The Bat and the Weasel

A BAT who fell upon the ground and was caught by a Weasel pleaded to be spared his life. The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Shortly afterwards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by another Weasel, whom he likewise entreated not to eat him. The Weasel said that he had a special hostility to mice. The Bat assured him that he was not a mouse, but a bat, and thus a second time escaped.

It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.

Once again into the fray of “truths” brought to us by our old friend Aesop. This time we explore the constructive lie and ask whether we really needed to lie at all.

The Bat here is the one we have to watch closely. Why did he lie to the first weasel? We know he is not a bird, and indeed just a bat. He is not a mouse, but what really is the purpose of naming himself thus? Why lie?

In the first case it is interesting that we see the white lie at work; a lie but none the less a harmless lie of misstating its species. The second time around the harmless lie is no longer really good and the bat tells the truth and is thus spared a second time. Could the bat have told the truth both times and been freed? Surely so, but then we would not have the illustration that a small lie can do good.

We all think that lies, even small lies are bad things. But we all lie every day to help us get along in the world. Most of the time the lies are so small that they are hardly recognized. The lies can even be unstated by not saying anything when speaking up is really called for. These little lies are the grease of society and allow us to live, and in the case of the bat, literally live.

The literal moral provided with the graph is truly a simple statement. Use what you can and have around you to your advantage. This is so obvious that maybe it is too obvious, hence I see the “little lie” as the turn of the circumstance. I see a more useful and deep moral in the example that the obvious and I am not certain the moral is in line with the example.

Maybe I would have written the fable like this to fit the moral better:

THE BAT fell from the grape vine as was caught by a weasel. The Bat pleaded for his life and offered the weasel a beautiful ripe grape that happened to have fallen nearby. The weasel let the bat go to happily munch on the grape. The next day the bat fell again and was caught by another weasel. Again the weasel offered a beautiful grape to the weasel but the weasel did not like grapes so the bat caught a small cricket and offered this to the weasel and escaped again.

It is wise to turn circumstance to good account.

The second version of the fable reads more as the moral would have you believe and maybe more to what Aesop was thinking. Aesop being a slave would have had to be quick-witted to survive better. This being the case he would have used his circumstance and surroundings to his advantage (good account). This version does get around the sticky “lie” of the original, but maybe that is exactly the reason it is there.

Maybe Aesop wanted us to consider the “little lie” and thus made the moral a bit more austere than it needed to be. These paragraphs are more subtle that one might imagine and as you study them you need to look for a deeper truth. So maybe my version is not what Aesop had in mind after all.

I do not claim to be a great philosopher now do I even represent myself as having studied philosophy at all, this is just what I see in the fable and how I interpret it. I may be far off in term of what other wiser men may think, but for me this is the truth of the story. I am suspicious and see the little lie and ask if that is where Aesop is going. It was after all not needed, so why bother. This must be where Aesop wanted to take me, nudged by the none too relevant moral, so I have to look closer.

Read Aesop as a skeptic and you may find more there and you bargained for.

Note: While writing this entry I tried to look up online examples, explanations and analysis of this fable but was unable to find anything. This being the case I think I may have found an interesting subject to blog on in an extended manner. I will use my own powers of observation to dissect these fables and opposed to just relating them I will try to explain them. Again, I am not an expert, so it should come as an interesting exercise as this moves along.

The Wolf and the Lamb

THE WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.” “Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, “I was not then born.” Then said the Wolf, “You feed in my pasture.” “No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.” Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.” “No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.” Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.”

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.

The nice thing about the above paragraph is that it is 2600 years old and I do not need to worry about a copyright. And to the authors’ credit, “The Phrygian has spoken better than all” and still his words echo through this modern world as guides everyone should be exposed to.

So, who is the author and the creator of these guides? Well, he was born a slave if you can believe it or not. After two masters, the second set him free for nothing other the wit and wisdom. Not bad for simple slave training. Eventually, the quick-witted man sat with the sages of the time, men like Phaedo, Menippus, Epictetus, Solon, Thales, and Croecus. Still can’t place this great sage? Well, he was big in the court of the King of Lydia and finally settled to live the remainder of his life in Sardis where he was employed as a politician. After that he toured the countries and can be accounted in Corinth and Delphi where he had a strong influence. The extraordinary wit is none other that Aesop who’s fables we feed our children.

There are hundreds of Aesop Fables, yet I would bet few of us could only recount maybe one or two of these. The Tortoise and the Hare is by far the best known. Sour Grapes, Flies and the Honey Pot, The Wolf in Sheep’s’ Clothing, The Sheppard’s boy and the Wolf, and The Cat and the Mice are still some told to children but we are not spending the time to educate or kids to these fables. With 300 of these fables it would take the better part of a year to recount them as one a night. Since they are generally very short, you can teach these to your children and then discuss the moral of the story. Wow, can you imagine the children learning these morals at such a young age? What would our world be like?

How about the adults learning the Aesop Fables too? It does not take very much effort as to why I chose the above paragraph as pertaining to the current world situation. If all the world leaders were to read this graph of ancient wisdom we would all know we see right through most of your dealings. We learn to be suspicious of our leaders and let them prove by example how they treat the world around them and not create pretext. One simple paragraph and Aesop could save the world. And this is only the first of his Fables.

Now, does that mean I am putting our current President Bush in the part of the Wolf? Well in some respects, “If the shoe fits…”, yeah I guess you could say so. But do I put him their as the exclusive cause to the worlds problems, the Alpha Wolf? Certainly not. He is only one wolf looking to eat the tender lamb of the peoples searching adoration. And even though he is not “popular” any more, it was not the case six years ago or even three years ago when we had the chance to replace him and did not.

Personally I find all the political second guessing distasteful. If there is one thing I can give credit for to Hilary Clinton is that she has not pulled the old “I was against it before I was for it and then against it again” routine. She has stuck to her original opinion and while she has changes her current view as to what needs to be done now, she sticks by her decisions of the past. Thank you Hilary for not creating pretext.

And for all that is said about our Commander and Chief, he is laying in the bed he made and standing by his convictions. There is something to be said for that kind of stubbornness. I don’t agree with it, but there is something to be said for it. But whether wittingly or unwittingly our President has led us into a pretext and has landed us in our current world situation. Who knew what or who is to blame is beyond the point at this juncture, we need to simply untangle the pretext and move on. If apologies are to be made then I want to hear them. And even if they are to be made and the world tension gets relieved without an apology, I can handle that too.

But don’t think for a second that GW is the only one that needs to do the untangling. Many nations have contributed to the state of unrest we find ourselves. We are in a world where the Doomsday Clock is getting closer and closer to midnight and the superpowers are no longer the cause for it. Everybody has a hand in it and nobody is reading Aesop anymore.

I know, I have an idea… I will send copies of Aesop’s Fables to all the world leaders. I will send translations in English, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and dozens of other languages in a hope that these world leaders will read them and understand the truths they espouse. The morals of Aesop are not culturally biased. They were before the Bible, before the Koran, before almost all other learning. These morals are simply human observations of the truth and need neither proof nor explanation as to why they are relevant.

Let’s teach these morals to our children and maybe we’ll as parents learn something.