE NORTH WIND AND THE SUN Betwixt the North wind and the Sun arose A contest, which would soonest of his clothes Strip a wayfaring clown, so runs the tale. First, Boreas blows an almost Thracian gale, Thinking, perforce, to steal the man's capote: He loosed it not; but as the cold wind smote More sharply, tighter round him drew the folds, And sheltered by a crag his station holds. But now the Sun at first peered gently forth, And thawed the chills of the uncanny North; Then in their turn his beams more amply plied, Till sudden heat the clown's endurance tried; Stripping himself, away his cloak he flung: The Sun from Boreas thus a triumph wrung. The fable means, "My son, at mildness aim: Persuasion more results than force may claim."
JUPITER AND THE MONKEY A baby-show with prizes Jove decreed For all the beasts, and gave the choice due heed. A monkey-mother came among the rest; A naked, snub-nosed pug upon her breast She bore, in mother's fashion. At the sight Assembled gods were moved to laugh outright. Said she, "Jove knoweth where his prize will fall! I know my child's the beauty of them all." This fable will a general law attest, That each one deems that what's his own, is best.
THE MOUSE THAT FELL INTO THE POT A mouse into a lidless broth-pot fell; Choked with the grease, and bidding life farewell, He said, "My fill of meat and drink have I And all good things: 'Tis time that I should die." Thou art that dainty mouse among mankind, If hurtful sweets are not by thee declined.
THE FOX AND THE GRAPES There hung some bunches of the purple grape On a hillside. A cunning fox, agape For these full clusters, many times essayed To cull their dark bloom, many vain leaps made. They were quite ripe, and for the vintage fit; But when his leaps did not avail a whit, He journeyed on, and thus his grief composed:-- "The bunch was sour, not ripe, as I supposed."
THE CARTER AND HERCULES A carter from the village drove his wain: And when it fell into a rugged lane, Inactive stood, nor lent a helping hand; But to that god, whom of the heavenly band He really honored most, Alcides, prayed: "Push at your wheels," the god appearing said, "And goad your team; but when you pray again, Help yourself likewise, or you'll pray in vain."
THE YOUNG COCKS Two Tanagraean cocks a fight began; Their spirit is, 'tis said, as that of man: Of these the beaten bird, a mass of blows, For shame into a corner creeping goes; The other to the housetop quickly flew, And there in triumph flapped his wings and crew. But him an eagle lifted from the roof, And bore away. His fellow gained a proof That oft the wages of defeat are best,-- None else remained the hens to interest. WHEREFORE, O man, beware of boastfulness: Should fortune lift thee, others to depress, Many are saved by lack of her caress.
THE ARAB AND THE CAMEL An Arab, having heaped his camel's back, Asked if he chose to take the upward track Or downward; and the beast had sense to say "Am I cut off then from the level way?"
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE SWALLOW Far from men's fields the swallow forth had flown, When she espied amid the woodlands lone The nightingale, sweet songstress. Her lament Was Itys to his doom untimely sent. Each knew the other through the mournful strain, Flew to embrace, and in sweet talk remain. Then said the swallow, "Dearest, liv'st thou still? Ne'er have I seen thee, since thy Thracian ill. Some cruel fate hath ever come between; Our virgin lives till now apart have been. Come to the fields; revisit homes of men; Come dwell with me, a comrade dear, again, Where thou shalt charm the swains, no savage brood: Dwell near men's haunts, and quit the open wood: One roof, one chamber, sure, can house the two, Or dost prefer the nightly frozen dew, And day-god's heat? a wild-wood life and drear? Come, clever songstress, to the light more near." To whom the sweet-voiced nightingale replied:-- "Still on these lonesome ridges let me bide; Nor seek to part me from the mountain glen:-- I shun, since Athens, man, and haunts of men; To mix with them, their dwelling-place to view, Stirs up old grief, and opens woes anew." Some consolation for an evil lot Lies in wise words, in song, in crowds forgot. But sore the pang, when, where you once were great, Again men see you, housed in mean estate.
THE HUSBANDMAN AND THE STORK Thin nets a farmer o'er his furrows spread, And caught the cranes that on his tillage fed; And him a limping stork began to pray, Who fell with them into the farmer's way:-- "I am no crane: I don't consume the grain: That I'm a stork is from my color plain; A stork, than which no better bird doth live; I to my father aid and succor give." The man replied:--"Good stork, I cannot tell Your way of life: but this I know full well, I caught you with the spoilers of my seed; With them, with whom I found you, you must bleed." Walk with the bad, and hate will be as strong 'Gainst you as them, e'en though you no man wrong.
THE PINE Some woodmen, bent a forest pine to split, Into each fissure sundry wedges fit, To keep the void and render work more light. Out groaned the pine, "Why should I vent my spite Against the axe which never touched my root, So much as these cursed wedges, mine own fruit; Which rend me through, inserted here and there!" A fable this, intended to declare That not so dreadful is a stranger's blow As wrongs which men receive from those they know.
THE WOMAN AND HER MAID-SERVANTS A very careful dame, of busy way, Kept maids at home, and these, ere break of day, She used to raise as early as cock-crow. They thought 'twas hard to be awakened so, And o'er wool-spinning be at work so long; Hence grew within them all a purpose strong To kill the house-cock, whom they thought to blame For all their wrongs. But no advantage came; Worse treatment than the former them befell: For when the hour their mistress could not tell At which by night the cock was wont to crow, She roused them earlier, to their work to go. A harder lot the wretched maids endured. Bad judgment oft hath such results procured.
THE LAMP A lamp that swam with oil, began to boast At eve, that it outshone the starry host, And gave more light to all. Her boast was heard: Soon the wind whistled; soon the breezes stirred, And quenched its light. A man rekindled it, And said, "Brief is the faint lamp's boasting fit, But the starlight ne'er needs to be re-lit."
THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE To the shy hare the tortoise smiling spoke, When he about her feet began to joke: "I'll pass thee by, though fleeter than the gale." "Pooh!" said the hare, "I don't believe thy tale. Try but one course, and thou my speed shalt know." "Who'll fix the prize, and whither we shall go?" Of the fleet-footed hare the tortoise asked. To whom he answered, "Reynard shall be tasked With this; that subtle fox, whom thou dost see." The tortoise then (no hesitater she!) Kept jogging on, but earliest reached the post; The hare, relying on his fleetness, lost Space, during sleep, he thought he could recover When he awoke. But then the race was over; The tortoise gained her aim, and slept her sleep. From negligence doth care the vantage reap.