As far as anyone now alive knows (and that includes Electra), Æsop, like Homer, never put words to paper. Many others over the centuries have taken his oral fables, added their own and wrote them down under his name. Æsop lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE and almost all the fables that have appeared in the Western world since he lived are said to be authored by him. In English alone, that’s well over 500 titles. Most of ‘his’ fables were written in the Middle Ages.
Tonight, Electra has chosen two versions of Æsop’s Belling the Cat or
The Council of Mice for your edification. The original fable was first written in the 1200s.
Belling the Cat
or
The Mice in Council
Joeseph Jacobs Version 1854-1916 The Fables of Æsop Publication date 1912
LONG ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last, a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about and could easily retire while she was in the neighborhood.”
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:
“IT IS EASY TO PROPOSE IMPOSSIBLE REMEDIES.”
The Council of Mice
Fable XLVIII
Jefferys Taylor Version 1792-1853 Æsop in Rhyme, with some Originals Publication date: 1828
SOME mice who saw fit once a quarter to meet,
To arrange the concerns of their city;
Thought it needful to choose, as is common with us,
First a chairman and then a committee.
When the chairman was seated, the object he stated
For which at that meeting they sat;
Which was, it should seem, the concerting a scheme
To defeat the designs of the cat.
Dr. Nibble-cheese rose, and said, “I would propose,
To this cat that we fasten a bell:
He who likes what I’ve said, now will hold up his head;
He who does not, may hold up his tail.”
So out of respect, they their noses erect,
Except one who the order reversed;
Ayes, all then but one, but yet naught could be done,
Until he had his reasons rehearsed.
“I shall not,” said this mouse, “waste the time of the house
In long arguments; since, as I view it,
The scheme would succeed, without doubt, if indeed
We could find any mouse who would do it.”
“Hear! hear!” was the cry, and “no bells we will try
Unless you will fasten them on;”
So quite broken-hearted the members departed,
For the bill was rejected nem. con.*
Then be not too hasty in giving advice,
Lest your schemes should remind of the council of mice;
You had better delay your opinion a year.
Than put forth a ridiculous one, it is clear.
*no one contradicting; unanimously
This is an open thread. Said sooner than done.
* * *
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