CHAPTER III
THE MORAL AND APPLICATION OF FABLES

 
'Come, sir, lend it your best ear.'
 

Ben Jonson: Love Freed.

Thus La Fontaine:¹⁰ 'The fable proper is composed of two parts, of which one may be termed the body and the other the soul. The body is the subject-matter of the fable and the soul is the moral.'

On the origin of the added morals to fables, Mr. Joseph Jacobs¹¹ has the following appropriate remarks: 'The fable is a species of the allegory, and it seems absurd to give your allegory, and then give in addition the truth which you wish to convey. Either your fable makes its point or it does not. If it does, you need not repeat your point: if it does not, you need not give your fable. To add your point is practically to confess the fear that your fable has not put it with sufficient force. Yet this is practically what the moral does, which has now become part and parcel of a fable. It was not always so; it does not occur in the ancient classical fables. That it is not an organic part of the fable is shown by the curious fact that so many morals miss the point of the fables. How then did this artificial product come to be regarded as an essential part of the fable? Now, we have seen in the Jātakas what an important rôle is played by the gāthas or moral verses which sum up the whole teaching of the Jātakas. In most cases I have been able to give the pith of the Birth-stories by merely giving the gāthas, which are besides the only relics which are now left to us of the original form of the Jātakas. Is it too bold to suggest that any set of fables taken from the Jātakas or their source would adopt the gātha feature, and that the moral would naturally arise in this way? We find the moral fully developed in Babrius and Avian, whom we have seen strong reason for connecting with Kybises' Libyan fables. We may conclude the series of conjectures by suggesting that the morals of fables are an imitation of the gāthas of Jātakas as they passed into the Libyan collection of Kybises.'

Montaigne remarks that 'most of the fables of Æsop have diverse senses and meanings, of which the mythologists chose some one that quadrates well to the fable; but for the most part 'tis but the first face that presents itself and is superficial only; there yet remain others more vivid, essential and profound into which they have not been able to penetrate.'¹²

If this be so, it is an argument against the common practice of limiting their significance to the one moral that is often given as an appendage to the fable. It is worthy of note that Æsop did not supply, either orally or in writing, the separate moral to any of his fables. They were left to speak for themselves and produce their unaided effect. The moral or application appended to or introducing a fable (for both practices are followed), is an innovation, as appears from what has already been advanced, probably intended to make clear what was obscure in the apologue.

The true moral is contained in the fable itself. The application may, and often does, vary with the idiosyncrasies of the commentator. Besides the moral and application there is in some collections of fables what is designated 'The Remark,' and 'The Reflection,' in which the commentator tries, as it were, to drive home the application of the story with an additional blow. Our own experience as a youth was that all these appendages to the fable were invariably skipped.

From all which it would appear that the moral and the so-called application of a fable are not one and the same thing. In point of fact, the latter may and does vary according to the peculiar views of the commentator. An exemplification of this may be found in the applications of Sir Roger L'Estrange and Dr. Samuel Croxall, the latter taking it upon him to stigmatize in strong language the twist which he asserted the former gave to the morals of the fables in his collection. L'Estrange, who was a Catholic, concerned himself in helping the restoration of Charles II., and was a devoted adherent of his successor, James, from whom he received place and emoluments. In publishing his version of Æsop, his object, as he affirms in his preface, was to influence the minds of the rising generation, 'who being as it were mere blank paper, are ready indifferently for any opinion, good or bad, taking all upon credit.' Whereupon Croxall observes: 'What poor devils would L'Estrange make of the children who should be so unfortunate as to read his book and imbibe his pernicious principles – principles coined and suited to promote the growth and serve the ends of Popery and arbitrary power,' and more to the same purpose.

The question as to whether the moral or application, if any is supplied, should be placed at the beginning or end of a fable has sometimes been discussed. On this head Dodsley has some pertinent remarks that may be quoted. He says: 'It has been matter of dispute whether the moral is better introduced at the end or beginning of a fable. Æsop universally rejected any separate moral. Those we now find at the close of his fables were placed there by other hands. Among the ancients Phædrus, and Gay among the moderns, inserted theirs at the beginning; La Motte prefers them at the conclusion, and La Fontaine disposes them indifferently at the beginning or end, as he sees convenient. If,' he adds, 'amidst the authority of such great names I might venture to mention my own opinion, I should rather prefer them as an introduction than add them as an appendage. For I would neither pay my reader nor myself so bad a compliment as to suppose, after he had read the fable, that he was not able to discover its meaning. Besides, when the moral of a fable is not very prominent and striking, a leading thought at the beginning puts the reader in a proper track. He knows the game which he pursues; and, like a beagle on a warm scent, he follows the sport with alacrity in proportion to his intelligence. On the other hand, if he have no previous intimation of the design, he is puzzled throughout the fable, and cannot determine upon its merit without the trouble of a fresh perusal. A ray of light imparted at first may show him the tendency and propriety of every expression as he goes along; but while he travels in the dark, no wonder if he stumble or mistake his way.' If it be considered necessary or desirable to give the moral separately, or to apply the fable, Dodsley's argument here seems to us to be incontrovertible.

CHAPTER IV
FABULISTS AS CENSORS

 
'Mark, now, how a plain tale shall put you down.'
 

Shakespeare: King Henry IV.

Fabulists as censors have always been not only tolerated, but patronized and encouraged, even in the most despotic countries, and when they have exposed wickedness and folly in high places with an unsparing hand. Æsop among the ancients, and Krilof amongst the moderns, are both striking examples of this. The fables of antiquity may indeed be truly said to have been a natural product of the times in which they were invented. In the early days, when free speech was a perilous exercise, and when to declaim against vice and folly was to court personal risk, the fable was invented, or resorted to, by the moralist as a circuitous method of achieving the end he desired to reach – the lesson he wished to enforce. The entertainment afforded by the fable or apologue took off the keen edge of the reproof; and, whilst the censure conveyed was not less pointed and severe, the device of making the humbler creatures the scapegoat of human weakness or vice mollified its bitterness. The very indirectness of the fable had the effect of making the sinner his own accuser. Whom the cap fitted was at liberty to don it.

Phædrus, in the prologue to his third book, thus gives his view of the origin and purpose of fables:

 
'Here something shortly I would teach
Of fables' origin. To reach
The potent criminal, a slave
To beasts and birds a language gave.
Wishing to strike, and yet afraid,
Of these his instruments he made:
For all that dove or lamb might say,
Against them no indictment lay.'¹³
 

The fable saves the self-love of the person to whom it is applicable. It enables him to stand aside, as it were, and become a spectator of the effect produced by his own conduct. In this way he is impressed and humbled without being affronted. When one, even though guilty, is openly and directly reproved for a misdeed, the stigma often raises a rebellious spirit, which either suggests a hundred justifiable reasons for his action or begets a defiant mood, driving him to persist in his evil courses.

Listening to the fable, 'we see nothing of the satirist, who probes only to heal us, and who does not exhibit any of the personal spleen and ill-humour which meet and put us out of countenance with ourselves and each other in the invectives of those who sometimes set up for moralists without the essential qualification of good nature. The fable gives an agreeable hint of the duties and relations of life, not a harangue on our want of sense or decorum. We feel none of the superiority of the fabulist, who, indeed, generally leaves us to make the application of his instructive story in our own way; and if we do sometimes prefer to apply it to our neighbour's case instead of our own, we are still improved and amended, inasmuch as we have learned to despise some vice or folly which our unassisted judgment might have regarded more leniently.'¹⁴ Dodsley, again, puts the matter finely when he says:¹⁵ 'The reason why fable has been so much esteemed in all ages and in all countries, is perhaps owing to the polite manner in which its maxims are conveyed. The very article of giving instruction supposes at least a superiority of wisdom in the adviser – a circumstance by no means favourable to the ready admission of advice. 'Tis the peculiar excellence of fable to waive this air of superiority; it leaves the reader to collect the moral, who, by thus discovering more than is shown him, finds his principle of self-love gratified, instead of being disgusted. The attention is either taken off from the adviser, or, if otherwise, we are at least flattered by his humility and address. Besides, instruction, as conveyed by fable, does not only lay aside its lofty mien and supercilious aspect, but appears dressed in all the smiles and graces which can strike the imagination or engage the passions. It pleases in order to convince, and it imprints its moral so much the deeper in proportion that it entertains; so that we may be said to feel our duties at the very instant we comprehend them.'

The humour of a good fable is a fine lubricant to the temper. Sarcasm, irony, even direct criticism, are in place in the fable, but humour is its saving grace. Without this it cannot be classed in the first order. Wanting in this quality, the fables of some writers who have attempted them are flat, stale and unprofitable. Humour in the fable is the gilding of the pill. It is like the effervescing quality in champagne, the subtle flavour in old port.

It may be questioned whether a fable has ever the full immediate effect intended. Men are loath to apply the moral to their own case, though they have no difficulty in applying it to the case of others – even to their best acquaintances and friends. For example, take the present company, the present company of my readers – it is usual, by the way, to except 'the present company,' but we will be rash enough, even at the risk of castigation, to break the rule – take, then, the present company in illustration of our point. Who among us would admit for a moment that we are the counterpart or human representative of the fox with its low cunning, the loquacious jackdaw, the silly goose, the ungrateful viper, the crow to be cajoled by flattery, not to mention the egregious donkey? 'Satire,' says an acute writer,¹⁶ 'is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.' Or, to parody a line of Young, 'All men think all men peccable but themselves.' To be sure, we might be willing, modestly perhaps, to admit that we who are singers can emulate the nightingale; that we even possess some of the – call it shrewdness, of the fox; the faithful character of the honest dog; vie in dignity of manners and bearing with the stately lion. But all that is a matter of course; the noble traits we possess are so self-evident that none excepting the incorrigibly blind or prejudiced will be found to dispute them! So that the admonishing fable contains no lesson for any of us, but should be seriously taken to heart, with a view to their reformation, by certain persons whom we all know. That view of the question, however, need not be further pursued.