6 On the usefulness of fables (1526?) CR XI, 116–20
6 On the usefulness of fables (1526?)
CR XI, 116–20
I do not doubt that the more modest someone is the more he will wonder, and justly, what has come to my mind that I, a boy barely out of swaddling-clothes, should decide to speak here in the assembly of most learned youths. Indeed, we have not to such an extent laid aside all sense of shame that we would dare mutter, so to speak, in this lecture-room, unless most honourable reasons forced us to do so. For since it is unseemly to step forward here unless one can defend one's position with honour, with eloquence as well as authority, I fear that I shall be ridiculous if I undertake such a thing at an age of which everyone knows what it can do and how much it knows. However, if you do not expect perfect erudition, reverence should deserve the first praise in youthful minds; if I did not realise how far removed from it this theatrical show is, I should clearly be stupid. But my teacher's authority overcomes these reasonings; in order to try my intellect, he imposed on me this duty of speaking, and if I had refused it, I would not have appeared sufficiently dutiful. For I believe that a well-behaved young man has to obey his teacher even in an unjust matter. And so I preferred to be seen as no matter what, rather than to detract from my teacher's authority. I hope that this dutifulness will free me easily from any false accusation, and will persuade you to take it in good part that I strive to do the will of my teacher with some risk to myself. In the meantime, he himself will know to what purpose he wanted to put me to the test. He enjoined me to speak in praise of fables, which is an argument of a somewhat childish aspect, and fitting for my age. On the other hand, if one observes this argument more closely, one can understand that even the eloquence of the most sagacious men is hardly a match for it. For what part of literature or of life does not borrow something from the fables? But let me deal with the matter according to the measure of my wits, provided that it is not tedious to listen to a childish oration. If hope does not fail me, I intend to make you understand that no other kind of literature has been found to be more useful than fables.
In order that this be plausible, let me first reveal why, in my view, they were composed by preceding generations. They saw that, by a universal condition, mortals were born not only with weak bodies, but also with weak minds, and I believe that nature established this law in this way in order to increase in the parents the concern for rearing and protecting their offspring. The mouth is first unprotected and toothless, and very late the
tongue, hands and feet begin to perform their function. There is such weakness of all members in the delicate body that, if the infant did not cry one would almost not know that it is alive. With extraordinary benefit, nature has made a nourishment appropriate for that state of the body in the mother's breasts, because the mouth is not straight away strong enough for more solid foods. So the infant is nourished by its mother's milk until, its small strength having increased, it tolerates more solid food – and there are medical authors who believe that infants should be nourished with only milk for a full two-year period – then little by little more solid food is given, but for a while only food that is chewed in advance. Then it is put into the infant's mouth by the nurse's hand, until its own hand can perform this function. I do not mention with how much assiduity and care it is placed in the cradle in childhood, in order that a good condition may be provided for the limbs, and some comeliness for the features.
Unless I am mistaken, by that condition of the body nature represents the weakness of the mind, as if by some spectacle, and it reminds us by what care it wants us to train and educate the unformed minds of the children. For minds, too, have their infancy: we see how late they recognise even members of the family, they are without hope or fear, and they have no sense of absent things. Therefore wise men, having observed the power of nature more closely, discovered – not, I believe, mindlessly or without the will of the gods – that the mind also needs some kind of milk. I ask you, would it not be ridiculous, if someone carried a one-year-old infant around several cities and ordered him to observe and memorise their location and also the names of their hosts accurately, so that, having returned home, he could recount it to those of the same age? I judge that those are being equally absurd who set such things before children as their understanding cannot yet grasp. There is altogether nothing more beautiful and pleasant than the truth, but it is too far removed from the sight and the eyes of men for it to be beheld and known fortuitously. The minds of children need to be guided and attracted to it as if step by step by various enticements, so that they may then contemplate more closely the thing that is the most beautiful of all, but, alas, all too unclear and unknown to mortals. And just as those who want to be loved by children attract them with sugar and similar things, so the truth needs to be made agreeable with some allurements, and needs to be introduced into uncultivated minds.
Therefore, extremely sagacious men have devised some tales which first rouse by wonder the children's minds that are sleeping as if in lethargy. For
what seems more unusual to us than that a wolf speak with a horse, a lion with a little fox or an oak with a gourd, all in the manner of men? Quietly we wonder to ourselves what emotions and what language the animals would have; and this wonder gives rise to a desire to know the matter better, and it is useful to learn for what reason the stories are invented. When the mind has been stimulated little by little, it raises itself up to the contemplation of human matters, and begins to recognise the distinction between virtues and vices. Thereafter both the words and the meanings of the arguments which we heard with wonder remain rooted more deeply, and, so to speak, leave spines behind in the mind by which we are inflamed with a concern to investigate these things which are taught to us by the novel device.
I believe that fables were first invented with that intention, because it appeared that the indolent minds of children could not be roused more quickly by any other way of speaking. Perhaps the authors of the fables also did this in order to make the children's minds gentler by pleasant arguments. For in that age – like in fresh apples – there is something harsh and wild, which changes into barbarity and beast-like cruelty unless it is set right by a more humane education. For we see that the most serious and wisest of men have used this kind of teaching, and I cannot say easily what a great public evil it is that it is now banished from the schools. The learned admire the sagaciousness of the poet Homer so greatly that they place him beyond the common condition of mortals and clearly think that his mind was roused by some divine power. Yet he wrote about the war between frogs and mice [Batrachomyomachia] for the children whom he taught everywhere in Greece, in order both to delight the delicate minds with a very beautiful fable and to teach how much better it is to ignore a wrong than to avenge it, how uncertain is the outcome of all quarrels or wars, and that it happens not infrequently that the stronger are defeated by the weaker, and that often all ill turns itself against the instigator. For when the mice – provoked by some wrong – preferred to avenge that wrong with arms rather than ignore it, and trusted too much in their strength against the unwarlike frogs, the gods gave the victory to those who were less warlike, and the instigators of the war received a just punishment for their obstinacy. I ask you what is as important as implanting in children's minds a hatred of war and strife, a zeal for tolerance and other similar human arts?
It seems that Hesiod was of such sagacity that those who believed that he was made a poet by receiving his pen from the Muses wanted his poem to
be seen as divine. And yet, since he wanted it to be most clearly established for his fellow citizens that nothing is uglier or more monstrous than violence or wrongdoing, he painted the matter as if in a picture by composing the fable about the hawk and the nightingale [Works and Days 203ff.]. He, too, instructed the young Greeks, and one must not despise the writers who recorded the fables invented by Aesop.
I have said for what purpose I believe fables to have been invented, and it is possible to judge from this, as if from a source, their value and usefulness. For such wise men as the authors of the fables would never have been so delighted by these trifles had they not thought that they were most useful for educating the minds of children. What of the fact that fables were beneficial not only for children, but also for the most famous cities? When the Roman people disagreed with the Senate and had withdrawn to the Sacer Mons, and were not brought round by any fierce speech, Agrippa was sent, and he so charmed the entire multitude by a beautiful fable about the stomach and the other parts of the human body that they immediately resolved to return into favour with the Senate.1
When Macedon was to make a truce with Athens on the condition that those orators who had provoked the minds of the citizens against Macedon with continuous orations surrendered themselves, the eminent orator Demosthenes opposed the highly unjust condition of the state with a humorous fable, although the people, being distressed by the long war, did not shrink from the condition so much. For since he wanted to teach them that the orators were required to surrender so that the city, deprived of the protection of the orators, would be the easy victim of a royal tyranny, he set the intention of the Macedonians before the eyes of the multitude with admirable clarity and perspicuity with the following fiction. The wolves once made an agreement with the shepherds that from then on they would not attack the sheepfolds, if the dogs were surrendered to them. The agreement pleased the stupid shepherds, and the dogs were surrendered. Accordingly, as soon as the wolves saw that the guardians of the sheepfold were removed they began to attack the flock. Since this fable taught how important it was to protect the orators, it protected the state for as long as the decision to do so was valid. Assuredly these examples testify that there
1 Mons Sacer is a mountain near Rome, whither the Roman populace withdrew in a tumult, which led to the formation of the Tribunes (magistrates of free plebeian birth charged with the protection of the people). Menenius Agrippa, a Roman general, appeased the populace of Rome by a fable of the belly and limbs: see Livy, History of Rome, II. 32, cf. also Cicero, On Duties, III.v.22 and I Corinthians 12:12.
is some admirable power in fables; for it needs to have been a most powerful speech that wrenched the weapons from the hands of the implacably angered Roman citizens, and that led the grievously distressed Athenians, even though they all demanded peace with one voice, nevertheless to prefer war.
Someone may now invoke the staff of Mercury, by which the ancients pretended that souls were called from the underworld, or the cithern of Orpheus, by which they say that woods and rocks were attracted, but it seems to me that the music is no less to be admired by which the power of an excited multitude is calmed than that which softens beasts and rocks. I do not know if those who invented those things about Mercury and Orpheus wanted to express that uncouth mortals and wild animals are tamed by some special kind of speaking. If this is true, it is according to reason that this is achieved by the fable, a kind of speech by which the minds of the inexperienced are charmed. Surely those who founded the laws for their peoples left to following generations many things closely resembling fables. For what is that scene by Lycurgus? Did he not present a fable when he taught with the example of the two whelps that nature and innate strength are overcome by training and habit? I do not wish to enumerate here foreign laws and practices, since there are so many fables in the Holy Scriptures that it is sufficiently clear that the heavenly God Himself considered this kind of speech most powerful for bending the minds of men. I ask you, what greater praise can fall to fables than that the heavenly God also approves of them?
I believe that you have long since been wearied by these childish trifles, and I think that it is my function not to belabour you any longer, although the topic pleases me so much that I believe that it cannot be sufficiently praised by any oration. For what kind of speech is there in which the utmost grace is joined to the utmost usefulness in the same manner? For Horace said most truly that he who mingled the useful and the pleasant carried off all the applause [Art of Poetry 343]. For what speech expresses morals, studies and the intellects of men more accurately than fables? And this is done with such charm that the minds of men cannot be enchanted more quickly by any lyrics than they are grasped by the fables. Therefore I encourage those of my age to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the study of fables, if my oration has any merit. There are some who wear away their wits in investigating I do not know what obscure authors, and learn with great toil to be foolish. But the fables rouse, cheer and educate the minds of children most successfully. Since, furthermore, they exist in
Latin, they nourish the speech as if with some mild juice. Indeed, if you seek either precepts for shaping morals or an example of speaking correctly, no explanations would perform either more successfully than fables. I have spoken.