Thursday, February 26, 2009

Aesop's Fables

I really enjoyed my audio version of this. The narrator was great and even did some of the animal voices! :-) A nice and quick listen.

I knew that Aesop lived in Ancient Greece (around 620-560 BC) but I didn't know that he was a slave. Apparently there isn't much information on him except that he was freed at some point and that he died in Delphi. Although some scholars claim that he never existed, he is refered to by both Aristophanes and Plato in some of their works. So I guess he did exist after all.

Fables are short tales involving animals, each with a moral at the end. The morals concern lots of areas of life - how to behave, how to relate to people, how to survive, how to be nice and good. I like that animals and plants and ancient Greek Gods are used to illustrate lessons.

There were many that made me smile as I was listening, but of course I can't remember any right now. :-) But I'll give you another interesting piece of information that I read on Wikipedia - the first printed English version came out in 1484.

I will also say that I was surprised that some of the concepts that we all know today actually come from Aesop - like The Boy who Cried Wolf and the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Many others are also recognisable.

Anyway, these simple life truths are definitely worth listening to, if you haven't done so already.

Challenges: 999 Challenge, Audiobook Challenge, Casual Classics Challenge, Centuries Challenge, Lost in Translation, What an Animal

2 comments:

Ana S. said...

I've only read abridged versions of this, but I have a complete edition...I should get to it!

joanna said...

It's fun. I think it would be even more fun in a children's edition with nice illustrations etc. :-)