Aesop's Fables

Abstract

This is one of four pamphlets, all 24 pages in length, which have Fables across their back cover, followed by the same brief description and history of fables. Here TH is pictured on the cover, with surrounding leaves, flowers, birds, butterflies, and insects. The pattern of this frame is the same for all four books, though its colors change from one to the other. There are twelve fables, most told in two-page spreads. The illustration for TH is surprising, since the tortoise seems to be stopped to address the sleeping hare, even though the text assures us that the tortoise never paused (2). AD (4) is told unusually at several points. The pigeon hands the drowning ant a twig. The ant in the second illustration is just smaller than the man's hand! SW (6) is told in the poorer version. The Boot in the Jungle (10) is new to me. Three animals claim that a boot found in the jungle--it was novel to them all--is, respectively, the shell of a fruit, a nest, and a plant with roots. A duck, from experience, informs them about the boot. The bear answers, telling the duck to keep out of it. What he claims cannot be true the bear opines. FG forestalls criticism by starting with the explanation that the fox was different from his clan, since he prefers grapes, not mutton. This moral is new to me: It is good to accept defeat sportingly (13). In the illustrations for FC, the fox uses a microphone with a long cord, and then the raven does the same. The incongruity of the microphone up in the tree with a cord dangling down is striking. The snake that licks the knife (not a file) on 24 falls down unconscious, presumably from loss of blood. None of the four booklets has bibliographical information beyond the publisher's name. I presume that this press is in India.