12/08/2020
Although he lived in the cradle of democracy, Aesop was a slave In his day. However, Aesop was no ordinary slave. He was endowed with a vital imagination, a probing mind and a vibrant sense of humor.
Unfortunately, these noble qualities were often a burden to poor Aesop. They distinguished him and separated him from others. Rather than make him popular, they made him lonely. He could not talk to the master about pre-Socratic philosophy, the scientific breakthroughs of Anaximander, Archimedes’s screw or the muscular poems of Hesiod. Meanwhile, the other slaves were too busy lifting stones for temples or getting drunk on ouzo to discuss such lofty or weighty matters. Nor did they share Aesop’s imagination, insight, love of learning and keen eye for human behavior.
Aesop’s intellect and particularly his wit landed him into early and constant trouble. His saucy comments offended his masters. Rather than cut out his tongue or brand his buttocks, they separated him from the other slaves. Since Aesop did not know his place, his master said, he was not fit for human company. He put him to work tending his animals. As a keen observer with superb insight that allowed him to know what all living beings were thinking, Aesop succeeded brilliantly in his job and the barnyard flourished under his stewardship.
But Aesop’s barnyard success had a fringe benefit. The lonesome genius talked to the animals he tended. Like Winston Churchill many centuries later, he recognized the superior intellect of pigs. He told them his “wild” ideas about human nature and shared with them his dreams of freedom and equality. The pigs snorted, the sheep bleated and the cows mooed in understanding and appreciation of Aesop because they were tethered, exploited and slaughtered by human masters.
By writing fables, Aesop transposed human weaknesses into the fictional characters of animals. At first, he thought this literary invention was a betrayal of his barnyard friends. After all, they were noble creatures, humble and kind, who led simple lives, according to their nature. They hurt no one. But the animals gave him creative license to use their bodies and personalities to tell his funny, trenchant tales. They exhorted him to do what he had to do to express his talent. They promised not to sue him for slander.
By presenting human weaknesses in animal form, the humble slave avoided being punished for making impudent comments about his masters. To the contrary, they roared with laughter at his depiction of beasts. This gave Aesop his final insight about humans: nothing delights people more than to believe themselves superior to other beings, in particular, their animals.
There seemed no better way to speculate on Aesop’s inspiration than to write a fable about him. The foregoing tale is a work of fiction. Any connection to people living or dead is coincidental.
