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BABRIUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 116 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BABRIUS . traced to the See also:

History of Reynard the See also:Fox. This See also:great beast-epic has been referred by See also:Grimm as far back as the loth See also:century, and is known to us in three forms, each with See also:independent episodes, but all See also:woven upon a See also:common basis. The Latin See also:form is probably the earliest, and the poems Reinardus and Ysengrinus date from the See also:roth or rrth century. Next come the See also:German versions. The most See also:ancient, that of a minnesinger Heinrich der Glichesaere (probably a Swabian), was analysed and edited by Grimm in 1840. The See also:French poem of more than 30,000 lines, the See also:Roman du See also:Renard, belongs probably to the 13th century. In 1498 appeared Reynke de See also:Voss, .almost a literal version in See also:Low Saxon of the Flemish poem of the 12th century, Reinaert de Vos. Hence the well-known version of See also:Goethe into See also:modern German hexameters was taken. The poem has been well named " an unholy See also:world See also:Bible." In it the Aesopian See also:fable received a development which was in several respects quite See also:original. We have here no See also:short and unconnected stories. Materials, partly borrowed from older apologues, but in a much greater proportion new, are worked up into one See also:long and systematic See also:tale.

The moral, so prominent in the fable proper, shrinks so far into the background, that the epic might be considered a See also:

work of pure fiction, an See also:animal See also:romance. The attempts to discover in it See also:personal See also:satire have signally failed; some critics deny even the See also:design to represent human conduct at all; and we can scarcely get nearer to its signification than by regarding it as being, in a See also:general way, what See also:Carlyle has called " a See also:parody of human See also:life." It represents a contest maintained successfully, by selfish See also:craft and audacity, against enemies of all sorts, in a See also:half-barbarous and See also:ill-organized society. With his weakest foes, like Chaunteclere the See also:Cock, Reynard uses See also:brute-force; over the weak who are protected, like Kiward the See also:Hare and Belin the See also:Ram, he is victorious by uniting violence with cunning; Bruin, the dull, strong, formidable See also:Bear, is humbled by having greater See also:power than his own enlisted against him; and the most dangerous of all the fox's enemies, Isengrim, the obstinate, greedy and implacable See also:Wolf, after being baffled by repeated strokes of malicious ingenuity, forces Reynard to a single combat, but even thus is not a match for his dexterous adversary. The knavish fox has See also:allies worthy of him in Grimbart the watchful See also:badger, and in his own aunt See also:Dame Rukenawe, the learned She-See also:ape; and he plays at his See also:pleasure on the See also:simple credulity of the See also:Lion-See also:King, the See also:image of an impotent feudal See also:sovereign. The characters of these and other brutes are kept up with a See also:rude See also:kind of consistency, which gives them great liveliness; many of the incidents are devised with much force of See also:humour; and the sly hits at the weak points of See also:medieval polity and See also:manners and See also:religion are incessant and palpable. It is needless to trace the fable, or illustrations borrowed from fables, that so frequently occur as incidental ornaments in the older literature of See also:England and other countries. It has appeared in every modern nation of See also:Europe, but has nowhere become very important, and has hardly ever exhibited much originality either of spirit or of manner. In See also:English, See also:Prior transplanted from See also:France some of La See also:Fontaine's ease of narration and artful artlessness, while See also:Gay took as his See also:model the Conies rather than the Fables., Gay's fables are often See also:political satires, but some, like the Fox on his Deathbed, have the true See also:ring, and in the Hare with many See also:Friends there is genuine pathos. To See also:Dryden's spirited remodellings of old poems, romances and fabliaux, the name of fables, which he was pleased to give them, is quite inapplicable. In German, See also:Hagedorn and See also:Gellert, both famous in their See also:day and the latter extolled by Goethe, are quite forgotten; and even See also:Lessing's fables are read by few but schoolboys. In See also:Spanish, Yriarte's fables on See also:literary subjects are sprightly and graceful, but the critic is more than the fabulist. A spirited version of the best appeared in See also:Blackwood's See also:Magazine, 1839.

Among Italians Pignotti is famous for versatility and command of See also:

rhythm, as amongst Russians is See also:Kriloff for his keen satire on See also:Russian society. He has been translated into English by Ralston. France alone in modern times has attained any pre-See also:eminence in the fable, and this distinction is almost entirely owing to one author. See also:Marie de France in the 13th century, Gilles Corrozet, See also:Guillaume Haudent and Guillaume Gueroult in the 16th, are now studied mainly as the precursors of La Fontaine, from whom he may have borrowed a stray hint or the outline of a See also:story. The unique See also:character of his work has given a new word to the French See also:language: other writers of fables are called fabulistes, La Fontaine is named le fablier. He is a true poet; his See also:verse is exquisitely modulated; his love of nature often reminds us of See also:Virgil, as do his tenderness and pathos (see, for instance, The Two Pigeons and See also:Death and the Woodcutter). He is full of sly fun and delicate humour; like See also:Horace he satirizes without wounding, and " plays around the See also:heart." Lastly, he is a keen observer of men. The whole society of the 17th century, its greatness and its foibles, its luxury and its squalor, from Le See also:grand monarque to the poor manant, from his See also:majesty the lion to the courtier of an ape, is painted to the life. To See also:borrow his own phrase, La Fontaine's fables are " une ample comedie a cent actes See also:divers." See also:Rousseau did his best to discredit the Fables as immoral and corruptors of youth, but in spite of Emile they are studied in every French school and are more See also:familiar to most Frenchmen than their See also:breviary. Among the successors of La Fontaine the. most distinguished is See also:Florian. He justly estimates his own merits in the See also:pretty See also:apologue that he prefixed to his Fables. He asks a See also:sage whether a fabulist See also:writing after La Fontaine would not be See also:wise to consign his work to the flames.

The sage replies by a question: " What would you say did some sweet, ingenuous Maid of See also:

Athens refuse to let herself be seen because there was once a See also:Helen of See also:Troy ? " The fables of Lessing represent the reaction against the French school of fabulists. " With La Fontaine himself," says Lessing, " I have no See also:quarrel, but against the imitators of La Fontaine I enter my protest." His See also:attention was first called to the fable by Gellert's popular work published in 1746. Gellert's fables were closely modelled after La Fontaine's, and were a vehicle for lively railings against the See also:fair See also:sex, and hits at contemporary follies. Lessing's See also:early essays were in the same See also:style, but his subsequent study of the history and theory of the fable led him to discard his former model as a perversion of later times, and the " Fabeln," published in 1759, are the outcome of his riper views. Lessing's fables, like all that he wrote, display his vigorous common sense. He has, it is true, little of La Fontaine's curiosa felicitas, his sly humour and lightness of See also:touch; and Frenchmen would say that his See also:criticism of La Fontaine is an See also:illustration of the fable of the sour grapes. On the other See also:hand, he has the rare power of looking at both sides of a moral problem; he holds a brief for the stupid and the feeble, the See also:ass and the See also:lamb; and in spite of his formal protest against poetical See also:ornament, thereis in not a few of his fables a vein of true See also:poetry, as in the See also:Sheep (ii. 13) and See also:Jupiter and the Sheep (ii. 18). But the monograph which introduced the Fabeln is of more inportance than the fables themselves. According to Lessing the ideal fable is that of See also:Aesop.

All the elaborations and refinements of later authors, from See also:

Phaedrus to La Fontaine, are perversions of this original. The fable is essentially a moral See also:precept illustrated by a single example, and it is the See also:lesson thus enforced which gives to the fable its unity and makes it a work of See also:art. The illustration must be either an actual occurrence or represented as such, because a fictitious See also:case invented ad hoc can See also:appeal but feebly to the reader's See also:judgment. Lastly, the fable requires a story or connected See also:chain of events. A single fact will not make a fable, but is only an See also:emblem. We thus arrive at the following See also:definition:—" , A fable is a relation of a See also:series of changes which together form a ,whole. The unity of the fable consists herein, that all the parts See also:lead up to an end, the end for which the fable was invented being the moral precept." We may See also:notice in passing a problem in connexion with the fable which had long been debated, but never satisfactorily resolved till Lessing took it in hand—Why should animals have been almost universally chosen as the See also:chief dramatis personae? The See also:reason, according to Lessing, is that animals have distinct characters which are known and recognized by all. The fabulist who writes of See also:Britannicus and See also:Nero appeals to the few who know Roman history. The Wolf and the Lamb comes See also:home to every one whether learned or simple. But, besides this,human sympathies obscure the moral judgment; hence it follows that the fable, unlike the See also:drama and the epos, should abstain, from all that is likely to arouse our prejudices or our passions. In this respect the Wolf and the Lamb of Aesop is a more perfect fable than the See also:Rich See also:Man and the Poor Man's See also:Ewe Lamb of Nathan.

Lessing's See also:

analysis and definition of the fable, though he seems himself unconscious of the See also:scope of his See also:argument, is in truth its death-See also:warrant. The beast-fable arose in a See also:primitive See also:age when men firmly believed that beasts could talk and reason, that any wolf they met might be a were-wolf, that a See also:peacock might be a See also:Pythagoras in disguise, and an ox or even a See also:cat a being worthy of their See also:worship. To this succeeded the second age of the fable, which belongs to the same See also:stage of culture as the See also:Hebrew See also:proverbs and the gnomic poets of See also:Greece. That honesty is the best policy, that death is common to all, seemed to the men of that day profound truths worthy to be embalmed in verse or set off by the aid of story or See also:anecdote. Last comes an age of high literary culture which tolerates the trite morals and hackneyed tales for the See also:sake of the exquisite setting, and is amused at the wit which introduces topics and characters of the day under the transparent See also:veil of animal life. Such an artificial product can be nothing more than the See also:fashion of a day,. and must, like See also:pastoral poetry, See also:die a natural death. A serious moralist would hardly choose that form to inculcate, like See also:Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees, a new See also:doctrine in morals, for the moral of the fable must be such that he who runs may read. A true poet will not care to masquerade as amoral teacher, or show his wit by refurbishing some old-world See also:maxim. Yet See also:Taine in France, See also:Lowell in See also:America, and J. A. See also:Froude in England have proved that the fable as one form of literature js not yet See also:extinct, and is capable of new and unexpected developments. BIataoGRAPHY.

Pantschatantrum, ed. Kosegarten (See also:

Bonn, 1848) ; Hitapadesa, ed. Max See also:Muller (1864) ; See also:Silvestre de Sacy, Calilah et Dimna, ou Fables de See also:Bidpai, en Arabe, precedees d'un memoire sur l'origine de ce livre (See also:Paris, 1816), translated by the Rev. See also:Wyndham Knatchbull (See also:Oxford, 1819) ; See also:Comparetti, Ricerche interne at Libro di Sindebdd (See also:Milan, 1869); Max Muller, "See also:Migration of Fables," Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iv. (1875); See also:Keller, Untersuchungen fiber die Geschichte der griechischen Fabel (See also:Leipzig, 1862); Babrius, ed. W. G. See also:Rutherford, with excursus on See also:Greek fables (1883); L. Hervieux, See also:Les Fabulistes latins (1884); See also:Jakob Grimm, See also:Reinhart See also:Fuchs (See also:Berlin, 1834) ; A. C. M. See also:Robert, Fables inedites See also:des XIP, XIII' et XLVe siecles, &c.

(Paris, 1825); Taine, Essai sur les fables de La Fontaine (1853); See also:

Saint-Marc See also:Girardin, La Fontaine et les fabulistes (Paris, 1867). (F.

End of Article: BABRIUS

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