Fables
by Aesop · Μῦθοι Αἰσώπειοι
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- c. 6th century BCE, collected from c. 300 BCE
- Form
- Romance and tale
- Language
- Greek
- Length
- Medium · 250 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Approachable1 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendAesop's Fables, translated by Laura GibbsOxford World's Classics, 2008Six hundred fables from the Greek and Latin sources, arranged by theme, with notes on their origins.
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Short tales, mostly of talking animals, each ending in a lesson, attributed to a slave on Samos in the sixth century BCE about whom nothing certain is known. The fables circulated orally, were collected by Demetrius of Phalerum around 300 BCE, and survive through Greek prose collections and the Latin verse of Phaedrus and the Greek of Babrius. Among the several hundred are the tortoise and the hare, the fox and the grapes, the boy who cried wolf, the ant and the grasshopper, the lion and the mouse, and the town mouse and the country mouse.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Fables are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
