Ésope , in Greek old Αἴσωπος/ Aísôpos (seventh century BC - sixth century BC), Greek writer to which one allots the paternity of the Fable.

Historical reality

According to Plutarque, it was a slave, Prisoner of war, ugly and lame (its name means “unequal feet”), uneven and stammerer, who told with spirit of the apologues and the familiar accounts.

According to an assumption of Mr. L. West ( the fable , Fondation Hardt, Vandœuvres-Geneva, 1984), it is with Samos that its legend would have been formed. This one, which tells the Fountain at the head of its Fables, presents Ésope like “deformed, ugly of face, having hardly figure of man” and almost entirely private of the use of the word. After having dreamed that Fortune untied the language to him, it will wake up one day cured of its stammering. Bought by a merchant of slaves, it arrives in the residence of a philosopher of Samos, Xanthos, auprès of which it will compete of easy ways and witty remarks before succeeding in being made free. It goes then near Crésus to try to safeguard the independence of Samos and it succeeds in its embassy by telling with the king a fable. It will be put then at the service of “king de Babylone”, who takes great pleasure with the enigmas of the fabulist. But had by the desire to travel, it goes to Greece and stops in particular in Delphes. The reasons of its death remain obscure but he died precipitated top of a cliff.

Fables

All the account of the life of Ésope is traversed by the set of themes of the laughter, of the good joke by means of which the weak one, exploited, takes the top on the Masters, the powerful ones. In this direction, Ésope is a precursor of the Anti-héros, ugly, scorned, without initial capacity, but which manages to escape from the difficulty by its skill to decipher the enigmas.

Because of the number of fables which this legend included/understood, those consequently could start to circulate in an autonomous way, the made-to-order of witty remarks which one told. Thereafter, of the former fables would have been réattribuées with this source, which played the part of a collection. It should be added that, the Greek not having a narrower term to indicate the fable, the name of Ésope was used as catalyst, and this all the more easily as any science, any technique, any kind literary was on their premises to be attached to a “inventor”. Thus is explained, partly, that Ésope either so quickly become the emblematic figure of the fable.

The first collection of Fables is due to Démétrios de Phalère towards 325 av. J. - C.. The original collection is lost. The collection which knew the Fountain included/understood 127 fables.

The fables of Ésope were written in prose and without literary claim. That made say to Hegel: “Prose starts in the mouth of a slave; also the entire kind is prosaic” ( Esthétique ).

The fables of Ésope will be taken again and translated into Latin by Phèdre. Babrias will produce of them news (second century BC).

Planude, a Byzantine monk of the 14th century will popularize a Vie of Ésope starting from a material probably dating from the Ier century.

Ésope inspired in particular:

• Flavius Avianus (IIe or IVe century),
• Phèdre (direct inspirer of the fabulists of the XVII°),
• Jean of the Fountain,
• Benserade (contemporary of the Fountain),

.

Quotations

• the language is the best and worst things.
• United we stand, divided we fall

Cité by others

Jean of the Fountain pays homage to Ésope in one of its Fable S addressed to Monseigneur the “Dolphin”:

I sing the heroes whose Esope is the father, Troupe of which it history, encor that untrue, Contains truths which are used as lessons.

All speaks in my work, and even the fish: what they say addresses to all as long as we are; I make use of animals to inform the men.

See too

Curiosity

The name of Ésope is attached to a Palindrome in French language: “Ésope remains here and rests”.

Related article

• India and the Occident

External bonds

• Its fables on Ebooks free and free

Simple: Aesop

Random links:

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