Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1910 Book 06

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 363

1490]
Æsop's Fables.
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firm, while it is the nature of the reed to bend to every wind The fable springs out of the experience of a people who have found resistance against oppression useless. And this sort of teadhing we can not, of course, wish to give to our childten. I should certainly prefer that a child of mine should take the oak, and not the reed, for his pattern. The same spirit take the again inculcated in the fable of the Wanton Calf. The wanton calf sheers at the poor ox who all day long bears the heavy yoke patiently upon his neck. But in the evening it turns out that the ox is unyoked, while the calf is butchered. The choice seems to lie between subserviency and destruction. The fable of the Old Woman and her Maids suggests the same conclusion, with the warning added that it is useless to rise against the agents of tyranny so long as the tyrants themselves can not he overthrown. The cock in the fable represents the agents of oppression. The killing of the cock serves only to bring the mistress herself on the scene, and the lot of the servants becomes in consequence veryèmuch harder than it had been before.
We have now considered two groups of fables: those which depict the character of the mighty, and those which treat of. the proper policy of the weak. The subject of the third group is, the consolations of the weak. These are, first, that even tyrannical masters are to a certain extent dependent upon their inferiors, and can be punished if they go too far; secondly that the mighty occasionally come to grief in consequence of dissensions among themselves; thirdly that fortune is fickle. A lion is caught in the toils, and would perish did not a little 'mouse come to his aid by gnawing asunder the knots and fastenings. The bear robs the bees of their honey, but is punished and rendered almost desperate by their stings. An eagle carries off the cub of a fox; but the fox, snatching a fire-brand, threatens to set the eagle's nest on fire, and thus forces him to restore her young one. This is evidently & fable of insurrection. The fable of the Viper and the file shows that it is not safe to attack the wrong person in other words