The Old Man and his Sons, sometimes titled The Bundle of Sticks, is an Aesop's Fable whose moral is that there is strength in unity. The story has been told about many rulers. It is numbered 53 in the Perry Index.
The Old Man and his Sons, sometimes titled The Bundle of Sticks, is an Aesop's Fable whose moral is that there is strength in unity. The story has been told about many rulers. It is numbered 53 in the Perry Index.
An old man has a number of sons who constantly quarrel with each other. As he nears death he calls them to him and gives them an object lesson in the need for unity. Having bound a bundle of sticks together (or in other accounts either spears or arrows), he asks his sons to break them. When they fail, he undoes the bundle and either breaks each stick singly or gets his sons to do so. In the same way, he teaches them, though each can be overcome alone, they are invincible combined.
The fable was included by Babrius in his collection. Later, Pseudo-Plutarch told the story of King Scilurus of Scythia and his 80 sons. [1] It has also been told about other barbarian kings or nomad khans by other authors, such as the Bulgar Khan Kubrat. The story also travelled eastwards. It may appear in mediaeval Turkic manuscript fragments and on a Sogdian mural. [2] Having entered Central Asian folklore, the story was also told of an ancestor of Genghis Khan. [3]
The moral drawn from the fable by Babrius was that "Brotherly love is the greatest good in life and often lifts the humble higher". In his emblem book Hecatomgraphie (1540), Gilles Corrozet reflected on it that if there can be friendship among strangers, it is even more of a necessity among family members. [4] When the Neo-Latin poet Hieronymus Osius included the fable in his 1564 collection, he added consideration of the effects of disunion: "Just as concord supplies potency in human affairs, so a quarrelsome life deprives people of their strength." [5] The French fabulist La Fontaine also stressed this aspect. In this version, the sons had not started quarreling when their father gave them his lesson, but descended into litigiousness over his estate following his death. [6]
That the lesson of the fable could be applied to statecraft as well as personal affairs had earlier been realised by Pseudo-Plutarch [1] and those others who told the story of ancient rulers. In more modern times, Pieter de la Court commented on its applicability to the Dutch Republic in his retelling of the story in Sinryke Fabulen (Amsterdam, 1685) as "A farmer and his seven quarrelsome sons". [7] The story is prefaced with the proverb Eendragt maakt magt, een twist verkwist (Unity makes strength, strife wastes). The first part of this was eventually to be taken as national motto by a number of states in a variety of languages without necessarily referring to the fable. It was also associated with the fasces of the Roman republic, which consists of a bundle of rods, sometimes (but not always) enclosing an axe, symbolising the state's power to rule. However, the moral "Strength lies in union" was certainly given to the fable in, among others, Edward Garrett's new edition of Aesop's fables in the 19th century. [8] It was also the perception of Alexander Sumarokov, whose variant of the fable explains the weakness of the Russian lands and domination by Tatars in the past as due to their division among numerous princes.
The political motto "Unity is strength" was definitely associated with the fable by the various trade union organisations that adopted it. A depiction of a man kneeling over a bundle of sticks on the ground was used, often accompanied by the motto on, for example, the badge of the Nottinghamshire Miners Association, on a Durham trade union banner, and on a trade token of the Worcestershire Co-operative Society. [9] Some of these show a man crouched with one knee on a bundle of sticks, straining to break them, in a pose that appears related to John Tenniel's picture of the scene in the edition of Aesop's fables that he illustrated. [10] The fable was also referred to by American trade union organisations in the 20th century, [11] and it was among those chosen in 1970 by the activist Jacob Lawrence for illustration in gouaches which draw out the story's moral truth. [12] [13]
Earlier the fable was retold in a long poem that made no reference to Aesop but was represented as happening in England. This first appeared as a 1795 illustrated broadsheet published in London and Bath with the title "The old man, his children, and the bundle of sticks". There "A good old man, no matter where, Whether in York or Lancashire," gives the lesson on his deathbed and the poem concludes with a Christian reflection. [14] Over the following decades of the 19th century, it also appeared as a cheaply printed chapbook and in book-length collections of moralising works. [15]
Yakov Perelman had analyzed the story from a physical viewpoint in his book Mechanics for Entertainment. According to his calculations, in the case of seven sticks, the bundle is approximately 80 times as hard to break as each individual rod. [16] [17]
Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.
Fasces is a bound bundle of wooden rods, often but not always including an axe with its blade emerging. The fasces is an Italian symbol that had its origin in the Etruscan civilization and was passed on to ancient Rome, where it symbolized a Roman king's power to punish his subjects, and later, a magistrate's power and jurisdiction. The axe has its own separate and older origin. Initially associated with the labrys, the double-bitted axe originally from Crete, is one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization.
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.
The Fox and the Grapes is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 15 in the Perry Index. The narration is concise and subsequent retellings have often been equally so. The story concerns a fox that tries to eat grapes from a vine but cannot reach them. Rather than admit defeat, he states they are undesirable. The expression "sour grapes" originated from this fable.
The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, which exist in several different versions. Other fables exist in the East that feature division of prey in such a way that the divider gains the greater part - or even the whole. In English the phrase used in the sense of nearly all only appeared at the end of the 18th century; the French equivalent, le partage du lion, is recorded from the start of that century, following La Fontaine's version of the fable.
Dzala ertobashia is the official motto of Georgia.
The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 150 in the Perry Index. There are also Eastern variants of the story, all of which demonstrate mutual dependence regardless of size or status. In the Renaissance the fable was provided with a sequel condemning social ambition.
The Farmer and the Stork is one of Aesop's Fables which appears in Greek in the collections of both Babrius and Aphthonius and has differed little in the telling over the centuries. The story relates how a farmer plants traps in his field to catch the cranes and geese that are stealing the seeds he has sown. When he checks the traps, he finds among the other birds a stork, who pleads to be spared because it is harmless and has taken no part in the theft. The farmer replies that since it has been caught in the company of thieves, it must suffer the same fate. The moral of the story, which is announced beforehand in the oldest texts, is that associating with bad companions will lead to bad consequences.
Aesop was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales associated with him are characterized by anthropomorphic animal characters.
"Unity makes strength" is a motto that has been used by various states and entities throughout history. It is used by Belgium, Bulgaria, Haiti, Malaysia and Georgia on their coats of arms and is the national motto of Belgium, Bolivia, Malaysia, Georgia and Bulgaria.
The Hawk and the Nightingale is one of the earliest fables recorded in Greek and there have been many variations on the story since Classical times. The original version is numbered 4 in the Perry Index and the later Aesop version, sometimes going under the title "The Hawk, the Nightingale and the Birdcatcher", is numbered 567. The stories began as a reflection on the arbitrary use of power and eventually shifted to being a lesson in the wise use of resources.
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The Dog and the Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 346 in the Perry Index. It has been popular since antiquity as an object lesson of how freedom should not be exchanged for comfort or financial gain. An alternative fable with the same moral concerning different animals is less well known.
The Fox and the Woodman is a cautionary story against hypocrisy included among Aesop's Fables and is numbered 22 in the Perry Index. Although the same basic plot recurs, different versions have included a variety of participants.
The Ass and his Masters is a fable that has also gone by the alternative titles The ass and the gardener and Jupiter and the ass. Included among Aesop's Fables, it is numbered 179 in the Perry Index.
Developed by authors during Renaissance times, the story of an ass eating thistles was a late addition to collections of Aesop's Fables. Beginning as a condemnation of miserly behaviour, it eventually was taken to demonstrate how preferences differ.
The Frog and the Mouse is one of Aesop's Fables and exists in several versions. It is numbered 384 in the Perry Index. There are also Eastern versions of uncertain origin which are classified as Aarne-Thompson type 278, concerning unnatural relationships. The stories make the point that the treacherous are destroyed by their own actions.
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to Aesop. It is associated with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
There are five fables of ancient Greek origin that deal with the statue of Hermes. All have been classed as burlesques that show disrespect to the god involved and some scepticism concerning the efficacy of religious statues as objects of worship. Statues of Hermes differed according to function and several are referenced in these stories. Only one fable became generally retold in later times, although two others also achieved some currency.
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