les of Aesop. "The fable,"
says Professor K. O. Mueller, "originated in Greece in an intentional
travestie of human affairs. The 'ainos,' as its name denotes, is an
admonition, or rather a reproof veiled, either from fear of an excess
of frankness, or from a love of fun and jest, beneath the fiction of an
occurrence happening among beasts; and wherever we have any ancient and
authentic account of the Aesopian fables, we find it to be the same."[1]

The construction of a fable involves a minute attention to (1) the
narration itself; (2) the deduction of the moral; and (3) a careful
maintenance of the individual characteristics of the fictitious
personages introduced into it. The narration should relate to one
simple action, consistent with itself, and neither be overladen with a
multiplicity of details, nor distracted by a variety of circumstances.
The moral or lesson should be so plain, and so intimately interwoven
with, and so necessarily dependent on, the narration, that every reader
should be compelled to give to it the same undeniable interpretation.
The introduction of the animals or fictitious characters should be
marked with an unexceptionable care and attention to their natural
attributes, and to the qualities attributed to them by universal popular
consent. The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion
bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass
patient. Many of these fables are characterized by the strictest
observance of these rules. They are occupied with one short narrative,
from which the moral naturally flows, and with which it is intimately
associated. "'Tis the simple manner," says Dodsley,[2] "in which the
morals of Aesop are interwoven with his fables that distinguishes him,
and gives him the preference over all other mythologists. His 'Mountain
delivered of a Mouse,' produces the moral of his fable in ridicule of
pompous pretenders; and his Crow, when she drops her cheese, lets fall,
as it were by accident, the strongest admonition against the power of
flattery. There is no need of a separate sentence to explain it; no
possibility of impressing it deeper, by that load we too often see of
accumulated reflections."[3] An equal amount of praise is due for the
consistency with which the characters of the animals, fictitiously
introduced, are marked. While they are made to depict the motives and
passions of men, they retain, in an eminent degree, their own special
feat