We propose now to differentiate these forms in the following order; we shall begin with the fable, proceed after that to discuss the parable, apologue, and proverb, and conclude our inquiry with the metamorphosis.
1. THE FABLE
Hitherto we have throughout merely dwelt upon the formal aspect of the relation of an expressed significance to its embodiment; we have now furthermore to elucidate the content, which declares its suitability for such a mode.
In our previous consideration of the various aspects of the Sublime we saw that at the point where we have now arrived, it is no longer a matter of any importance to envisualize the Absolute and One in its indivisible Power by means of the nothingness and impotency of the created thing to rise up to that infinite transcendency. We are now on the plane of the finite consciousness, and have only to concern ourselves with a finite content. If we direct our attention conversely to the genuine symbolical type, to which the comparative is under a certain aspect equally related, we find that here that inward aspect, which stands in opposition to the form up to this point always immediately presented, the natural shape, that is to say, is the spiritual, a truth that even in Egyptian symbolism received ample illustration. To the extent, however, that everything natural is left standing, and preconceived in its position of isolated solidarity, the spiritual is also something both finite and defined, that is to say man and his finite aims and the natural maintains a certain, albeit theoretical[81], relationship to these objects, a significant suggestion and revelation of the same to the use and weal of mankind. The phenomena of Nature, storms, flight of birds, the constitution of the intestines of animals and so forth, in the significance they possess for human interests, are now accepted in a totally different sense to that they figured in the conceptions of Parsees, Hindoos, or Egyptians, for whom the Divine is still linked to the Natural under the mode that man, as an integral part of Nature, moves to and fro in a world full of gods, and his personal action consists in the display through his activities of this very identity of Life, whereby this doing of his, in so far as it is compatible with the natural existence of the Divine, appears itself as a revelation and bringing forth of the Divine in mankind. When, however, man is withdrawn into himself, and intuitively seeks for his freedom within the closed doors of his own substance[82], he becomes intrinsically the object of his own personality; he acts, transacts his affairs, and works as he himself wills; he possesses a personal life of his own, and feels the essential character of his aims as part of himself, to which the natural is only related as something outside him. Consequently Nature becomes insulated around him, serves him under such an aspect that in his attitude to the Divine he no longer secures an envisagement of the Absolute in her, but simply regards her as a means, through which the gods enable him to discover such a knowledge of themselves as may contribute most to his advantage, unveiling their will to the human spirit through the medium of Nature and suffering the purpose thereof to declare itself through mankind. An identity of the Absolute and Nature is here presupposed, an identity in which human aims are pre-eminently emphasized. A type of symbolism such as this, however, is not within the province of art, but that of religion. That is to say, the vates or prophet subordinates every significant relation of natural events, pre-eminently to the service of practical ends, whether it be in the interest of the particular designs of individuals, or in that of the common action of an entire people. Poetry, on the contrary, is bound to recognize and express even the practical situations and relations in a more universal form adapted to contemplation.
What we have, however, to deal with now is a natural phenomenon, an occurrence, which, in its passage, exhibits a particular relation, which maybe accepted as symbol for a general significance in the circle of human deeds and dealings, in other words for an ethical maxim, a saw, for a significance, therefore, whose content unfolds a reflection over the nature of the course which either is taken or ought to be taken in human matters, that is, facts which are related to volition. Here it is no longer the Divine will, which is self-revealed in its essential nature to mankind through natural events, and their religious import. We have nothing more than a quite ordinary course of everyday occurrences, from the isolated reproduction of which we are able to abstract in a way commonly intelligible an ethical dictum, a warning, ensample, or rule of prudence, by whatever name we choose to call it, which is set before us in a form that appeals to our imagination for the sake of the reflection it carries with it. And this is just the way in which we ought to regard the fables of Aesop.
(a) In other words, the fables of Aesop in their original form are just such a mode of conceiving a natural relation or event between single natural objects generally, mainly between animals, whose intercourse with one another is based on the same practical necessities of life that are the motive force in that of humanity. This relation or occurrence, as viewed in its more general characters, is consequently of a kind that may happen in the sphere of human life, and as such carries with it a significance for man.
As thus explained the genuine fable of Aesop is therefore the reproduction of a condition of animate or inanimate life, of some occurrence in the animal world for example, which is not by any means composed at haphazard, but is put together in conformity with natural fact and genuine observation, and so reproduced in the form of narrative that, in its relation to human existence, and particularly the practical aspect of the same, a general maxim may be deduced from it. The requirement of primary importance that it implies, therefore, is that the particular case in question, which is to supply the so-called moral, must not be purely imaginary, that is to say, first and foremost the substance of the composition must not present facts which run counter to the mode of their appearance in real life. The narrative may be further and yet more clearly characterized in this that it does not record the particular case itself in its universality, but rather the mode under which this, taken in its concrete singularity and as a real fact, is in such external reality the type for all action based upon analogous circumstances.
This original form of the fable leaves upon it, and this is the third point to which we direct attention, the impress of most naïveté, because in it the didactic aim and the deduction of general significances of utilitarian colour do not appear to be that which was the original intention of the narrator, but rather something which turned up afterwards. For this reason the most attractive among the so-called fables of Aesop will be those which correspond most emphatically with this naïve tone and narrate actions, if such an expression may here be used, or at least relations and events, which in part are founded upon animal instinct, partly are the expression of some other natural relation and partly are generally put together for their own sake rather than exclusively composed as the fancy of the moment happened to dictate. For this reason it is further sufficiently obvious that the motto fabula docet, which has attached itself to these fables as we now have them presented us, either takes the true spirit out of them, or frequently is something like a fist in our eyes[83], so that quite as often as not we are inclined to deduce the intended maxim's opposite, or one or two as good if not better.
In further elucidation of this conception of these Greek fables we propose now to offer a few illustrations. The oak and the reed stand in the teeth of the storm-wind. The slender reed merely bows before it, the stubborn oak snaps. This is a frequent enough occurrence in a great storm. In its ethical suggestion what we have here is some man of high position and inflexible temper as opposed to one of more modest station who, through his natural pliancy, is able in misfortune to keep himself secure on such ordinary levels, while the great man goes to ground through his pride and obstinacy. An analogous case is the fable of the swallows which we find in the Phaedrus. The swallows and other birds with them see a rustic sowing the flax seed, from the growth of which the bird-snare is to be made. The provident swallows fly away, the other birds think nothing of the morrow; they abide at home and are caught. A real phenomenon of Nature is also at the bottom of this fable. It is a notorious fact that in autumn swallows are off to southerly climes, and consequently are absent when birds are snared. The same thing may be said of the fable about the bat, which is despised by day and night, because it belongs to neither the one nor the other. A more general human significance is attributed to real prosaic incidents of this class, much as pious people are only too ready nowadays to interpret everything that occurs in a sense that is edifying or useful. It is, however, not essential to such a purpose that in every case the true fact of Nature should appear at once as obvious. In the fable, for instance, of the fox and the raven we are unable at first blush to recognize the natural fact, although it is not wholly absent. It is, in truth, a genuine characteristic both of ravens and crows that they set about cawing when they happen to catch sight of strange objects, whatever they may be, whether man or beast, in sudden motion. Natural relations of a similar kind lie at the root of the fable of the thorn-bush, which plucks the wool off the passer-by, or wounds the fox that seeks refuge there, or that of the countryman who warms a snake in his bosom. Others set forth occurrences which may naturally form part of animal experience; take, for instance, the first example of the fables of Aesop where the eagle devours the cubs of the fox and carries off a hot coal attached to the sacrificial flesh which sets his nest on fire. And, in conclusion, we find that others contain traits of old myths, such as the fable of the dung-beetle, eagle, and Jupiter, where the circumstance borrowed from natural history—we will pass it by for what it is worth—appears to be referable to the different seasons of the year when the eagle and dung-beetle respectively lay their eggs; at the same time we may observe a clear intimation here of the traditional importance of the scarab, which, however, even in our present example, is already treated with an inclination toward comedy, an inclination still more pronounced in Aristophanes. As an excuse for not entering more fully here into the question how many of these fables can actually be traced to Aesop we mention the already well-established fact that only of quite a small minority—the last-cited one of dung-beetle and the eagle is among them—can it be shown that they date from Aesop's time, or that in general terms there is any flavour of antiquity about them to support the view that Aesop is in fact their author.