Audiobook · read by volunteers
Aesop's Fables, Volume 08 (Fables 176-200)
Aesop (620–564 BC)
Read by Mike Phillips, Kim Braun, Rebecca Brown, Mariann Margitics, Desdemona, Gail, Marian Brown · 25 chapters · 31 min
Chapters
About the book
Fables 176 to 200 of Aesop fill this volume, and the cast is as lively as ever. A fable like The Wolf and The Goat sets the tone: a few lines, a clash of characters, a moral that arrives like a punchline. Further on you will find The Labourer and The Snake, and the volume closes with The Ass and His Masters. Foxes outwit, lions grow proud, asses learn hard lessons, and ordinary people recognise themselves a little too clearly. V. S. Vernon Jones's English is clean and quick, with no wasted words, and the tales read aloud as naturally as they were once told around a fire. There are twenty-five short tracks in all, about half an hour of listening, ideal for children and grown-ups alike. Pick a fable at random or take them in order: either way, each one leaves a thought behind.
Introduction
The fables attributed to Aesop are older than most of the literature we know. Tradition places 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 matters is the tradition: brief animal stories that illustrate human foibles and end with a lesson. No knowledge of the earlier volumes is needed, since each fable is complete in itself. You can sample a few tracks, or take the entire set in a single sitting.
This is volume 08 of 12 in the LibriVox series, containing fables 176 to 200. The text is the 1912 translation by V. S. Vernon Jones (1875-1955), whose English is plain, brisk and direct, with the moral kept short and the story kept moving. Titles in this volume include The Wolf and The Goat, The Labourer and The Snake and The Ass and His Masters.
Each fable has its own track, 25 in all, and the whole volume plays for about half an hour. Seven volunteers took turns at the microphone, which gives the set a pleasantly varied sound.
Why return to Aesop today? Because the fables are compact, memorable and flexible. A story about a wolf and a goat can be read as a lesson in prudence, a joke about politics or a parable about pride, and listeners often disagree about the moral, which is half the fun. They are also wonderfully suited to the ear, since each one is over almost before you have settled in. Keep the volume for a journey, for bedtime or for a short pause in the day.
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