(a) The Parable
Parable has this general affinity with fable, that it accepts events from the circle of common life, but also makes them the depositors of a higher and more universal significance, expressly with a view that the same shall become intelligible and objective by means of that daily occurrence in its ordinary guise. A difference, however, at once asserts itself between the parable and fable, and it is this, that the former selects such occurrences in human action and habits, as we have them every day before our eyes, rather than in Nature and the animal world; it then expands the particular case selected, which appears trite enough at first as such a particular, to the range of wider interest, by suggesting through it a higher kind of significance.
For this reason the range and the importance of the significances in wealth of content can materially be increased and deepened[84], while, if we take the point of view of form, it is clear that the subjective process of intentional comparison and setting out of a generally instructive reflection already marks the acceptance and appearance of a more advanced type.
As a parable, still united to a wholly practical end, we may view the means of persuasion used by Cyrus to induce the Persians to rebel (Herod., I, cap. 126). His letter to the Persians advised them to betake themselves to a certain spot provided with sickles. When there he set them all on the first day to clear with hard labour a certain field overgrown with thistles. On the following day, however, after they had rested and bathed, he conducted them to a meadow and supplied them with ample cheer in the shape of food and wine. Finally, at the close of the feast, he asked of them which of the two days had proved the most enjoyable. All voted naturally for to-day rather than yesterday; the former had brought them only good things, while the latter had been a day of weariness and toil. On this Cyrus exclaimed: "Follow me, and many will be the good days such as the present has brought you. Refuse to follow me, and countless labours are in store quite a match for those of yesterday." Of a type akin to the above, though of profoundest interest and the widest range considered relatively to their significance, are the parables we meet with in the Gospels. Take, for example, that of the sower, a narrative which as such possesses the most unimportant subject-matter, and whose significance centres throughout in the comparison it supplies to the preaching of the kingdom of heaven. The significance in these parables is wholly a religious gospel, to which the human occurrences, wherein such is imaginatively presented, stand in a relation similar to that between the animal and human world in the fables of Aesop, where the former elicits the meaning of the latter. Of a like breadth of content is the famous story of Boccaccio, which Lessing converted in his "Natham" into the parable of the three rings. The substance of the narrative is also in this case taken by itself nothing remarkable; the extraordinarily wide, reach of its content arises wholly from the way the differences between and the relative validity of the three religions, namely, the Jewish, the Mohammedan, and the Christian, are suggested by it. The same thing may be said of the latest novelties in this type of art, the parables of Goethe for example. Take that of the "cat-pasty." In this a famous chef, in order to prove himself hunter no less than cook, went out hunting, but shot a tom-cat instead of a hare, which he then served up to the company sauced with his most consummate art. This is no doubt a reference to the Light theory of Newton. We have here under the guise of the hare-pie which the cook tried in vain to elaborate out of a cat a reflection of that abortive type of physical science which the mathematician will assume to be something better than it is. These parables of Goethe frequently have a strong touch of drollery about them, an aspect which they share with his fables by the help of which he was wont to shed himself of life's disappointments.
(b) The Proverb
The proverb forms as it were the middle point of this sphere. In the form of their execution, that is to say, proverbs lean at one time in the direction of the fable, at another to that of the apologue. They give us a particular case selected for the most part from the daily walk of mankind, which, however, is to be interpreted universally. Take the example, "One hand washes the other," or those others, "Every one wheels before his own door," "Who digs a grave for another, falls into it himself," "Bake a pudding for me and I will staunch your thirst," and others like them. To wise saws of this type belong the many apophthegems that Goethe has contributed to modern literature, often of exquisite grace and profound to a degree. These are not modes of comparison of the type that the general significance and the concrete phenomenon are opposed to one another in separation, but the former is immediately expressed with the latter.
(c) The Apologue
The apologue may be regarded as a parable, which not only serves in the way of comparison to render visible a general significance, but rather in this its very form reproduces and expresses the general moral, the same being actually included in the particular case, which is, however, related as only a single example. Conformably to this definition we may call Goethe's "Der Gott und die Bajadere" an apologue. Here we find the Christian tale of the repentant Magdalene reclothed in accordance with Hindoo ideas. The Bajadere[85] exemplifies the same humility, a like strength of love and faith; God puts her to the proof, an ordeal she completely sustains, and her exaltation and reconciliation follows. In the apologue also narrative is so extended that the outcome of it furnishes the moral itself, bare of any parallel to support it, as may be illustrated from "The Treasure-Finder":
Work by day and guests at night,
Weeks of moil, feasts of delight,
Such the Future's spell for thee.