Aesop of Samos

Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Aesop of Samos’

7
Dog Collar Joseph Jacobs

A scrawny wolf listens enviously as a well-fed dog describes the comforts of home, but a flat patch of fur on the dog’s neck worries him.

Many Aesop’s Fables tell of a Wolf and a Dog, and many of them also address the question of liberty and the value we place on it. In this story, hunger has driven a sorry-looking Wolf to work for his keep, but he has not lost his wits and his sharp little eyes spot something that calls for an explanation.

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8
The Wolf, the Fox and the Monkey Clay Lane

A Wolf and a Fox go to court over a petty theft, but they have a hard time getting the Judge to believe them.

Phaedrus was a Roman fabulist, roughly a contemporary of St Paul, who turned large numbers of Aesop’s Fables into Latin verse. He admits that many of the Fables are actually his own, but says that this one, in which a Wolf and a Fox struggle to overcome their reputations for dishonesty, is an Aesop original.

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9
The Boy Who Cried Wolf Clay Lane

A shepherd boy has fun teasing the local farmers, but comes to regret it.

Floods! Food shortages! Spies! Invasion! Such cries we read daily in British newspapers. If they fall on deaf ears, Aesop of Samos would have said that the newspapers had only themselves to blame.

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10
The Fir and the Bramble Clay Lane

A vain fir is stopped short in her boasting by a clear-thinking bush.

In this Aesop’s Fable, a gloating fir tree and a prickly (in every sense) bramble bush get themselves into a silly argument, which ends with a sobering reminder for the fir.

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11
The Wolves’ Treaty Clay Lane

The leader of a wolf-pack makes some sheep an offer they’d better refuse.

This little Aesop’s Fable comes from the collection of Babrius, a poet from Syria in the second century AD. It is, sadly, a story as relevant today as it ever was. The cunning wolves manage to persuade the sheep that their true enemies are the sheepdogs.

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12
The Bald Lover Clay Lane

A man’s mid-life crisis leaves him a little ... exposed.

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