Mankind is like three fools. The first went to the tops of the mountains trying to catch a wind, and take it home, but though he tried a hundred years he never caught a wind that was as big as a drop of rain. The second, taking with him a number of servants and a great deal of money, sat down by the side of a river, trying to use its waters as a tablet on which to inscribe an elegy, but he could not form a word or trace a letter, though he laboured for a hundred years. The third tried to surpass the others by undertaking two enterprises at once. He had a huge bow made with arrows to match, and tried by night to shoot at the stars and other heavenly bodies and bring them home, that he alone might have light, but he could not catch a spark. Besides this, during the day he ran after his own shadow, but never caught it, though he tried for a hundred years.
The moral of this fable is the futility of human life and human endeavour. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Moses Kaghankatvatzi (seventh century) mentions in his history some interesting fables. In one of them, which arose when there was a great famine in the land, the story is put into the mouth of a personification of the grain millet, whose narrative is to this effect:—
“I, Millet, was lying in an unknown place in the village of Kaku, in the province of Shakashen. All the purchasers treated me with contempt and rejected me. Then came my brother, Famine, and dominated the land. From that day I went and sat on the tables of the King and the Catholicos.”
Armenian apologues and proverbial sayings are worthy of attention. Here are a few characteristic specimens; some of these are rhymed in the original, in others the contrasted words rhyme:—
One fool threw a stone into a well; forty wise men were unable to get it out.
He crossed the sea safely, and was drowned in a brook.
They were reading the Gospel over the wolf’s head. He said: “Hurry up! The sheep will get past.”
They asked the partridge: “Why are your feet red?” “From the cold,” he replied. “We have seen you in the summer as well,” they rejoined.
Are you the corn of the upper field? (Who are you that you should be set above others?)