Tale
Aesop's Fables
Μῦθοι
Aesop · -570
Synopsis
Several hundred very short tales in which animals, sometimes gods or men, find themselves caught in a situation that is resolved in a few lines: the fox who despises the grapes he cannot reach, the eagle who betrays the fox's friendship, the frog and the mouse. Each is followed by a moral that draws the lesson for men, and several explain in passing the origin of a thing or of a trait of character.
Context
No text from Aesop's own hand survives: the fables, transmitted orally, were collected only about three centuries after the date tradition gives him, notably by Demetrius of Phalerum, then put into Latin verse by Phaedrus. Sumerian proverbs featuring animals, written down more than a thousand years earlier, already offer the form, and the morals that open or close the fables were often added afterwards.
Who it is for
Tales of a few lines, to be read one by one, in numerous translations; nothing to know in advance.
Prizes and reception
They inspired Phaedrus, Avianus, La Fontaine and a large part of children's literature.