One day an old bull was following a trail through the mountains when he came to a narrow swinging bridge made of wooden slats. He paused, then tested the strength of the first boards with a bit of his massive weight. Timidly at first, then with greater confidence as he went along, he crossed the creaking old footbridge till he reached the other side, whereupon a gnat which had been sitting on tip of his horn exclaimed, "We sure made that one shake, didn't we?"
The above story alighted upon my consciousness when I woke this morning. Believing it to be one of Aesop's fables, I decided to look it up online so as to conclude the anecdote with a pithy moral. What I found instead were fifty websites with an alternate tale titled The Gnat and the Bull.
Here is one version:
A gnat that had been buzzing around the head of a Bull, at length settling himself down upon his horn, begged his pardon for inconveniencing him; " but if," says he, "my weight at all inconveniences you, pray say so, and I will be off in a moment.""Oh, never trouble your head about that," says the Bull, "for 'tis all one to me whether you go or stay; and, to say the truth, I did not know you were there."
Moral: The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit.
Like the telling and re-telling of a story in the telephone game, here is a variant with additional embellishments:
A Gnat alighted on one of the horns of a Bull, and remained sitting there for a considerable time. When it had rested sufficiently and was about to fly away, it said to the Bull, "Do you mind if I go now?" The Bull merely raised his eyes and remarked, without interest, "It's all one to me; I didn't notice when you came, and I shan't know when you go away."
Moral: We may often be of more consequence in our own eyes than in the eyes of our neighbors.
The above stories make fun of the gnat for his conceit, but reading further I found this fable with a pointed poke at the bull, and a lesson for each of us:
When a gnat had challenged a bull to see who was the stronger of the two, all the people came to watch the show. Then the little gnat said to the bull, 'It's enough for me that you have accepted my challenge. This makes me your equal: you yourself have admitted as much!' The gnat then rose into the air on his light wings and sported for the crowd, ignoring the threats of the bull. If the bull had been mindful of his own mighty bulk, he would have dismissed this opponent as beneath contempt and the impertinent creature would not have had anything to boast about.
Moral: People who enter into contests with unworthy opponents lower their own reputation.
When I was a kid we had a book of Aesop's Fables that I loved to read. I had no idea at that time how many more there were that had not been included in that collection. If you're interested in a bit of diversion laced with wisdom, Google Aesop's Fables and enrich your day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Are you familiar with the Georgia Guidestones? When someone first mentioned it to me I thought it both interesting and strange. Located...
-
One of my favorite Woody Allen lines is, "I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens." Death ...
-
ExpectingRain.com was one of the pioneer Bob Dylan sites on the Web featuring all things Dylan including Dylan's influences, lyrics, r...
-
At the Beacon Theater, 2018. Courtesy Nelson French Bob Dylan is just past the midpoint of his ten shows at the Beacon Theater in New Y...
-
The origin of the line "Curses, foiled again!" is from the wonderful and hilariously popular cartoon show, The Adventures of Rocky...
-
Anyone half paying attention will have noticed a lot of new Dylan books have been appearing in recent years. What's interesting is how e...
-
In 1972 Don MacLean's American Pie was the number 2 song on the hit parade. At the time I remember trying to decipher it, and like most ...
-
Madison Square Garden, 1971 For Dylan fans it was one of his rare public appearances between the Woodstock motorcycle incident and th...
-
ar·a·besque /ˌærəˈbɛsk/ [ar-uh-besk] –noun 1. Fine Arts . a sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif. 2. a pose i...
-
"Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, alright." --John Lennon I read the news today, oh boy. Yesterday ...
2 comments:
There's an Asian story about a water buffalo and a red fire ant. The water buffalo insulted the ant by saying it was insignificant. The ant crawled inside the buffalo's ear and started biting until the buffalo apologized. Even after the buffalo apologized, the ant bit a couple of more times as a warning.
That's a good story. Love the extra detail at the end. Makes me laugh...
Thanks for sharing.
Post a Comment