Showing posts with label Fables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fables. Show all posts

Monday, August 1, 2022

The Mouse Takes a Wife

Marie de France's collection of 102 fables written in the late 12th century mostly come from Aesop and Avianus, but there are a few she seems to have made up herself, and at least one not seen before in western literature but has a source in the east. One wonders how she learned of it. Today we take a closer look Marie called it "The Mouse Takes a Wife," a cautionary tale against trying to marry above your station.

It mirrors "The Mouse Turned into a Maid." This original is found in the Panchatantra, a collection of Indian fables from. about 200 BCE. The story goes...

...a mouse drops from the beak of a bird of prey into the hands of a holy man, who turns it into a girl and brings her up as his own. Eventually he seeks a powerful marriage for her but discovers at each application that there is one more powerful: thus the cloud can cover the sun, the wind blows the clouds about but is resisted by the mountain; the mountain, however, is penetrated by mice. Since the girl feels the call of like to like in this case, she is changed back to her original form and goes to live with her husband in his hole. [link]

A Romanian folk variant shows a rat setting out to pay a visit to God, but gets thrown through the same succession of sun and clouds and wind which finally dumps him on an ant heap, where he "belongs."

That the mouse or rat has aspirations but cannot rise above its birth station (even if it is magicked into a human being) makes a strong case for nature over nurture. Although many think of this debate as a modern one, prompted by Darwin's theory of evolution, it was a question raised long before. Next I'll talk about the Nature vs. Nurture debate in the Middle Ages.

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Some Fables

People love fables. Brief stories that offer a lesson or moral can be instructive as well as fun. A Castilian version of Arabic fables was mentioned here. And another fable was told here. Marie de France translated a large collection of fables, some from Aesop (c. 620–564 BCE), some from Avianus (fl. 400 CE), some from unknown sources.

Marie claims she made the collection for a Count William from an English version by "li reis Alvrez" (King Alfred, who did have an interest in history and literature), but no evidence exists for such a source work).

Many of the fables are recognizable from what we know of Aesop and Avianus, though some have small changes. Aesop's fable of the dog that sees its reflection while carrying a bone or piece of meat, and ultimately opens its mouth to attack the "other" dog and get its treat, loses what the dog had. Marie has the dog carrying a piece of cheese. The moral is the same, but did Marie originally hear the story her way, or did she change the dog's mouthful for a specific purpose. It is not clear.

Marie includes several previously unknown ones involving human characters, many of them with married couples. The story of "The Man and the Wife Who Quarreled" is a little gruesome while being funny. A husband cuts his wife's tongue out to stop her from quarreling, only to have her continue in sign language. Marie flips the gender of the moral, however, by saying "This fable shows what one can often see: if a fool talks foolishness and someone else comes along and speaks sense to him, he won't believe it but gets angry instead. Even when he knows he is absolutely in the wrong, he wants to have the last say, and no one can make him shut up."

One of her fables, "The Mouse Takes a Wife," is unique in western literature, though it has analogues from India and the Far East. It sets up a discussion about nature vs. nurture, and is worth a closer look, which we can do next time.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Marie de France

Marie de France (c.1160 - 1215) is called that because of one line from her writing: "Marie ai num, si sui de France." It means "My name is Marie, and I am from France." If that is not a pseudonym, then it sums up all we know factually about her life.

The desire to pin down who she was (and the fact that Marie was a very common name) has led to numerous guesses regarding her identity, none of which would make a difference in the study of her writings. (If Shakespeare's plays were written by the Earl of Oxford, how would that change our enjoyment of them? Not a bit.)

Those who have heard of her know of The Lais of Marie de France, a collection 12 lais. lai (English lay) was a lyric poem in octosyllabic couplets, popular in France and Germany in the 13th and 14th centuries, dealing with adventure and romance. The 12 are written in Anglo-Norman and often focus often on courtly love. A few of the stories exist separately in manuscripts, but there is one manuscript in the British Library that has all 12. That manuscript, Harley 978, presents them in what may be a deliberate order: the odd numbers show positive results for characters who love others; the even lais show the negative results of love that is imperfect. (Bisclavret is number four, an even number.)

Harley 978 also has a prologue in which we gain some insight into Marie. She writes that she wanted to create something that would be entertaining and morally instructive in the style of Greco-Roman literature. She therefore is recording Breton tales that she has learned. The prologue also dedicates the lais to a "noble king." From the time period in which they seem to be written, and her knowledge of Anglo-Norman and Middle English, the assumption is that she was known in the court of Henry II or possibly even his son.

A few other works are also attributed to her. She is credited with a retelling of the Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, a French translation of a latin poem. "Purgatory" in this case is not a cosmic status between Heaven and Hell; it is a pilgrimage site in Northern Ireland, a cave that Christ showed to St. Patrick and explained was an entrance to Purgatory.

She also produced a re-telling of Aesop's Fables called Ysopet ("Little Aesop"), which has some fables not seen in Aesop. Many of her fables are about humans, and in many of those she presents tales of female cunning over male ignorance or foolishness.

Her fables would make a good topic on their own, so that's what we will look at next.

Saturday, February 26, 2022

A Book of Fables

King Alfonso X's son, Fernando de la Cerda, requested that the Toledo School of Translators produce a Castilian version of a Book of Fables, Kalīla wa-Dimna. The book is a series of stories with animals as the main characters; each story has a lesson to be learned, similar to the fables of Aesop.

The title refers to two of its characters who are jackals, the steady Kalīla and the ambitious Dimna. They are door wardens for the king, who is a lion. Oddly enough, Kalīla and Dimna only appear in the first of the 15 stories contained in the collection.

Several of the stories include a king, and their subject matter is usually about the relationship and duty of a king toward his subjects. The introduction to the book claims that it was written for the king of India. It was then called the Panchatantra. When the king of Persia, Khosrow I, heard of the book, he sent his physician to India to make a copy in Pahlavi (Middle Persian).

Copying was not allowed by the king of India, but the physician, Borzuya, was allowed to read it. He read a story each day, and then at night wrote in a journal what he remembered. In this way he brought the fables westward. The Arabic author and translator Ibn al-Muqaffa (died c.756) translated it into Arabic as Kalīla wa-Dimna. It became the first Arabic literary classic. Its popularity led to the publication of a German version by Gutenberg. Today copies can be found in over 100 languages.

The frequent theme of a king's relationship with his subjects places this collection not only into the genre of fables but also into the genre of "Mirrors for Princes," guides to teach proper conduct when one has authority and responsibility.

One more foray into the realm of cultural and linguistic melting pots: next time, we look at Mozarabic culture.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A Tale of Two Pots

What do a Jewish philosopher, a Greek fabulist, and a Latin poet have in common? The following story and its moral.

The Book of Ecclesiasticus (c.200-175 BCE), also called the Wisdom of Sirach, is one of the disputed books of the Old Testament. It is included in the 2nd century BCE Jewish Septuagint (the Greek version of Jewish scriptures used by Diaspora Jews), but is not considered canonical in Judaism, only in Christianity. In it there is a piece of advice:
"Have no fellowship with one that is richer than thyself. What agreement shall the earthen pot have with the kettle? For if they knock one against the other, it shall be broken." [13.2-3]
Is it possible that Sirach was a fan of the fables of Æsop (c.620-564 BCE)? Æsop has a Tale of Two Pots, one earthenware and one metal:
Two Pots, one of brass and the other of clay, stood together on the hearthstone. One day the Brass Pot proposed to the Earthen Pot that they go out into the world together. But the Earthen Pot excused himself, saying that it would be wiser for him to stay in the corner by the fire.
"It would take so little to break me," he said. "You know how fragile I am. The least shock is sure to shatter me!"
"Don't let that keep you at home," urged the Brass Pot. "I shall take very good care of you. If we should happen to meet anything hard I will step between and save you."
So the Earthen Pot at last consented, and the two set out side by side, jolting along on three stubby legs first to this side, then to that, and bumping into each other at every step. The Earthen Pot could not survive that sort of companionship very long. They had not gone ten paces before the Earthen Pot cracked, and at the next jolt he flew into a thousand pieces.
The same story crops up again in the early Middle Ages in the fables of Avianus (5th century CE). In Avianus' version, two pots are floating downstream.* The metal pot suggests that they stick together, but the clay pot wants him to keep his distance, explaining "Whether the wave crashes me into you or you into me, in either case I will be the only victim."

The moral is that one should deal with equals; socializing (or going into business) with those above your station was risky. In cultures where society was sharply divided into different classes, this was advice worth repeating.

*Apparently, Avianus was fine with pots having a conversation, but walking on legs was too unrealistic for him!