Audiobook · read by volunteers
Aesop's Fables, Volume 06 (Fables 126-150)
Aesop (620–564 BC)
Read by Marlo Dianne, Mark F. Smith, Christine Dewar, Marian Brown, Patti McCoy, Will McCoy, Andrea L, Kim Braun, Leeann Taki · 25 chapters · 31 min
About the book
Not every fable is about an animal, and this volume, fables 126 to 150, shows the range. A hunting hound grows old and is scolded by his master for the teeth he no longer has. A prophet who can read other people’s futures is robbed at home. A cat changed into a woman still cannot resist a mouse. A wolf whose throat has just been cleared of a bone by a crane discovers how rare gratitude is. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse compare dinners, three tradesmen argue over how to defend a besieged city, and the volume closes with The Fly and the Draught-Mule. In V. S. Vernon Jones’s brisk English each tale takes a minute or two and ends with its moral in plain view. Nine LibriVox volunteers take turns across twenty-five tracks and about half an hour of listening: good company for a journey, for bedtime or for a short pause in the day.
Introduction
The fables told in Aesop’s name are older than most of the literature we know. Tradition puts him in the sixth century BC, yet scholars admit that very little is certain about him, and some wonder whether he lived at all. What has lasted is the form: a few lines, a clash of characters and a lesson that arrives like a punchline.
This is volume 6 of the twelve in the LibriVox series, and it contains fables 126 to 150. The text is the 1912 translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, a clear, quick English that suits reading aloud. The titles give a sense of the variety: The Old Hound, The Prophet, The Wolf and the Crane, The Three Tradesmen, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Venus and the Cat and The Stag with One Eye. Some mock vanity and some warn against trusting the wrong friend; a few are simply good jokes.
Every fable has its own track, 25 in all, and the whole volume plays for roughly half an hour. Nine volunteers took turns at the microphone. Some of the fables are only a few lines long and others run to a short scene with dialogue, so the rhythm of the volume keeps changing. Because each tale stands alone, there is no need to have heard the earlier volumes.
Why come back to Aesop now? Because the fables are small enough to carry anywhere and sharp enough to stay with you. They are also wonderfully suited to the ear, since each one is over almost before you have settled in.
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