Word Finder - fables

definition

A fictitious narrative intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, usually with animals, etc. as characters; an apologue. Prototypically, Aesop's Fables.

synonyms

• morality play

definition

Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.

synonyms

• legend

definition

Fiction; untruth; falsehood.

definition

The plot, story, or connected series of events forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.

definition

To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.

definition

To make up; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely; to recount in the form of a fable.

synonyms

• devise
• feign
• invent
• make up

Since then the fables have been translated into nearly every European tongue.

The cunning and stratagem of the fox have been proverbial for many ages, and he has figured as a central character in fables from the earliest times, as in Aesop, down to "Uncle Remus," most notably as Reynard (Raginohardus, strong in counsel) in the great medieval beast-epic "Reynard the Fox" (q.v.).

Morawski (1783-1861) published some excellent Fables (1800) in the manner of Krasicki, and in 1851 an epic entitled My Grandfather's Farm.

Very different has been the fate of the Fables of Phaedrus.

In fact most styles of composition were attempted by him - of course satires and fables among the number.

Many urban legends provide cautionary tales, much like modern-day Aesop fables.

Berachiah, 2 the compiler of the "Fox Fables" (which have much in common with the "Ysopet" of Marie de France), is generally thought to have lived in Provence in the 13th century, but according to others in England in the 12th century.

The fables of the phoenix and of the conduct of the wild ass and the ape at the time of the equinox owe their origin to astronomical symbols belonging to the.

Herodotus, who ranks Libya as one of the chief divisions of the world, separating it from Asia, repudiates as fables the ordinary explanations assigned to the names Europe and Asia, but confesses his inability to say whence they came.

In classical literature he was the first who made the world acquainted with the Fables of Phaedrus (1596); he also edited the Pervigilium Veneris (1587), and Juvenal and Persius (1585).

The Mesek of Augustus Greguss (1878), a collection of verse " Fables," belonging to the school of Gay, partake more of a didactic than lyrical nature.

Neckam also wrote Corrogationes Promethei, a scriptural commentary prefaced by a treatise on grammatical criticism; a translation of Aesop into Latin elegiacs (six fables from this version, as given in a Paris MS., are printed in Robert's Fables inedites); commentaries, still unprinted, on portions of Aristotle, Martianus Capella and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and other works.

In the middle ages Phaedrus exercised a considerable influence through the prose versions of his fables which were current, though his own works and even his name were forgotten.

Of the sixty-seven fables which it contains thirty are derived from lost fables of Phaedrus.

These three prose versions contain in all one hundred distinct fables, of which fifty-six are derived from the existing and the remaining forty-four presumably from lost fables of Phaedrus.

Muller, have tried to restore these lost fables by versifying the prose versions.

The later Targums and the Talmuds represent him as a typical sinner; and there are the usual worthless Rabbinical fables, e.g.

This system spread widely, and the early Christians especially appealed to it as a confirmation of their belief that ancient mythology was merely an aggregate of fables of human invention.

The prose literature of Siam consists largely of mythological and historical fables, almost all of which are of Indian origin, though many of them have come to Siam through Cambodia.

The historical works above referred to have been issued in many editions, and selections from the ancient fables and romances are continually being edited and reissued in narrative form or as plays.

The Neoplatonists themselves characterized the theologians of the church as intruders, who had appropriated the Greek philosophy and spoiled it by the admixture of strange fables.

As to fables, one of the most popular collections in the middle ages was that written by Marie de France, which she claimed to have translated from King Alfred.

His Contes et fables indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman was published (1724) after his death.

His tragedies are perhaps less known now than his Fables (1813, 1815 and 1826), which are written in very graceful verse.

There are a number of poems written in an elevated style, also dramatic works chiefly of the character of mystery plays, and collections of fairy tales and fables.

This one fact is certain amidst the fables which soon obscured the history of this great missionary.

The popular stories current regarding him are derived from a life, or rather romance, prefixed to a book of fables, purporting to be his, collected by Maximus Planudes, a monk of the 14th century.

It is probable that Aesop did not commit his fables to writing; Aristophanes (Wasps, 1259) represents Philocleon as having learnt the "absurdities" of Aesop from conversation at banquets, and Socrates whiles away his time in prison by turning some of Aesop's fables "which he knew" into verse (Plato, Phaedo, 61 b).

Babrius, according to Crusius, a Roman and tutor to the son of Alexander Severus, turned the fables into choliambics in the earlier part of the 3rd century A.D.

Avianus (of uncertain date, perhaps the 4th century) translated 42 of the fables into Latin elegiacs.

The collections which we possess under the name of Aesop's Fables are late renderings of Babrius's version or Hpo-yv &o sari, rhetorical exercises of varying age and merit.

Ignatius Diaconus, in the 9th century, made a version of 53 fables in choliambic tetrameters.

Stories from Oriental sources were added, and from these collections Maximus Planudes made and edited the collection which has come down to us under the name of Aesop, and from which the popular fables of modern Europe have been derived.

The Fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton, 1484, from his French translation; Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins (1893-1899).

This edition, which contained 144 fables, was frequently reprinted and additions made from time to time from various MSS.

A critical edition of all the previously known fables, prepared by Carl von Halm from the collections of Furia, Coray and Schneider, was published in the Teubner series of Greek and Latin texts.

He delighted in showing that words, fables, customs, &c., which the Arabs believed to be peculiarly their own, were derived from the Persians.

A counter reformation can also be traced which attempts to revive Hinduism by purging it of its grossness and allegorizing its fables and legends.

The plan of the work is good and, in spite of its fables and superstitious absurdities, contains important facts which would otherwise have been unknown.

The satire of Ennius seems to have resembled the more artistic satire of Horace in its record of personal experiences, in the occasional introduction of dialogue, in the use made of fables with a moral application, and in the didactic office which it assumed.

In the flank of this mountain, near a place called Deliktash, was the celebrated fiery source called the Chimaera, which gave rise to many fables.

The fables are to be read in Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland, and in Froude.

Even Henryson, perhaps the most original of these poets, is in his most original pieces strongly " Chaucerian " in method, notably in his remarkable series of Fables, and his Testament of Cresseid, a continuation of the story left untold by Chaucer.

Many of these stories and fables have wandered to Europe, and are found in medieval homilies, poems and story-books.

Evidence of a boundless credulity with regard to all sorts of monkish fables is to be met with everywhere.

A collection of forty fables by Aphthonius, of ter the style of Aesop, is also extant.

Stevenson's various occasional sallies in verse and prose - his Fables for Grown Gentlemen (1761-1770), his Crazy Tales (1762), and his numerous skits at the political opponents of Wilkes, among whose "macaronies" he numbered himself - were collected after his death, and it is impossible to read them without being struck with their close family resemblance in spirit and turn of thought to Sterne's work, inferior as they are in literary genius.

On the other hand it is evident that the Peisistratidae soon became the subject of many fables.

He points out some resemblances between these three books and the Argonautic fables, among them the circumstance that a fountain Artacia occurs in both.

The art of making the wine was kept secret for some time, and many mysterious fables were circulated concerning it; inter alia it was believed that the Evil One had a hand in its manufacture.