The ascription of fables to Aesop in archaic and classical Greece Autor(en): West, M.L. Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Entretiens sur l'Antiquité classique Band (Jahr): 30 (1984) PDF erstellt am: 07.03.2023 Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-660827 Nutzungsbedingungen Die ETH-Bibliothek ist Anbieterin der digitalisierten Zeitschriften. Sie besitzt keine Urheberrechte an den Inhalten der Zeitschriften. Die Rechte liegen in der Regel bei den Herausgebern. Die auf der Plattform e-periodica veröffentlichten Dokumente stehen für nicht-kommerzielle Zwecke in Lehre und Forschung sowie für die private Nutzung frei zur Verfügung. Einzelne Dateien oder Ausdrucke aus diesem Angebot können zusammen mit diesen Nutzungsbedingungen und den korrekten Herkunftsbezeichnungen weitergegeben werden. Das Veröffentlichen von Bildern in Print- und Online-Publikationen ist nur mit vorheriger Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber erlaubt. Die systematische Speicherung von Teilen des elektronischen Angebots auf anderen Servern bedarf ebenfalls des schriftlichen Einverständnisses der Rechteinhaber. Haftungsausschluss Alle Angaben erfolgen ohne Gewähr für Vollständigkeit oder Richtigkeit. Es wird keine Haftung übernommen für Schäden durch die Verwendung von Informationen aus diesem Online-Angebot oder durch das Fehlen von Informationen. Dies gilt auch für Inhalte Dritter, die über dieses Angebot zugänglich sind. Ein Dienst der ETH-Bibliothek ETH Zürich, Rämistrasse 101, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz, www.library.ethz.ch http://www.e-periodica.ch IV M. L. West THE ASCRIPTION OF FABLES TO AESOP IN ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREECE The name of Aesop is as widely known as any that has come down from Graeco-Roman antiquity. There must be many people who have heard of the Fables of Aesop but never of Homer or Virgil, Sophocles or Plato. For at least, his name is all but synonymous with the Europeans, ancient animal fable. And yet we scholars have to confess that it is far from certain whether a historical Aesop ever existed. If he did, his life is shrouded in legend, and of his achievements in the realm of fable we can hardly say anything except that he did not invent it. The ancients themselves, at least the rhetoricians and grammarians, were aware of that. Aelius Theon explains that Aesopic fables are so called not because Aesop was the inventor of the type, for Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, and others who lived earlier than Aesop were evidently acquainted with it, but because he used it extensively and felicitously; just as certain metres are called Aristophanean, Sapphic, and so on, not because those poets were the first or the only ones to use them but because they made the most conspicuous io6 M. L. WEST use of them.1 When Peisetairos in Aristophanes' Birds (651- 3) alludes to the fable of the fox and the eagle as occurring in the tales of Aesop, the scholiast comments: "Note that they clearly attributed these tales to Aesop—even this one that is told in Archilochus, despite his being the older." We know today that the history of fable does not begin with Hesiod and Archilochus but well over a thousand years earlier, in Sumer. My subject is the position of Aesop in that history. Was there really such a person, a storyteller as resourceful and witty as he was ugly and misshapen, who in Greece in the sixth century b.c. exploited the possibilities of the fable so effectively as to give it a new importance for all subsequent generations? It is a question which will lead us to consider such problems as the relationship between the single fable and the collection; the ways in which fables were transmitted in archaic Greece; and the origins of the biographical tradition. As Theon remarks, the early poets—Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus—apply the term atvoq to the fables or parables that they tell; he explains that this is because they contain 7tapalvscriv xtva, a measure of advice.2 We may quibble at his explanation, but he is right to this extent, that the stories in question, at least in those texts which are not too fragmentary for us to judge, are not told merely by way of entertainment (though they are entertaining, and this is their 1 Progymn. 3, in Rhet.Gr., ed. L Spengel, II p. 73. Cf. Hermogenes, Progymn. 1, pp. 1-2 Rabe; Aphthonius, Progymn. 1, p. 1 Rabe, Quint. V 11, 19; Philostratus, Imagines I 3, 1. There are no animal fables in Homer, but Theon's subject is pC9o<;, defined as Xöyoq i|/su5f]<; siKOvii^cov dX,f|9siav (p. 72, 28). He notes that the early poets generally use the term ttivoc; (p 73, 2;), so he is very likely thinking ofOdysseus' ctlvcx; in Od. XIV 462 ff., which is indeed a A,6yo<; EiKovi^cov aA,f|9siav. 2 Progymn. 3, p. 73, 31 ff. alvoi; 5s öxi Kal Ttapaivscriv xtva 7tspi£XEi • dva- cpepsxat yap &Xov xö 7tpaypa siq xPRuipriv f>7io9fiKT|v. vßv psvxot Kai xü aiviypaxa aivoui; XlVEi; KaA-oOai. See further my note on Hes. Op 202 {Hesiod. Works and Days [Oxford 1978], p. 205). THE ASCRIPTION OF FABLES TO AESOP 107 strength): they are told with the intention of influencing the conduct of a particular person or persons in a particular situation. Hesiod tells the fable of the hawk and the nightingale to the unjust 'kings' as an alvoc; which will not be lost on them (cppoveouat Kai auxoit;). Archilochus tells his fable of the fox and the eagle to Lycambes, who has broken faith with him, as a warning that such behaviour does not go unpunished.3 In another epode he told the fable of the fox and the monkey to someone addressed (satirically, perhaps) as Kerykides, and to his fellows. We know nothing of the circumstances, but here too the alvoq presumably contained a point specially aimed at these people.4 The atvcx; which Odysseus uses as a hint to Eumaios that he should give him a blanket is of a different sort, and we may wish to exclude it from consideration, but it is certainly relevant to the meaning of the word alvoq. It confirms that the idea of a pointed lesson is essential to it. Karl Meuli, in an important and influential contribution to the subject in 1954, argued that this was the natural and original format of the fable.5 "Die ursprüngliche lebendige Fabel" did not exist to convey a universal truth of general application but was rather "der diplomatische Vermittler einer ganz speziellen, sozusagen akuten Wahrheit, die einen bestimmten Hörer in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt unmittelbar treffen, im einzelnen konkreten Fall unmittelbar wirken soll".6 It was a technique of criticism and per- 3 Fr. 172-181 (+224-') West. See my Studies m Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin 1974), 132-4, and ZPE45 (1982), 30 f. 4 Fr. 185-7 +225 5 «Herkunft und Wesen der Fabel», in Schweif. Archivfur Volkskunde 50 (1954), 65-88 (also issued separately), Gesammelte Schriften (Basel 1975), II 731-756. See further Triantaphyllia Karadagli, Fabel und Arnos. Studien %urgriechischen Fabel, Beitr. zur Klass. Phil. 135 (Konigstein/Ts. 1981), Kap. 1, a work written with all the clarity, charm, and Er^ahlfreude of her teacher Reinhold Merkelbach. 6 Art at., 77 743. io8 M. L. WEST suasion which by its indirectness might avoid giving offence, while at the same time making a powerful impression by its artistry. It was especially valuable to the weak as a weapon against the powerful; but the powerful might also use it as a rebuke or 'put-down' to the weak, as Cyrus is said to have answered the Ionians' overtures following the fall of Sardis with the fable of the piper and the fishes who would not dance for him until they were landed in the net.7 Meuli believed that Cyrus actually did use this fable, and that the symbolism was suggested to his mind by the Persian practice of going over a conquered territory with a human dragnet to capture every single one of the enemy, as if trawling for fish.8 For not only fable itself, but its admonitory function was native to the orient. Meuli referred to Ahiqar and to two cdvoi of the Homeric type in the Second Book of Samuel (12,1 ff.; 14,4 ff.), as well as to the later Paficatantra. In Meuli's view, then, a fable is created ad hoc for a concrete situation, or (since not everyone possesses the requisite powers of invention) a pre-existing fable created for a particular situation in the past is re-used whenever a similar situation arises again. At a second stage a quantity of fables come to be attached to a figure such as Ahiqar or Aesop and are worked into a biographical narrative. Meuli accepts the view of Crusius and others that a Life of A.esop existed as a Volksbuch as early as the sixth century. The third stage is for fables to be detached from their contexts and gathered in collections as self-sufficient stories with a lesson for everyone. This is certainly the observed sequence so far as Greek fable is concerned. The individual ctlvcx; is present in Hesiod 7 Hdt. I 141; repeated without context in Babr. 9, Augustana H. 11 P. 11), and in a debased form in Aphthonius, Fab. 33. 8 Hdt. Ill 149; VI 31, K. Meuli, «Ein altpersischer Kriegsbrauch» (1954), in Ges. Schriften II 699 ff. (the fable: 728 f.). THE ASCRIPTION OF FABLES TO AESOP IO9 and Archilochus; a biographical legend about Aesop, in which a number of fables were incorporated, was known by the fifth century b.c. ; the first collection of fables as independent entities was made by Demetrius of Phaleron, unless we count the few that Socrates is said to have versified during his last days in prison.9 However, it is difficult to believe that every one of all the hundreds of fables that we know from Babrius, the Augustana and other collections had its origins in an alvoq devised for some specific occasion. And since Meuli wrote, the picture has been transformed by the progress of Assyriological research. It now appears that the evolution was more complex than he supposed. One of the very earliest examples of a fable occurs in a Sumerian wisdom poem, the Instructions of Suruppak, which in its oldest form goes back to about 2500 b.c. The antediluvian sage Suruppak tells his son Ziusudra After a man had taken a great ox by the neck, He found he could not cross the river. After you have consorted with the great men of the city, My son, you should be quick to disengage yourself.10 Here is a short fable or parable used not in a specific situation but to reinforce a general precept, and attributed to a mythical sage. This example, however, is as far as I know (Mr Falkowitz may correct me) isolated in the Meso- potamian material known hitherto. The typical habitat of the Mesopotamian fable is the proverb collections, or Rhetoric collections as Mr Falkowitz calls them—'commonplace 9 Plat. Phd. 60 c- 6i b, Iambt et Elegi Graea, ed. M. L. West (Oxford 1971-1972), II pp. 118 f I see no reason to doubt the story; why should Plato have invented such a surprising thing, which has no relevance to his argument? He also mentions a Prooimion to Apollo, Socrates may have intended this to be the prooimion to his Aesoptca. 10 B. Alster (ed.), The Instructions ofSuruppak (Copenhagen 1974), lines 194-197. I have modified the translation to make it more idiomatic. I IO M. L. WEST books' would perhaps not be an inappropriate description, for they are miscellanies which include maxims and adages, truisms and paradoxes, taunts and compliments, wishes and greetings, prayers and anecdotes. Edmund Gordon, who pioneered the study of these texts, was able to write in 1958 (four years after Meuli's paper): It is now clear that both the scribes of Sumer in the second millennium b.c. (and perhaps earlier) and their successors in Assyria in the 8th century b.c. included the fable within the category of "proverbs", and in i960: The fables and parables (at least as far as can be judged from the material studied so far) seem to be found always in the milieu of the proverb collections.11 Of course, these scholastic compilations are at some remove from real life, the life of popular discourse. The items contained in them presumably had a function outside the collections. A modern dictionary of proverbs would not be the ideal evidence on which to judge the role of the proverb in our culture. And so it is with the Mesopotamian fable. The Instructions of Suruppak give us one indication of its application. After a very long gap in time the story of Ahiqar provides more evidence of the same sort. There are also occasional examples of proverbs and short fables being quoted for rhetorical purposes, for instance in the Tell el-Amarna letters.12 It follows from all this that if we wish to maintain Meuli's view that the first form of the fable is the aivoi; tailor-made for the specific addressee in a specific situation, we must go back at least to the third millennium to find this 'original' stage, and our evidence runs out before we reach it. His second and third stages seem to be established 11 Journal of Cuneiform Studies 12 (1958), 1, Bibhotheca Orientahs 17 (i960), 130. 12 W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford i960), 280-2. THE ASCRIPTION OF FABLES TO AESOP I I I from the beginnings of the literate period. Perhaps the development in Greece from Hesiod to Demetrius repeated a sequence that had been played through in Sumer two thousand years earlier. However that may be, the essential point is that we cannot any longer treat the archaic Greek poets, where they draw on oriental traditions, as if they lived at the beginning of the world. I do not think anyone now disputes that the fable came to Greece from the orient, in the eighth century b.c. if not earlier. We must now address ourselves to the question in what form it came, bearing in mind what we know of the forms in which it was current in the east. Hesiod offers us one fable, and he offers it in a wisdom poem, preceded by two extended myths and followed by a series of admonitions. This wisdom poem, the Works and Days, stands in a clear relation to the Near Eastern traditions of wisdom literature, as I have shown in the Prolegomena of my edition following the lead of Dornseiff, Walcot, and others. Suruppak and Ahiqar provide evidence for the use of fable in these traditions. It is natural to suppose, therefore, that this was one medium by which fable came to Greece: in the context of wisdom literature. In this type of tradition fables might have come to be associated with a particular mythical personage. Hesiod's poem is composed in his own persona; but there is evidence for some other early Greek wisdom poetry put in the mouths of legendary instructors such as Chiron and Pittheus,13 and Near Eastern wisdom is commonly pseud- epigraphic. If there happened to be a liberal use of fable in a particular composition, it is possible to imagine fable becoming associated with the person in whose mouth the wisdom was put. Ahiqar is the nearest approach to this in the extant material. Thus archaic Greek wisdom poetry 13 See my Hesiod. Works and Days, 23-25. 112 M. L. WEST might have provided conditions in which a proto-Aesop could have emerged. But this does not seem to have happened. Another genre in which the fable made itself at home was the Ionian iambos. Archilochus, as we know, used fables in at least two of his Epodes\ there may have been others, though I regard the attempts to identify others as excessively speculative. Semonides of Amorgos included in trimeter iambos fable in which heron robbed a a a a buzzard of a Maeander eel that it was eating; we do not know the rest of the story, or anything of the context.14 I may say in passing that I do not believe fr. 13 of the same poet, to 5' §p7C£TÖv TrapsTiraxo to i)coicov KataaTov £ktt)tcu ßiov, to come from the fable of the eagle and the dung-beetle, as has often been supposed (and indeed asserted as an established fact). It is much more likely to be a detail from a scatological first-person narrative of a type characteristic of the iambos, especially in view of the parallel of Hipponax fr. f., 92,10 KÖtvSapoi 5s poi^sövTE«; fpAov xar' Ö5pfiv tAeövei; fj 7r£VTf)KovTa.15 But when all doubtful instances have been excluded we are still left with three definite examples of fable in the iam- bographers. It would be surprising if we were so fortunate if as to have the only three they ever used, or they used all the ones they had ever heard. We must suppose that they knew fair number. a 14 Semon. fr. 9 West P. 443. 15 Cf. Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, 28. Semon. fr. 8 and 17 West might have stood in the same context. THE ASCRIPTION OF FABLES TO AESOP I I 3 From whom did they hear them, and in what circumstances? Archilochus gives the only clue when he introduces one of his fables with the words aivöq xiq dvUpmroMv oSe. A fable that men tell—not a particular wise man, not the men of a particular nation or region, simply men. The story is current among the people, and not thought of as coming from a particular source, or at any rate not from a source that it is of any moment to specify. The effect is similar when Hesiod introduces the Myth of Ages (which immediately precedes his animal fable) as a Xöyoq, that is, a story which is not necessarily literally true but which is told and deserves attention. Strictly speaking, an aivoq avUproraov should mean a story that men tell for the sake of its rhetorical point. But it is possible that Archilochus means no more than a story that men tell and that he himself intends to use as an alvoq. Such a story clearly could be told for its entertainment value, without pressing its moral implications, just as one of the classic myths might be told with greater or less emphasis on its moral implications. The fable of the crab and the snake (H. 211 P. 196) appears as self-contained item in the old collection of Attic skolia a preserved by Athenaeus, Poetae melici Graeci fr. 892 Page: 6 KapKivoq d)8' eipa /aA-äi töv öcpiv kaßcbv • "suSuv xpf] xöv kraipov sp- pev Kai pi) aKokiä (ppovsTv". It is theoretically possible that this, like at least one other item in the collection, was an excerpt from a longer poem.16 But the fact remains that at the Attic symposium, probably 16 See, however, R. Reitzenstein, Epigramm und ikohon (Glessen 1893), 19.