Bernard Salomon: Aesop Cycle / 01392-21web

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01392-21web


Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien, mises en Ryme Francoise.
Auec la vie dudit Esope extraite de plusieurs autheurs par M. Antoine du Moulin Masconnois.
A Lyon, Par Iean de Tournes, & Guillaume Gazeau. 1547.

Fable 33. Du Cheval & de l'Asne.
(N'estre orgueilleux pour prosperité.)

note: Fables 33 and 67 use the same woodcut. (note)

For the Reader: A selection of Translations (mostly English), being those on hand at this writing..
Edition   Citation   Fable Title
Julien Macho, Lyon, 1480   III-3, fig. 74   de lasne et du chaval et de leur fortune
William Caxton, tr. (Steinhöwel) 1483   III-3   of the horse of the asse and of theyre fortune
Roger L'Estrange, tr, 1692   cf. p. 100 [no. 38]   A Horse and an Ass
Thomas Bewick, illus., 1818        
S.A. Handford, trans., 1954        
Edwin Perry, ed., trans. Barbrius and Phaedrus, 1965        
Olivia and Robert Temple (Chambry numbering), 1998        
Laura Gibbs, Aesop text project (WWW) Site active in 2002.   Perry 565    
Townsend   222   The Horse and the Ass
La Fontaine   VI-16    

note:
There are several versions of this fable. The central theme of each concerns a haughty horse who disparages the lowly ass and thinks much of himself. (Or a mule who refuses to come to the aid of the ass.) In each version the details differ. In one version, the one told by Babrius (Perry B&P, p. 3, no. 7, Perry 181. L'Estrange, p. 140: A Laden Ass and a Horse, Townsend 50; La Fontaine, Le Cheval et l'Ane), the Ass asks the horse (or mule) to share is burden because it is so heavy he will die. The ass does die and their master loads the entire load, including the skin of the ass onto the horse. The moral of this fable is that you end up being treated to what you deserve.

Another version -- told in the Steinhöwel and derivative translations -- revolves around a turns of fortune. The ass and the horse pass each other on the road. The horse is finely arrayed with a fine saddle and bridle. The horse is haughty to the ass. Time passes, the horse gets weak or sick and is put to work pulling a dung-cart. The ass recognizes him in the field and chides him for his former boasts of superiority. (Perry 565 L'Estrange, p. 100). This is the version told in the text of the de Tournes/Salomon Fable No. 33, above.

A third version (Perry 357)  Bewick (p. 327) tells a variant of the above. Instead of becomming sick, the horse is wounded in the eye during a military campaign and is placed in pasture.