FOOTNOTES
1 (return)
[ A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, by K. O. Mueller. Vol. i, p.
191. London, Parker, 1858.]
2 (return)
[ 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.]
3 (return)
[ 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” and of the “Fox and
Monkey” are supposed to have been written by Archilochus, to avenge the
injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the fables of the “Swollen Fox” and of
the “Frogs asking a King” 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 bodyguard 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.]
4 (return)
[ Hesiod. Opera et Dies, verse 202.]
5 (return)
[ Æschylus. Fragment of the Myrmidons. Æschylus speaks of this fable as
existing before his day. ὡς δ’ ἐστὶ μύθων τῶν Διβυστικῶν λογος. See Scholiast
on the Aves of Aristophanes, line 808.]
6 (return)
[ Fragment. 38, ed. Gaisford. See also Mueller’s History of the Literature of
Ancient Greece, vol. i. pp. 190–193.]
7 (return)
[ M. Bayle has well put this in his account of Æsop. “Il n’y a point
d’apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd’hui son nom soient les mêmes
qu’il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la plupart, quant à la
matière et la pensée; mais les paroles sont d’un autre.” And again, “C’est donc
à Hésiode, que j’aimerais mieux attribuer la gloire de l’invention; mais sans
doute il laissa la chose très imparfaite. Esope la perfectionne si
heureusement, qu’on l’a regarde comme le vrai père de cette sorte de
production.”—Bayle. Dictionnaire Historique.]
8 (return)
[ Plato in Phædone.]
9 (return)
[ Apologos en! misit tibi
Ab usque Rheni limite
Ausonius nomen Italum
Præceptor Augusti tui
Æsopiam trimetriam;
Quam vertit exili stylo
Pedestre concinnans opus
Fandi Titianus artifex.
Ausonii Epistola, xvi. 75–80.]
10 (return)
[ Both these publications are in the British Museum, and are placed in the
library in cases under glass, for the inspection of the curious.]
11 (return)
[ Fables may possibly have been not entirely unknown to the mediæval scholars.
There are two celebrated works which might by some be classed amongst works of
this description. The one is the “Speculum Sapientiæ,” attributed to St.
Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, but of a considerably later origin, and
existing only in Latin. It is divided into four books, and consists of long
conversations conducted by fictitious characters under the figures the beasts
of the field and forest, and aimed at the rebuke of particular classes of men,
the boastful, the proud, the luxurious, the wrathful, &c. None of the
stories are precisely those of Æsop, and none have the concinnity, terseness,
and unmistakable deduction of the lesson intended to be taught by the fable, so
conspicuous in the great Greek fabulist. The exact title of the book is this:
“Speculum Sapientiæ, B. Cyrilli Episcopi: alias quadripartitus apologeticus
vocatus, in cujus quidem proverbiis omnis et totius sapientiæ speculum claret
et feliciter incipit.” The other is a larger work in two volumes, published in
the fourteenth century by Cæsar Heisterbach, a Cistercian monk, under the
title of “Dialogus Miraculorum,” reprinted in 1851. This work consists of
conversations in which many stories are interwoven on all kinds of subjects. It
has no correspondence with the pure Æsopian fable.]
12 (return)
[ Post-mediæval Preachers, by S. Baring-Gould. Rivingtons, 1865.]
13 (return)
[ For an account of this work see the Life of Poggio Bracciolini, by the Rev.
William Shepherd. Liverpool, 1801.]
14 (return)
[ Professor Theodore Bergh. See Classical Museum, No. viii. July, 1849.]
15 (return)
[ Vavassor’s treatise, entitled “De Ludicrâ Dictione” was written A.D. 1658, at
the request of the celebrated M. Balzac (though published after his death), for
the purpose of showing that the burlesque style of writing adopted by Scarron
and D’Assouci, and at that time so popular in France, had no sanction from the
ancient classic writers. Francisci Vavassoris opera omnia. Amsterdam.
1709.]
16 (return)
[ The claims of Babrias also found a warm advocate in the learned Frenchman, M.
Bayle, who, in his admirable Dictionary, (Dictionnaire Historique et
Critique de Pierre Bayle. Paris, 1820,) gives additional arguments in
confirmation of the opinions of his learned predecessors, Nevelet and
Vavassor.]
17 (return)
[ Scazonic, or halting, iambics; a choliambic (a lame, halting iambic) differs
from the iambic Senarius in always having a spondee or trochee for its last
foot; the fifth foot, to avoid shortness of metre, being generally an iambic.
See Fables of Babrias, translated by Rev. James Davies. Lockwood, 1860.
Preface, p. 27.]
18 (return)
[ See Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations upon the Epistles of Phalaris.]
19 (return)
[ Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris, and Fables of Æsop
examined. By the Honourable Charles Boyle.]
20 (return)
[ M. Bayle thus characterises this Life of Æsop by Planudes, “Tous les habiles
gens conviennent que c’est un roman, et que les absurdités grossières qui l’on
y trouve le rendent indigne de toute créance.” Dictionnaire Historique.
Art. Esope.]