354
freed by the mouse who eats through a sack in which the lion has later been captured
by a human. The Age of Zeus, involving all species “at war” (polemos) is superseded by the previous Age of Zeus’ father, Cronus, in which the world—all species—coexisted in a time of wonderful harmony; animals were hemeros, “tame and
gentle,” lacking “teeth and claws”.
3
The great Greek poet Hesiod, in his Works and Days (c. 700 BCE), had early on
established the seriousness of these dialogues between animals, a remarkable influence on Socrates and Plato and hence, upon all subsequent philosophical literature,
such that “aerial spirits” are attributed with the very powers on earth of being “the
Guardians of Mankind” at a time when “Men, abandon’d to their Grief,/Sink in their
Sorrows, hopeless of Relief. While now my Fable from the Birds I Bring,/To the
great Rulers of the Earth I sing”.
4
And it is not just the birds (as demonstrated throughout Aesop) that have messages for human policy. As studied in the Perry Index of Aesop’s Fables (Ben Edwin
Perry, 1892–1968, a professor of classics at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign), the fox, in trying to determine the edibility of a cluster of grapes, is
granted a precocious intellect, as is every sentient being portrayed by Aesop, who
wrote his masterpiece at the same time that the Chandogya Upanishad had promulgated the great declaration, “Tat Tvam Asi,” “You are That,” “That Thou Art”.
5
Aesop’s remarkable influence has reached straight across the history of humanity, to date, bearing uncanny and undeniable substance of what today is thought of
as deep ethology, or zoosemiotics. But what is so utterly profound about the evolution of Aesop’s masterpiece are all the loose trappings allowing for any kind of
illustration or translation that accords even the most basic set of feelings toward
other species. Aesop, in essence, has formulated an interspecies international language, no less the Esperanto of L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. The Byzantine monk
Maximum Planudes (1260–1310) collected every fable from the Greek he could
find, and his manuscript came to be known as The Medici Aesop, most likely illustrated by Gherardo di Giovanni (1444–1497), a painter who in his time attracted as
much adulation as Botticelli and Leonardo. Vasari devoted a chapter to him. His
illuminations are particularly sensitive with respect to the faces of oxen, foxes, and
monkeys, dogs, hens, wolves, frogs, lions, donkeys, moles and bears, rooks, and
shrews. The book would become the basis for nearly all subsequent versions
throughout the world.
6
3 ibid., Korhonen, pp. 10–11.
4 Hesiod, Works and Days, The Works of Hesiod, Translated from the Greek, N. Blandford, London,
1728, p. 86.
5 See The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human Evolution, by M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison,
Springer Nature, New York, 2019, p. 51. See also, Perry, B.E. Studies in the Text History Of the Life
and Fables Of Aesop. Oxford University Press, New York, 1981.
6 See The Medici Aesop, Spencer Ms 50, From the Spencer Collection of The New York Public
Library, Introduction by Everett Fahy, Fables Translated from the Greek by Bernard McTigue,
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York 1989. For the reference to Ghirlandaio and Vasari,
see p. 10 of The Medici Aesop introduction.
40 The Zoosemiotic Paradox of Aesop
freed by the mouse who eats through a sack in which the lion has later been captured
by a human. The Age of Zeus, involving all species “at war” (polemos) is superseded by the previous Age of Zeus’ father, Cronus, in which the world—all species—coexisted in a time of wonderful harmony; animals were hemeros, “tame and
gentle,” lacking “teeth and claws”.
3
The great Greek poet Hesiod, in his Works and Days (c. 700 BCE), had early on
established the seriousness of these dialogues between animals, a remarkable influence on Socrates and Plato and hence, upon all subsequent philosophical literature,
such that “aerial spirits” are attributed with the very powers on earth of being “the
Guardians of Mankind” at a time when “Men, abandon’d to their Grief,/Sink in their
Sorrows, hopeless of Relief. While now my Fable from the Birds I Bring,/To the
great Rulers of the Earth I sing”.
4
And it is not just the birds (as demonstrated throughout Aesop) that have messages for human policy. As studied in the Perry Index of Aesop’s Fables (Ben Edwin
Perry, 1892–1968, a professor of classics at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign), the fox, in trying to determine the edibility of a cluster of grapes, is
granted a precocious intellect, as is every sentient being portrayed by Aesop, who
wrote his masterpiece at the same time that the Chandogya Upanishad had promulgated the great declaration, “Tat Tvam Asi,” “You are That,” “That Thou Art”.
5
Aesop’s remarkable influence has reached straight across the history of humanity, to date, bearing uncanny and undeniable substance of what today is thought of
as deep ethology, or zoosemiotics. But what is so utterly profound about the evolution of Aesop’s masterpiece are all the loose trappings allowing for any kind of
illustration or translation that accords even the most basic set of feelings toward
other species. Aesop, in essence, has formulated an interspecies international language, no less the Esperanto of L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. The Byzantine monk
Maximum Planudes (1260–1310) collected every fable from the Greek he could
find, and his manuscript came to be known as The Medici Aesop, most likely illustrated by Gherardo di Giovanni (1444–1497), a painter who in his time attracted as
much adulation as Botticelli and Leonardo. Vasari devoted a chapter to him. His
illuminations are particularly sensitive with respect to the faces of oxen, foxes, and
monkeys, dogs, hens, wolves, frogs, lions, donkeys, moles and bears, rooks, and
shrews. The book would become the basis for nearly all subsequent versions
throughout the world.
6
3 ibid., Korhonen, pp. 10–11.
4 Hesiod, Works and Days, The Works of Hesiod, Translated from the Greek, N. Blandford, London,
1728, p. 86.
5 See The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human Evolution, by M. C. Tobias and J. G. Morrison,
Springer Nature, New York, 2019, p. 51. See also, Perry, B.E. Studies in the Text History Of the Life
and Fables Of Aesop. Oxford University Press, New York, 1981.
6 See The Medici Aesop, Spencer Ms 50, From the Spencer Collection of The New York Public
Library, Introduction by Everett Fahy, Fables Translated from the Greek by Bernard McTigue,
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York 1989. For the reference to Ghirlandaio and Vasari,
see p. 10 of The Medici Aesop introduction.
40 The Zoosemiotic Paradox of Aesop