So I recently received one of the best gifts I’ve had in a long while: A copy of the complete and unabridged fables of Aesop. And just as a side note, I suspect old Aesop had a kinky thing for animals – pretty much every fable features at least one four legged creature. Just throwing that out there…Now, out of the 207 fables that the legendary Aesop has been said to be responsible for, I particularly like, so far, a couple of the morals especially. From ‘The Heifer and the Ox’, the moral: Longer life for the toiling, shorter for the frolicking. I especially like the fact that this two sided moral seems to have a double meaning. Take it how you will. Myself – I’m still undecided as to whether I would prefer a long life if all I had to live for was more toil and labour, or a short life bereft of anything but superficial play and games.
From ‘The Lion and the Ass’, the moral: Diplomacy enhances the utility of the knaves. To me, this basically says play nice with the lowly, and they’ll be too stupid to do anything but play nice back. That may be a pretty blunt reading of it, but it’s the reading in which I found greatest comedic value. Call me base…
Anyhow, all this fable reading has inspired me to come up with a moral of my own – something that I’m coming to understand and appreciate more and more: Come to like the person that you are, for there is simply no escape.
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