The Snake and the Crab
Speaking of The Snake and the Crab in Ancient Greece was the equivalent of the modern idiom, 'Pot calling the kettle black'. A fable attributed to Aesop was eventually created about the two creatures and later still yet another fable concerning a crab and its offspring was developed to make the same point.
The fables and their origin
The first known mention of the snake and the crab is found in a drinking song dating from the late 6th or early 5th century BCE:
- The crab spoke thus,
- seizing the snake in its claws,
- 'One’s comrade should be straight
- and not think crooked thoughts.’[1]
Since the movement of both creatures is far from direct, this is as much as to say that the pot should not call the kettle black.
A later fable, attributed to Aesop and numbered 196 in the Perry Index,[2] relates that the two were once friends. When the snake ignored the crab's advice to lead an honest life, it was killed by the crab. The snake then became rigid and the crab commented that if it had done so earlier it need not have died. The story only appeared in Greek sources until it was included in European collections of the fables during the Renaissance. In England it was recorded by Roger L'Estrange[3] and Samuel Croxall.[4] These portray the crab as honest and plain dealing, drawing the moral that one should be straightforward in behaviour and beware of friendship with those who are not. The story had therefore travelled a long way from being an illustration of hypocritical behaviour.
The crab and her daughter
Scholars believe that the fable of "The Two Crabs", alternatively known as "The Young Crab and its Mother" (Perry Index 322),[5] also derives from the original Greek idiom.[6] In this version, a young crab is told to walk straight by its mother and asks for a demonstration of how that is done. The story, recorded by Babrius and Aphthonius of Antioch in Greek and by Avianus in Latin, was taken up by William Caxton and later made the subject of new Latin poems by the German Renaissance poets Hieronymus Osius (1564)[7] and Caspar Barth (1612).[8] It is given the moral that those who teach should first set a good example, which at least preserves the bite of the Greek original. In the following century, La Fontaine's Fables subtly subvert the story. He titles it L'écrevisse et sa fille (The lobster and her daughter, XII.10)[9] but begins with a eulogy of political deviousness:
- The wise, sometimes, as lobsters do,
- To gain their ends back foremost go.
- It is the rower's art...
before telling a fable of a mere five lines out of a total of thirty. The mother instructs her daughter to be straightforward and is answered by an appeal to the force of example, of which the ironical La Fontaine approves.
Artistic use
Illustrations in fable collections before the 19th century generally portrayed two crabs (or cuttlefish) together on a sandy shore. Vincent van Gogh's painting of Two Crabs is visually much the same, although the National Gallery speculates that it might "probably" be an imitation[10] of a Japanese woodblock print by Hokusai.[11] An alternative source of inspiration is the fable titled "Moeder en dochter krab" (Mother and daughter crab) in Dutch editions of Aesop's fables.[12] Certainly it was from Aesop that the artist Edward Bawden got the idea for his 1956 coloured linocut of "An old crab and a young crab".[13]
There have also been a few musical treatments of the fable, including Mabel Wood Hill's setting for piano and voice in Aesop's Fables Interpreted Through Music (1920)[14] and in Edward Hughes Songs from Aesop's fables for children's voices and piano (1965). The earlier fable was also set in German by Andre Asriel as Die Schlange und der Krebs for mixed a cappella voices as part of his 6 Fabeln nach Aesop in 1972.[15][16]
References
- ^ Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, History of the Graeco-Latin fable I, Brill, Leiden NL 1999, p.146
- ^ Aesopica site
- ^ See online
- ^ Fables of Aesop, London 1722, Fable XII
- ^ Aesopica site
- ^ Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, History of the Graeco-Latin Fable III, Brill, Leiden 2003, p.273
- ^ Text online
- ^ Text online
- ^ Elizur Wright's translation
- ^ National Museum site
- ^ There is an example in the Harvard art museums
- ^ De nieuwe Aesopus, Groot Fabelboek voor jong en oud (Groningen 1880) p. 43
- ^ Edward Bawden – Aesop's Fables
- ^ Published in New York with words and music
- ^ Score at Preston Music
- ^ Performance on YouTube
External links
Illustrations in books from the 15th - 20th century
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Fables
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Ass and his Masters
- The Ass and the Pig
- The Ass Carrying an Image
- The Ass in the Lion's Skin
- The Astrologer who Fell into a Well
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Belly and the Members
- The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
- The Bird in Borrowed Feathers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Cock, the Dog and the Fox
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Crow and the Snake
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and Its Reflection
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dove and the Ant
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Fir and the Bramble
- The Fisherman and the Little Fish
- The Fowler and the Snake
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Fox and the Lion
- The Fox and the Mask
- The Fox and the Sick Lion
- The Fox and the Stork
- The Fox and the Weasel
- The Fox and the Woodman
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Goat and the Vine
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Horse and the Donkey
- The Horse that Lost its Liberty
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
- The Man with Two Mistresses
- The Mischievous Dog
- The Miser and his Gold
- The Moon and her Mother
- The Mountain in Labour
- The Mouse and the Oyster
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Oak and the Reed
- The Old Man and Death
- The Old Woman and the Doctor
- The Rose and the Amaranth
- The Satyr and the Traveller
- The Sick Kite
- The Snake and the Crab
- The Snake in the Thorn Bush
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- The Travellers and the Plane Tree
- The Trees and the Bramble
- The Two Pots
- The Walnut Tree
- Washing the Ethiopian White
- The Weasel and Aphrodite
- The Wolf and the Crane
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Woodcutter and the Trees
- The Young Man and the Swallow
- An ass eating thistles
- The Bear and the Gardener
- Belling the Cat (also known as The Mice in Council)
- The Blind Man and the Lame
- The Boy and the Filberts
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- The Dog in the Manger
- The drowned woman and her husband
- The Elm and the Vine
- The Fox and the Cat
- The Gourd and the Palm-tree
- The Hawk and the Nightingale
- The miller, his son and the donkey
- The Monkey and the Cat
- The Priest and the Wolf
- The Scorpion and the Frog
- The Shepherd and the Lion
adaptations
- Aesop's Film Fables
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
adaptations
- Demetrius of Phalerum
- Phaedrus
- Babrius
- Avianus
- Dositheus Magister
- Alexander Neckam
- Adémar de Chabannes
- Odo of Cheriton
- John Lydgate
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Laurentius Abstemius
- Roger L'Estrange
- Gabriele Faerno
- Hieronymus Osius
- Marie de France
- Robert Henryson
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Ivan Krylov
- Nicolas Trigault
- Robert Thom
- Zhou Zuoren