Aesop's name. Aesop - The First Fabulist

Many of the plots of Aesop's short moral stories are familiar to everyone since childhood. It is unlikely that anyone has not heard about the fox who took the cheese from the raven by cunning, or about the sons who dug up the entire vineyard in search of treasure.

Aesop was born and lived in the 6th century BC. e. The most famous legends say that, unfortunately, the fabulist was a slave. This theory became widespread thanks to the works of the historian Herodotus.

Popularity of the fabulist

IN Ancient Greece everyone knew who Aesop was. His fables were constantly passed on from mouth to mouth; they were part of the school curriculum. It was Aesop who was the first fabulist to describe human vices through images of animals and ridicule them. He focused on a variety of human weaknesses: pride and greed, laziness and deception, stupidity and deceit. His sharp, satirical fables often brought listeners to tears. And often even rulers asked to tell them in order to amuse their audience.

Fables that have come down to us through the centuries

The stories that Aesop invented fascinated listeners with their brevity, laconism, satire and wisdom. Their main object of ridicule was human vices, which people cannot get rid of to this day. And this is what makes Aesop's works so relevant. Animals and people, birds and insects act in them. Sometimes among the acting characters there are even residents of Olympus. With the help of his mind, Aesop was able to create a whole world in which people can look at their shortcomings from the outside.

In each of the fables, Aesop shows a brief scene from life. For example, a fox looks at a bunch of grapes that she can’t reach. Or a lazy and stupid pig begins to dig up the roots of the tree whose fruits it just ate. But the sons begin to dig up the vineyard, trying to find the treasure that their father allegedly hid on its territory. Getting acquainted with Aesop's fables, the reader easily remembers simple truths that real treasure is the ability to work, that there is nothing better or worse in the world than language, etc.

Historical information about Aesop

Unfortunately, practically no information has been preserved about who Aesop was and what his life was like. Herodotus writes that he was a slave to a master named Iadmon, who was a resident of the island of Samos. Aesop was a very obstinate worker and often made jokes that other slaves laughed at. At first, the owner was dissatisfied with all this, but then he realized that Aesop really had an extraordinary mind, and decided to let him go.

These are brief data from the biography of Aesop. Another historian, Heraclitus of Pontus, writes that Aesop was from Thrace. His first owner's name was Xanthus, and he was a philosopher. But Aesop, who was smarter than him, openly made fun of his attempts to be wise. After all, Xanth was very stupid. Almost nothing is known about Aesop's personal life.

Fable and the Athenians

Once, Alexander the Great demanded that the residents of the city of Athens hand over to him the orator Demosthenes, who spoke against him in very harsh tones. The speaker told the townspeople a fable. It said that once a wolf asked the sheep to give him the dog that was guarding them. When the herd obeyed him, the predator very quickly dealt with them without the dog guarding them. The Athenians understood what the speaker wanted to say and did not hand over Demosthenes. Thus, Aesop’s fable helped the city residents to correctly assess the situation. As a result, they united in the fight against the enemy.

All of Aesop's fables contain an entertaining plot that makes the listener think. His creations are filled with morality that is understandable to everyone. After all, the events of fables are based on those events that everyone has probably experienced during their life.

Subsequently, the works of the fabulist Aesop were rewritten many times by other authors, who made their own additions to them. Ultimately, these stories were short, tongue-in-cheek, and imaginative. The expression “Aesopian language,” which is applied to everything allegorical and mocking, has become a common noun.

What did they say about the fabulist?

There were legends about who Aesop was. He was often portrayed as a short and hunchbacked old man with a lisping voice. They said that Aesop had a repulsive appearance. However, as further analysis showed, this description does not coincide with the data recorded by historians. The description of his appearance is a figment of the imagination of various writers. It was believed that since Aesop was a slave, he had to be constantly beaten and pushed - that’s why he was depicted as hunchbacked. And since the writers also wanted to show the richness of the fabulist’s inner world, they presented his appearance as ugly and ugly. So they tried to stir up interest in the works of the fabulist, and often in their own, the authorship of which was attributed to Aesop.

And gradually a huge amount of fictitious information about who Aesop was was woven into the legend about the fabulist. Maximus Planud, a famous Greek writer, even compiled a biography of Aesop. In it, he described him as follows: “He’s a freak, not suitable for work, his head looks like a dirty cauldron, his arms are short, and there’s a hump on his back.”

Legend of Death

There is even a legend about how the fabulist died. One day, the ruler Croesus sent him to Delphi, and when Aesop arrived there, he began to teach the local residents, as was his custom. They were so outraged by this that they decided to take revenge on him. They placed a cup from the temple in the fabulist's knapsack, and then began to convince the local priests that Aesop was a thief and worthy of execution. No matter how the fabulist tried to prove that he did not steal anything, nothing helped. They brought him to a high cliff and demanded that he throw himself off it. Aesop did not want such a stupid death, but the evil townspeople insisted. The fabulist could not convince them and fell from a height.

Whatever the real biography of Aesop, his fables have managed to survive centuries. The total number of fables is more than 400. It is believed that the works were written in the form of poems, but they have not been preserved in this form. These creations are known in every civilized country. In the 17th century, Jean La Fontaine began processing them, and in the 19th century, fables from his works migrated into the Russian language thanks to the work of Krylov.

semi-legendary figure of ancient Greek literature, fabulist who lived in the 6th century BC. e.

It is impossible to say whether Aesop was a historical figure. There was no scientific tradition about the life of Aesop. Herodotus (II, 134) writes that Aesop was a slave of a certain Iadmon from the island of Samos, then was set free, lived during the time of the Egyptian king Amasis (570-526 BC) and was killed by the Delphians; for his death, Delphi paid a ransom to the descendants of Iadmon. Heraclides of Pontus writes more than a hundred years later that Aesop came from Thrace, was a contemporary of Pherecydes, and his first owner was called Xanthus, but he extracts this data from the same story of Herodotus through unreliable inferences (for example, Thrace as the homeland of Aesop is inspired by the fact that Herodotus mentions Aesop in connection with the Thracian heteroa Rhodopis, who was also a slave to Iadmon). Aristophanes ("Wasps", 1446-1448) already reports details about Aesop's death - the wandering motif of a planted cup, which served as the reason for his accusation, and the fable of the eagle and the beetle, told by him before his death. A century later, this statement of Aristophanes’ heroes is repeated as a historical fact. The comedian Plato (late 5th century) already mentions the posthumous reincarnations of Aesop’s soul. The comedian Alexis (late 4th century), who wrote the comedy “Aesop,” pits his hero against Solon, that is, he already interweaves the legend of Aesop into the cycle of legends about the seven wise men and King Croesus. His contemporary Lysippos also knew this version, depicting Aesop at the head of the seven wise men.

Slavery at Xanthus, connection with the seven sages, death from the treachery of the Delphic priests - all these motives became links in the subsequent Aesopian legend, the core of which was formed by the end of the 4th century. BC e. The most important monument of this tradition was the “Biography of Aesop,” compiled in the vernacular language, which survived in several editions. In this version, Aesop’s deformity (not mentioned by ancient authors) plays an important role; Phrygia (a stereotypical place associated with slaves) becomes his homeland instead of Thrace; Aesop appears as a sage and joker, fooling kings and his master, a stupid philosopher. In this plot, surprisingly, Aesop’s fables themselves play almost no role; the anecdotes and jokes told by Aesop in his “Biography” are not included in the collection of “Aesop’s fables” that has come down to us from antiquity and are quite far from it in terms of genre. The image of the ugly, wise and cunning “Phrygian slave” in finished form goes to the new European tradition. Antiquity did not doubt the historicity of Aesop, the Renaissance first questioned this question (Luther), the philology of the 18th century substantiated this doubt (Richard Bentley), the philology of the 19th century took it to the extreme (Otto Crusius and after him Rutherford asserted the mythicality of Aesop with the decisiveness characteristic of for the hypercriticism of their era), the 20th century began to again lean towards the assumption of a historical prototype of the image of Aesop.

Heritage

Under the name of Aesop, a collection of fables (of 426 short works) in prosaic presentation has been preserved. There is reason to believe that in the era of Aristophanes (end of the 5th century) a written collection of Aesop’s fables was known in Athens, from which children were taught

at school; “You are ignorant and lazy, you haven’t even learned Aesop,” says Aristophanes character. These were prosaic retellings, without any artistic decoration. In fact, the so-called Aesop's collection included fables from various eras.

In the 3rd century BC. e. his fables were recorded in 10 books by Demetrius of Phalerum (c. 350 - c. 283 BC). This collection was lost after the 9th century. n. e.

In the 1st century, the freedman of Emperor Augustus, Phaedrus, translated these fables into Latin iambic verse (many of Phaedrus’s fables are of original origin), and Avian, around the 4th century, rearranged 42 fables into Latin elegiac distich; in the Middle Ages, Avian's fables, despite their not very high artistic level, were very popular. Latin versions of many of Aesop's fables, with the addition of later tales and then medieval fabliaux, formed the so-called collection "Romulus". About 100 n. e. Babrius, who apparently lived in Syria, a Roman by origin, set out Aesop’s fables in Greek verses in the size of a holyammb. The works of Babrius were included by Planud (1260-1310) in his famous collection, which influenced later fabulists.

Interest in Aesop's fables extended to his personality; in the absence of reliable information about him, they resorted to legend. The Phrygian talker, who allegorically reviled the powers that be, naturally seemed to be a grumpy and angry man, like Homer’s Thersites, and therefore the portrait of Thersites, depicted in detail by Homer, was transferred to Aesop. He was presented as hunchbacked, lame, with the face of a monkey - in a word, ugly in every way and directly opposite to the divine beauty of Apollo; This is how he was depicted in sculpture, by the way - in that interesting statue that has survived to us.

In the Middle Ages, an anecdotal biography of Aesop was composed in Byzantium, which was long taken as a source of reliable information about him. Aesop is represented here as a slave, sold for next to nothing, constantly offended by fellow slaves, overseers, and masters, but able to successfully take revenge on his offenders. This biography not only did not follow from the genuine tradition about Aesop - it is not even of Greek origin [source not specified 566 days]. Its source is a Jewish story of the 6th century BC. e. about the wise Ahikar, belonging to the cycle of legends that surrounded the personality of King Solomon among later Jews. The story itself is known mainly from ancient Slavic adaptations (The Tale of Akira the Wise).

Martin Luther discovered that Aesop's book of fables is not the sole work of one author, but a collection of older and newer fables, and that the traditional image of Aesop is the fruit of a “poetic tale.”

Aesop's fables have been translated (often revised) into many languages ​​of the world, including by the famous fable writers Jean La Fontaine and Ivan Krylov.

In Russian full translation All Aesop's Fables was published in 1968

King Amasis (570-526 BC) and was killed by the Delphians; for his death, Delphi paid a ransom to the descendants of Iadmon.

In Russian, a complete translation of all of Aesop's fables was published in 1968.

Some fables

• Beetle and Ant

Quotes

• Gratitude is a sign of the nobility of the soul.
• Chilo is said to have asked Aesop: “What is Zeus doing?” Aesop replied: “Makes the high low and the low high.”
• If a person takes on two things that are directly opposite to each other, he will certainly fail in one of them.
• Each person is given his own task, and each task has its own time.
• The true treasure for people is the ability to work.

Literature

Lyrics

Translations

• In the series: “Collection Budé”: Esope. Fables. Texte établi et traduit par E. Chambry. 5e circulation 2002. LIV, 324 p.

Russian translations:

• Esop's fables with moral teaching and notes by Roger Letrange, again published and translated into Russian in St. Petersburg, office of the Academy of Sciences by secretary Sergei Volchkov. St. Petersburg, 1747. 515 pp. (reprints)
• Esop's fables with fables of the Latin poet Philelphus, from the latest French translation, a complete description of Esop's life... supplied by Mr. Bellegarde, now again translated into Russian by D. T. M., 1792. 558 pp.
• Ezopov's fables. / Per. and note. I. Martynova. St. Petersburg, . 297 pp.
• Complete collection of Aesop's fables... M., . 132 pp.
• Aesop's Fables. / Per. M. L. Gasparova. (Series “Literary monuments”). M.: Science, . 320 pp. 30,000 copies.
  • reprint in the same series: M., 1993.
  • reprint: Ancient fable. M.: Artist. lit. 1991. pp. 23-268.
  • reprint: Aesop. Commandments. Fables. Biography / trans. Gasparova M. L. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2003. - 288 p. - ISBN 5-222-03491-7

See also

• Babriy - author of poetic expositions of Aesop's fables

Links

• Aesop on Wikilivre

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what "Aesop" is in other dictionaries:

- (Aesopus, Αί̉σωπος). The author of the famous “Aesop's fables”, lived around 570 BC. and was a contemporary of Solon. He was on. slave origin; Having received his freedom, Aesop went to Croesus, who sent him to Delphi. At Delphi he was accused of sacrilege... ... Encyclopedia of Mythology

- (Esop) (VI century BC) legendary fabulist, Phrygian by origin When you are at the royal court, let everything you hear die within you, so that you yourself do not have to die untimely. Be nice to your wife so that she doesn’t want... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

The name of a Greek fabulist, notable for his ugliness. Explanation of 25,000 foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language, with the meaning of their roots. Mikhelson A.D., 1865. ESOP see Esop. Dictionary of foreign words included in... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Deceiver, liar, fabulist, talker Dictionary of Russian synonyms. aesop noun, number of synonyms: 4 fabulist (4) ... Dictionary of synonyms

Aesop, Aisopos, ca. VI. BC e., Greek fabulist. The vast majority of Greek fables written in prose are attributed to him. We do not have any reliable information about his life. The first mention of E., later numbered among the seven sages... Ancient writers

AESOP- electric power industry and interference protection in the name of EZOP LLC organization, technical, energy... Dictionary of abbreviations and abbreviations

AESOP, ancient Greek fabulist (6th century BC), considered the creator (or canonizer) of the fable genre. Legends depict Aesop as a lame slave, a foolish folk sage, thrown from a cliff. The plots of almost all known in... ... were attributed to him. Modern encyclopedia

Currently, there are two points of view regarding the personality of Aesop: is he a real man or a collective image. Most information about Aesop is contradictory and has no official historical confirmation. The only mention by historians of Aesop's biography is Herodotus' record of him as a slave. His opponent, for example, was Martin Luther. He believed that the collection of Aesop's fables was the work of several authors of more ancient fables, and the image of Aesop is the fruit of a “poetic legend.”

According to Herodotus, Aesop's contemporary was the ancient Egyptian king Amasis (570-526 BC).

Life path

The birthplace of the poet-fabulist is considered to be Phrygia, which is located on the Asia Minor peninsula. Aesop was a slave of the Hellene Iadamon, who lived on the island of Samos. It was he who subsequently granted the fabulist freedom. Exact date life path Aesop doesn't exist. It is believed that he was born around 620 BC and died in 564 BC. The talented Greek was known not only for his fables, but also for his famous sayings. So, one day his acquaintance Chilo asked his friend: “What does Zeus do?

" To this Aesop gave him the following answer: “Makes the high low and the low high.”

He understood morality in his own way, saying that gratitude is a sign of the nobility of the soul, and each person is given his own business and each business has its own time. One of his most important sayings was the idea that the ability to work is a true treasure for every person. This is what it looks like short biography fabulist Aesop.

Appearance

Aesop was almost always portrayed as a hunchbacked old man of short stature with a lisping voice. According to rumors, he had an unflattering appearance. On the other hand, there is an opinion that this is a figment of the imagination of later writers. If Aesop was a slave, he would have to endure beatings from his master, which would have resulted in a hump forming on his back. And the external ugliness was supposed to be compensated by the rich inner world of the Greek.

Creation

The characteristic features of Aesop's fables are their brevity, satire and wisdom. In them he ridiculed all kinds of human vices, including greed, deceit, greed, pride and envy. The main characters of fables are usually animals. Sometimes the characters in the plot were also the people and gods of Olympus. Aesop created a whole world, which turned into a litmus test for people who were able to see their vices from the outside.

Each work includes a small scene from life, which has an obligatory subtext. So, the hare, gifted with speed, loses the race to the tortoise, who stubbornly fought for victory while he lay down to sleep. A stupid and lazy pig digs up the roots of a tree, the fruits of which it recently filled its belly with. And the sons, in search of their father's treasure, dig up the entire vineyard of the old man.

Reading Aesop's works, people remember simple truths, that the true value is the ability to work, and in the world there is nothing both worse and better than human language.

Aesop is the founder of the fable and the first standard-bearer of the celebration of human virtue and morality.

Brief biography of Aesop and interesting facts The life of the ancient Greek writer of fables is described in this article. A short story about Aesop will help you learn a lot of interesting things about this personality.

Biography of Aesop for children

It is reliably known that the ancient Greek figure lived in the middle of the 6th century. This is all that can be said with certainty. The rest is fiction and conjecture. History has not preserved information about his life. Pieces of information can be found in Herodotus. The historian claims that Aesop served as a slave for a master named Iadmon, who lived on the island of Samos. The fabulist was known as an obstinate worker and often made absurd jokes that amused the other slaves. At first, the owner was outraged by his behavior, but he soon realized that his worker had an exceptionally extraordinary mind, and set him free. That's all we can learn from the works of Herodotus about this man.

Some more information can be extracted from the works of the historian Heraclitus of Pontus. It indicates other information. Heraclitus of Pontus claims that Aesop's birthplace was Thrace. Its first owner's name was Xanthus, he was a philosopher. But Aesop was much smarter than Xanthus. He constantly laughed at his master's wise sayings and his philosophy. And he set his slave free.

Nothing more is known about his life. There is only a legend about his death, and a collection of fables has survived.

The legend of his death says the following. One day, the ruler Croesus sends Aesop to Delphi. The reason for this action is unknown. Arriving in the city, as usual, the fabulist began to teach the inhabitants of Delphi. They were very indignant at his behavior and began to think about how to take revenge on Aesop. And they came up with an idea: they threw a cup from a local temple into his knapsack and informed the priest that the fabulist was a thief. No matter how hard Aesop tried to prove that he was innocent, it was all in vain. He was sentenced to execution: they brought him to a heavy rock and forced him to jump from it. This is how the fabulist from Ancient Greece ended his journey absurdly.

A collection of Aesop's fables has survived to this day. But an interesting point is that it was compiled in the Middle Ages. Therefore, it is impossible to say for sure that this is the true legacy of the ancient Greek fabulist.

• Aesop's fables have their own twist. They are based on a folk fable with a long history. They present everyday live scenes.
• His creations were often subject to distortion. First it was retold by the Roman fabulist Phaedrus, then by the Greek writer Babriy and Lafontaine, Dmitriev, Izmailov.
• Aesop was often portrayed as a hunchbacked and short old man who spoke with a lisp. It was rumored that he had a repulsive appearance.
• He is the founder of the fable genre and the artistic language of allegories, named after him - Aesopian language.
• Aesop's fables, of which about 400 have survived, have a special function. They push the listener to think.

A 5th grader can present a message about Aesop at a literature lesson.