The Trumpeter Taken Captive is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 370 in the Perry Index. [1] One of the rare tales in which only human beings figure, it teaches that association with wrongdoers makes one equally culpable.
The Trumpeter Taken Captive is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 370 in the Perry Index. [1] One of the rare tales in which only human beings figure, it teaches that association with wrongdoers makes one equally culpable.
The fable concerns a trumpeter who is taken by the enemy in battle and pleads to be spared on the grounds that he bears no weapons. His captors tell him that encouraging others to fight by means of his trumpet is even worse. In the Latin version by Avianus, an old soldier is disposing of his weapons in a fire and the trumpet asks to be spared but is disposed of in the same way.
In the Renaissance, Andrea Alciato included the story among his Emblemata under the heading Parem delinquentis et suasoris culpam esse (The fault belongs alike to the wrongdoer and the persuader) [2] and was followed by the English emblematist Geoffrey Whitney in asserting that those who encourage a crime are equally guilty. [3] The Neo-Latin poets Hieronymus Osius [4] and Pantaleon Candidus [5] also follow Alciato in stating that, though the trumpeter is equally at fault, he causes greater harm.
Most illustrators of the fables pictured ancient battle scenes, but Thomas Bewick updated it by dressing the trumpeter in the uniform of his times. [6] Brooke Boothby also modernised the fable in his poetic version, which ends with the line "The poor Trumpeter was shot". [7] William Somervile similarly chooses a contemporary setting, making his "Captive Trumpeter" the French prisoner of "a party of hussars" and condemning him to an ignominious death.
Other poems of the time reserve their final lines for enforcing the moral. A school edition of 1773 concludes severely,
Boothby's contemporary, H.Steers, agrees:
Another poet of that decade, the moralistic Fortescue Hitchins, devotes no less than fourteen lines to drawing the fable's lesson, applying it in addition to grumblers and gossips. [11]
It was appreciation of the arguments employed in the fable and the belief that "musical elements lurk in gifted oratorical arguments" that later inspired the composer Jerzy Sapieyevski to feature it as the fifth piece in his Aesop Suite for brass quintet and narrator (1984), where great use is made of counterpointing. [12]
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 Miser and his Gold is one of Aesop's Fables that deals directly with human weaknesses, in this case the wrong use of possessions. Since this is a story dealing only with humans, it allows the point to be made directly through the medium of speech rather than be surmised from the situation. It is numbered 225 in the Perry Index.
"The Taill of the Cok and the Jasp" is a Middle Scots version of Aesop's Fable The Cock and the Jewel by the 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson. It is the first in Henryson's collection known as the Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian. The Cok and the Jasp is framed by a prologue and a moralitas, and as the first poem in the collection it operates on a number of levels, and in all its parts, to introduce the larger cycle.
The Walnut Tree is one of Aesop's fables and numbered 250 in the Perry Index. It later served as a base for a misogynistic proverb, which encourages the violence against walnut trees, asses and women.
The Two Pots is one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 378 in the Perry Index. The fable may stem from proverbial sources.
The Gourd and the Palm-tree is a rare fable of West Asian origin that was first recorded in Europe in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance a variant appeared in which a pine took the palm-tree's place and the story was occasionally counted as one of Aesop's Fables.
The Crow or Raven and the Snake or Serpent is one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 128 in the Perry Index. Alternative Greek versions exist and two of these were adopted during the European Renaissance. The fable is not to be confused with the story of this title in the Panchatantra, which is completely different.
"The Blind Man and the Lame" is a fable that recounts how two individuals collaborate in an effort to overcome their respective disabilities. The theme is first attested in Greek about the first century BCE. Stories with this feature occur in Asia, Europe and North America.
The Elm and the Vine were associated particularly by Latin authors. Because pruned elm trees acted as vine supports, this was taken as a symbol of marriage and imagery connected with their pairing also became common in Renaissance literature. Various fables were created out of their association in both Classical and later times. Although Aesop was not credited with these formerly, later fables hint at his authorship.
The Fox and the Weasel is a title used to cover a complex of fables in which a number of other animals figure in a story with the same basic situation involving the unfortunate effects of greed. Of Greek origin, it is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 24 in the Perry Index.
"The Astrologer who Fell into a Well" is a fable based on a Greek anecdote concerning the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus. It was one of several ancient jokes that were absorbed into Aesop's Fables and is now numbered 40 in the Perry Index. During the scientific attack on astrology in the 16th–17th centuries, the story again became very popular.
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.
The cautionary tale of The Mouse and the Oyster is rarely mentioned in Classical literature but is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 454 in the Perry Index. It has been variously interpreted, either as a warning against gluttony or as a caution against unwary behaviour.
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 Fowler and the Snake is a story of Greek origin that demonstrates the fate of predators. It was counted as one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 115 in the Perry Index.
The Sick Kite is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 324 in the Perry Index.
The Fox and the Mask is one of Aesop's Fables, of which there are both Greek and Latin variants. It is numbered 27 in the Perry Index.
The Ass Carrying an Image is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 182 in the Perry Index. It is directed against human conceit but at one period was also used to illustrate the argument in Canon Law that the sacramental act is not diminished by the priest's unworthiness.
In ancient times, the beaver was hunted for its testicles, which it was thought had medicinal qualities. The story that the animal would gnaw these off to save itself when hunted was preserved by some ancient Greek naturalists and perpetuated into the Middle Ages. It also appeared as a Greek fable ascribed to Aesop and is numbered 118 in the Perry Index.
"The Hare and many friends" was the final fable in John Gay's first collection of 1727. It concerns the inconstancy of friendship as exemplified by a hare that lives on friendly terms with the farm animals. When the horns of the hunt are heard, she panics and eventually collapses exhausted, begging each of her acquaintances to help her escape. All give her different excuses, the last being a "trotting calf" who bids her "Adieu" as the hunters burst onto the scene. The poem won widespread popularity for some 150 years afterwards but, on a prose version appearing in a collection of Aesop's Fables, Gay's original authorship has gradually become forgotten.