355
40.3 Aesop’s Many Histories
The first English translation from the Latin, by William Caxton in 1484, presented
Aesop for children. Versions of this would inspire Charles Perrault, Jean de La
Fontaine, Sir Roger L’Estrange, the Reverend Samuel Croxall, and zoologist
Thomas Bewick, as well as illustrators as diverse as Arthur Rackham, John Tenniel,
and Alexander Calder.
In the early thirteenth century, the great Persian poet Attar of Neishabur wrote his
remarkable animated life of birds, The Canticle of the Birds, a century before the
poetry of Rumi, and was clearly influenced by Aesop. Countless Persian illustrators
would flock to the task of illuminating successive versions of this great epic of
omnipotent avifauna. Among the many successive poets who emulated The Canticle
was Ziya’ U’d-Din Nakhshabi (d. 1350) whose 52 Tales of a Parrot, Tuti-nama, was
transformed in the 1550s when the Emperor Akbar commissioned 250 miniatures
from many of the greatest painters of the era for the manuscript, and it was translated into Sanskrit and Urdu.
As it would be translated into virtually every dominant language in the world, at
least 7300 editions commonly archived, including 3753 in English, 758 in Latin,
down to 43 editions in Hebrew, 36 in Hindi, 7 in Welsh, 31 in Vietnamese, 421 in
Chinese, 199 in Japanese, 3 in Zulu, in Dakota, Gaelic, Haitian Creole, nearly 2482
versions for children, and so on.
7
In 1739, Father Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant (1690–1743) published his treatise A Philosophical Amusement upon the Language of Beasts in which he made the
case that animals actually had the supreme intelligence over humans. As will be
taken up later on, in Chap. 43, Bougeant was intent to impress upon readers that
within the animal world, humans are actually entirely deficient. It was a remarkable
confession, coming from an authoritative, religious perspective. But he was not
merely an expert on the catechism, but also a European historian, a Jesuit who had
written the most incisive overviews of the Treaty of Westphalia and the decades of
bloodshed leading up to it. He had within his acute purview a smoldering notion of
the stuff of humanity, and incorporating an equally famed sense of humor was able
to lend commentary on zoology in a manner satirically expressed and bound to
excite heated controversy. His many years of exile would attest to the level of his
impact on French society.
8
The astonishing convergence of mythopoetic interest in the relations of humans
to other species, as captured by Aesop, has infiltrated our artistic emblems, scientific
paradigms, and cultural norms regarding zoology like few other works. It is clear
that more than 315,000 books, editions, or articles, largely about Charles Darwin,
particularly since November 24, 1859, with the publication of On the Origin of
Species, have dramatically altered our worldviews. But it is also most probable that
7 World Cat Advanced Search, https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AAesop%27s+Fables&fq
=&dblist=638&fc=ln:_100&qt=show_more_ln%3A&cookie
8 Printed for T. Cooper, London, p. 50. See also, Chapter 43, “The Mind of a Chicken.”
40.3 Aesop’s Many Histories
40.3 Aesop’s Many Histories
The first English translation from the Latin, by William Caxton in 1484, presented
Aesop for children. Versions of this would inspire Charles Perrault, Jean de La
Fontaine, Sir Roger L’Estrange, the Reverend Samuel Croxall, and zoologist
Thomas Bewick, as well as illustrators as diverse as Arthur Rackham, John Tenniel,
and Alexander Calder.
In the early thirteenth century, the great Persian poet Attar of Neishabur wrote his
remarkable animated life of birds, The Canticle of the Birds, a century before the
poetry of Rumi, and was clearly influenced by Aesop. Countless Persian illustrators
would flock to the task of illuminating successive versions of this great epic of
omnipotent avifauna. Among the many successive poets who emulated The Canticle
was Ziya’ U’d-Din Nakhshabi (d. 1350) whose 52 Tales of a Parrot, Tuti-nama, was
transformed in the 1550s when the Emperor Akbar commissioned 250 miniatures
from many of the greatest painters of the era for the manuscript, and it was translated into Sanskrit and Urdu.
As it would be translated into virtually every dominant language in the world, at
least 7300 editions commonly archived, including 3753 in English, 758 in Latin,
down to 43 editions in Hebrew, 36 in Hindi, 7 in Welsh, 31 in Vietnamese, 421 in
Chinese, 199 in Japanese, 3 in Zulu, in Dakota, Gaelic, Haitian Creole, nearly 2482
versions for children, and so on.
7
In 1739, Father Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant (1690–1743) published his treatise A Philosophical Amusement upon the Language of Beasts in which he made the
case that animals actually had the supreme intelligence over humans. As will be
taken up later on, in Chap. 43, Bougeant was intent to impress upon readers that
within the animal world, humans are actually entirely deficient. It was a remarkable
confession, coming from an authoritative, religious perspective. But he was not
merely an expert on the catechism, but also a European historian, a Jesuit who had
written the most incisive overviews of the Treaty of Westphalia and the decades of
bloodshed leading up to it. He had within his acute purview a smoldering notion of
the stuff of humanity, and incorporating an equally famed sense of humor was able
to lend commentary on zoology in a manner satirically expressed and bound to
excite heated controversy. His many years of exile would attest to the level of his
impact on French society.
8
The astonishing convergence of mythopoetic interest in the relations of humans
to other species, as captured by Aesop, has infiltrated our artistic emblems, scientific
paradigms, and cultural norms regarding zoology like few other works. It is clear
that more than 315,000 books, editions, or articles, largely about Charles Darwin,
particularly since November 24, 1859, with the publication of On the Origin of
Species, have dramatically altered our worldviews. But it is also most probable that
7 World Cat Advanced Search, https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3AAesop%27s+Fables&fq
=&dblist=638&fc=ln:_100&qt=show_more_ln%3A&cookie
8 Printed for T. Cooper, London, p. 50. See also, Chapter 43, “The Mind of a Chicken.”
40.3 Aesop’s Many Histories