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.