: The Talking Beasts: A Book of Fable Wisdom by Smith Nora Archibald Editor Wiggin Kate Douglas Smith Editor - Fables Children's Literature

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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. Perhaps he read the fable of the Fig Tree, Olive, Vine, and Bramble from the ninth chapter of Judges, or that of the Thistle and Cedar from the fourteenth chapter of II Kings and noted that teaching by story-telling was still well in vogue six hundred years after Aesop.

In later times the fables that had been carried from mouth to mouth for centuries began to be written down: by Phaedrus in Latin and Babrius in Greek; also, in the fourteenth century, by a Greek monk named Planudes. But do not suppose they had their birth or flourished in Greece alone. At the very time that Aesop was telling them at the court of Croesus, or in Delphi, Corinth, or Athens,--far, far away in India the Buddhist priests were telling fables in the Sanskrit language to the common people, the blind, the ignorant and the outcast. Sanskrit, you know, is the eldest brother of all the family of languages to which our English belongs. When the Buddhist religion declined, the Brahmins took up the priceless inheritance of fable and used it for educational purposes. Their ancient Indian sages and philosophers compiled a treatise for the education of princes which was supposed to contain a system of good counsel for right training in all the chief affairs of life. In it they inserted the choicest treasures of their wisdom and the best rules for governing a people, and the Rajahs kept the book with great secrecy and care. Then a Persian king heard of its existence and sent a learned physician to India, where he spent several years in copying and translating the precious manuscript, finally bringing it hack to the court, where he declined to accept all reward but a dress of honour. In much the same way it was rendered into Arabic and gradually, century by century, crept into the literature of all Europe.

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