Audiobook · read by volunteers
Aesop's Fables, Volume 02 (Fables 26-50)
Aesop (620–564 BC)
Read by Kristin LeMoine, Annie Coleman Rothenberg, ajfluke, Desdemona, Basil Monroe Godevenos, phoenixascending, Rainer, Patrick McNeal, Sara Schein, Gesine · 25 chapters · 32 min
About the book
Volume two of Aesop's Fables continues with fables 26 to 50, beginning with The Fox and the Stork, in which a trick at the dinner table is repaid in kind. Among the other pieces are The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, who is not as clever as he thinks, and The Stag in the Ox-Stall, who learns that a hiding place can be a trap. Each fable is a few lines of animal comedy that ends in a lesson about cunning, hospitality, vanity or foolish trust. Ten LibriVox volunteers, among them Kristin LeMoine and Annie Coleman Rothenberg, share the reading, so the voices vary from one story to the next. In around half an hour, twenty-five of these miniature dramas pass by, easy to listen to alone or aloud with children, in the car or in the kitchen.
Introduction
Aesop is the traditional author of the fables that bear his name. He is placed in the sixth century BC, with the years 620 to 564 BC often cited, but there is almost no sure information about him, and ancient writers themselves told conflicting stories. What survives is a tradition: short animal tales passed from teller to teller and collected again and again.
This is the second volume in a numbered LibriVox series, covering fables 26 to 50, in an English edition dated 1912. The first volume contains many of the best-known tales; the second keeps the same lively mixture of hunters and hunted, tricksters and dupes, and gives us further famous pictures, such as the wolf dressed as a sheep and the host who serves dinner in a vessel his guest cannot use.
There are 25 short chapters, with a total running time of about half an hour. Ten volunteers take turns reading, which keeps the variety high from one fable to the next.
Why listen now? Because these stories condense social observation into a few memorable lines. They are suitable for children and adults alike, and they offer a quick way to enjoy a literary tradition that has shaped storytelling, proverbs and everyday speech for centuries. Listening in short bursts works well here: a fable or two, a pause to consider the point, then another. The ten readers give the volume a lively texture, and the brevity of each story means that a new voice is never far away.
Public domain
Aesop died in 564 BC: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text