Resumo de Aesop S Fables

Fables are short stories which teach a lesson and are often about
animals. The supposed author of these Fables, Aesop, is thought to have
lived from 620 to 560 B.C., but his place of birth is uncertain.
Whether he came from Ethiopia, Phrygia, Samos, Athens, Sardis or
Thrace, we do not know, but some early writers say that he was the
slave of a citizen named Iadmon at Samos, in what is now Greece.

Descriptions of Aesop, the man, and an extensive biography of his life
are attributed to Planudes who wrote The Life and Fables of Aesop in
the 13th century. "...A Greek Orthodox humanities scholar, anthologist,
and theological polemicist," born in 1260 according to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, Planudes' Fables were a translation and revision of the
Latin text by Phadedrus. It was Planudes' revised fables which were
first translated into English by William Caxton in 1484.

Planudes descibes Aesop as a "black man" and notes that his name comes
from the Greek word Aethiops which means Ethiopia. In his 1715
translation from Planudes' Greek text, William Dugard describes Aesop
as one whom "Nature had gratified with an ingenious mind, but the Law
had enslaved." He was endowed with a large head, bowed legs and a large
belly. "His visage black hue." Aesop -
creator of Aesop's Fable
Aesop - creator of fables

According to Herodotus, writing about 200 years later, Aesop met his
end violently, being thrown over a precipice by the people of Delphi.
Exactly how and why this happened is uncertain. One writer says it was
due to the biting sarcasm in the Fables; another says that he embezzled
money given to him by King Croesus of Lydia; and yet another version
has it that Aesop stole a silver cup.

Aesop had undoubtedly been freed by his master, Iadmon, for he later
lived at the court of King Croesus, and it was here that he met the
great Athenian statesman and scholar, Solon. A relative of Solon was
Peisistratus, ruler of Athens, and Aesop visited his court, where he
was able to persuade the citizens to allow their ruler to keep his
throne. He did this by telling them the Fable of the Frogs Desiring a
King, and such was Aesop's eloquence that Peisistratus was able to
remain as dictator.

There are some writers who deny the existence of such a person as
Aesop, and it is true that we have but scanty details of his life and
work. Even his appearance is in dispute. According to a monk of
Constantinople, named Maximus Planudes, writing in the 14th century,
Aesop was an ugly, deformed dwarf, and the famous marble statue at the
Villa Albani in Rome shows him in this guise. But Plutarch, writing
some 1,300 years earlier, says nothing about his appearance. Indeed,
the Athenians are said to have put up a noble statue in honor of Aesop.

By the time of the Middle Ages, three collections of the so-called
Aesop's Fables existed: one put together by the monk Maximus Planudes
in the 14th century; another published in Heidelberg in 1610; and a
manuscript discovered in Florence, dating back probably to the 13th
century. The Greek collection made by Maximus Planudes was published in
Milan 1480, together with a Latin translation by an Italian scholar
named Ranuzio. Today, Aesop's Fables can be read in more than 250
languages. The work was first printed in English by William Caxton in
1484, from his own translation made from the French.

Aesop told his stories to many people and they were passed down from
generation to generation by word of mouth and were not written down for
over two hundred years. Animals in Aesop's fables are always treated in
an abstract or impersonal manner and are never given names. However,
depending on the translator, the stories are often humorous and
entertaining. Children read fables as a part of literature, but Aesop
used the fable as a means of political and social criticism. His fables
have meaning for us today, but to assure that the reader understanmessage, a moral is added to the fable.

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