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viii
Preface
the moral naturally flows, and with which it is intimately associated. "'Tis the simple manner," says Dodsley,[1] "in which the morals of Æsop are interwoven with his fables that distinguishes him, and gives him the preference over all other mythologists. 'His Mountain delivered of a Mouse' produces the moral of his fable in ridicule of pompous pretenders; and his Crow, when she drops her cheese, lets fall, as it were by accident, the strongest admonition against the power of flattery. There is no need of a separate sentence to explain it; no possibility of impressing it deeper, by that load we too often see of accumulated reflections."[2] An equal amount of praise is due for the consistency with which
- ↑ Select Fables of Æsop and other Fabulists. In three books, translated by Robert Dodsley, accompanied with a selection of notes, and an Essay on Fable.—Birmingham, 1864. P. 60.
- ↑ Some of these fables had, no doubt, in the first instance, a primary and private interpretation. On the first occasion of their being composed they were intended to refer to some passing event, or to some individual acts of wrong-doing. Thus, the fables of the "Eagle and the Fox" (p. 164), of the "Fox and Monkey" (p.67), are supposed to have been written by Archilochus, to avenge the injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the fables of the "Swollen Fox" (p.100), of the "Frogs asking a King" (p. 53), were spoken by Æsop for the immediate purpose of reconciling the inhabitants of Samos and Athens to their respective rulers, Periander and Pisistratus: while the fable of the "Horse and Stag" was composed to caution the inhabitants of Himera against granting a body-guard to Phalaris. In a similar manner, the fable from Phædrus, the "Marriage of the Sun," is supposed to have reference to the contemplated union of Livia, the daughter of Drusus, with Sejanus the favourite, and minister of Trajan. These fables, however, though thus originating in special events, and designed at first to meet special circumstances, are so admirably constructed as to be fraught with lessons of general utility, and of universal application.
