The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aesop's Fables, by Aesop

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Title: Aesop's Fables

Author: Aesop

Release Date: February 27, 2004 [EBook #11339]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AESOP'S FABLES

A NEW TRANSLATION

BY V. S. VERNON JONES

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY G. K. CHESTERTON

AND ILLUSTRATIONS

BY ARTHUR RACKHAM

1912 EDITION

INTRODUCTION

_AEsop embodies an epigram not uncommon in human history; his fame
is all the more deserved because he never deserved it. The firm
foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots at uncommon sense, that
characterise all the Fables, belong not him but to humanity. In
the earliest human history whatever is authentic is universal: and
whatever is universal is anonymous. In such cases there is always
some central man who had first the trouble of collecting them, and
afterwards the fame of creating them. He had the fame; and, on the
whole, he earned the fame. There must have been something great and
human, something of the human future and the human past, in such a
man: even if he only used it to rob the past or deceive the future.
The story of Arthur may have been really connected with the most
fighting Christianity of falling Rome or with the most heathen
traditions hidden in the hills of Wales. But the word "Mappe" or
"Malory" will always mean King Arthur; even though we find older and
better origins than the Mabinogian; or write later and worse versions
than the "Idylls of the King." The nursery fairy tales may have come
out of Asia with the Indo-European race, now fortunately extinct; they
may have been invented by some fine French lady or gentleman like
Perrault: they may possibly even be what they profess to be. But we
shall always call the best selection of such tales "Grimm's Tales":
simply because it is the best collection.

The historical AEsop, in so far as he was historical, would seem to
have been a Phrygian slave, or at least one not to be specially and
symbolically adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty. H