358
imbibe these fables with their mothers’ milk; and he recommends it to the care of
their nurses to teach them; since they cannot be too early accustomed to the precepts
of wisdom and virtue”.
15
But it is to the 1665 London, Thomas Roycroft edition of The Fables that we
ultimately turn, the John Ogilby (1600–1676) translation with annotations, the folio
comprising 81 brilliant illustrations by Wenceslaus Hollar, and 24 less subtle graphics by Dirk Stoop. The edition is actually a second, expanded one, the first having
been utterly destroyed in the Great Fire of London. From its very first Fable, that Of
the Cock and Precious Stone Ogilby’s annotations encompass the insights of the
Pythagoreans, Epicureans, of Lucian, Proclus of Athens, Lucretius, Pliny, and
Phaedrus, all converging in a single message at the very beginning of this two-part
404-page epic: “I’ll be to Nature kind; My Body I’ll not Starve, to Feed my Mind”.
16
By Fable XX of the Second Part, Aesop has gathered all the strength of character,
language, and message to inform every King and Queen, every Parliament and citizen, whether a Van Eyck, a Shakespeare, or the anonymous farmer, all the same, a
warning from the “Council” of sheep who, speaking among themselves, have seized
upon the language of the butcher, of Man, and tell us unsparingly for the ages, what,
precisely, is at stake: “Last to Reward, who so Preach’d up his Cause; Who not suspected Cutting of his Throat, But to be Duke and Peer made of the Coat; False and
Ambitious Councellors, then said he; May they be paid their Punishment like Me.”
And the Moral: “Few publick Spirits, Common Counsels find; These Fathom Wants,
those Private Interest blind; Most for the Present, and their own Affairs: Suddain
Calamities seizeth unawares” (Fig. 40.3).
17
15 ibid., p. 9.
16 The Fables of Aesop Paraphras’d in Verse: Adorn’d With Sculpture and Illustrated With
Annotations, The Second Edition, by John Ogilby, Esq., Master of His Majesties Revells in the
Kingdom of Ireland, Printed by Thomas Roycroft for the Author, London, 1668, p. 2.
17 ibid., p. 51, Second Part.
40 The Zoosemiotic Paradox of Aesop
imbibe these fables with their mothers’ milk; and he recommends it to the care of
their nurses to teach them; since they cannot be too early accustomed to the precepts
of wisdom and virtue”.
15
But it is to the 1665 London, Thomas Roycroft edition of The Fables that we
ultimately turn, the John Ogilby (1600–1676) translation with annotations, the folio
comprising 81 brilliant illustrations by Wenceslaus Hollar, and 24 less subtle graphics by Dirk Stoop. The edition is actually a second, expanded one, the first having
been utterly destroyed in the Great Fire of London. From its very first Fable, that Of
the Cock and Precious Stone Ogilby’s annotations encompass the insights of the
Pythagoreans, Epicureans, of Lucian, Proclus of Athens, Lucretius, Pliny, and
Phaedrus, all converging in a single message at the very beginning of this two-part
404-page epic: “I’ll be to Nature kind; My Body I’ll not Starve, to Feed my Mind”.
16
By Fable XX of the Second Part, Aesop has gathered all the strength of character,
language, and message to inform every King and Queen, every Parliament and citizen, whether a Van Eyck, a Shakespeare, or the anonymous farmer, all the same, a
warning from the “Council” of sheep who, speaking among themselves, have seized
upon the language of the butcher, of Man, and tell us unsparingly for the ages, what,
precisely, is at stake: “Last to Reward, who so Preach’d up his Cause; Who not suspected Cutting of his Throat, But to be Duke and Peer made of the Coat; False and
Ambitious Councellors, then said he; May they be paid their Punishment like Me.”
And the Moral: “Few publick Spirits, Common Counsels find; These Fathom Wants,
those Private Interest blind; Most for the Present, and their own Affairs: Suddain
Calamities seizeth unawares” (Fig. 40.3).
17
15 ibid., p. 9.
16 The Fables of Aesop Paraphras’d in Verse: Adorn’d With Sculpture and Illustrated With
Annotations, The Second Edition, by John Ogilby, Esq., Master of His Majesties Revells in the
Kingdom of Ireland, Printed by Thomas Roycroft for the Author, London, 1668, p. 2.
17 ibid., p. 51, Second Part.
40 The Zoosemiotic Paradox of Aesop