The Mouse and the Oyster
The cautionary tale of The Mouse and the Oyster is rarely mentioned in Classical literature but is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 454 in the Perry Index.[1] It has been variously interpreted, either as a warning against gluttony or as a caution against unwary behaviour.
A warning to the unwary
The earliest mention of the fable is in a Greek Anthology poem of the 1st century CE by Antiphilus of Byzantium.[2] A house-mouse comes across an oyster and tries eating it, only for the shell to snap shut, bringing him at once both death and a tomb. In the following century, the orator Aelius Aristides gives the story a political interpretation as a warning to avoid entrapment in dangerous situations.[3]
A flowery Latin version of the Greek poem was made by Andrea Alciato for his book of emblems(1531), where it figures as a picture of greed.[4] He was followed in this interpretation by the English emblematist Geoffrey Whitney, who turns it into a health warning:
- The Gluttons fatte, that daintie fare devoure,
- And seeke about, to satisfie theire taste:
- And what they like, into theire bellies poure,
- This justlie blames, for surfettes come in haste:
- And biddes them feare, their sweete, and dulcet meates,
- For oftentimes, the same are deadlie baites.[5]
The Frome physician Samuel Bowden reads the same lesson into it in his mock-heroic poem 'occasion'd by a Mouse caught in an Oyster-Shell' (1736) that concludes with the lines
- Instructed thus — let Epicures beware,
- Warn'd of their fate — nor seek luxurious fare.[6]
Bowden's poem was a popular one and anthologised for a century afterwards. By that time, however, translations of La Fontaine's Fables were offering an alternative moral. The French author's mouse is a naive creature who knows the world only from books and comes to grief not simply through greed but for lack of experience.[7] In this lively poem, one of La Fontaine's images recalls Alciato's emblem. Arriving at the sea, where 'The tide had left the oysters bare/ He thought these shells the ships must be'. In some of the illustrations to Alciato's work there is indeed a similarity between the pattern on the shell that has closed on the mouse and the boat under sail on the sea.[8]
References
External links
- Book illustrations from the 16th - 20th centuries
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Fables
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Ass and his Masters
- The Ass and the Pig
- The Ass Carrying an Image
- The Ass in the Lion's Skin
- The Astrologer who Fell into a Well
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Belly and the Members
- The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
- The Bird in Borrowed Feathers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Cock, the Dog and the Fox
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Crow and the Snake
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and Its Reflection
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dove and the Ant
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Fir and the Bramble
- The Fisherman and the Little Fish
- The Fowler and the Snake
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Fox and the Lion
- The Fox and the Mask
- The Fox and the Sick Lion
- The Fox and the Stork
- The Fox and the Weasel
- The Fox and the Woodman
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Goat and the Vine
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Horse and the Donkey
- The Horse that Lost its Liberty
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
- The Man with Two Mistresses
- The Mischievous Dog
- The Miser and his Gold
- The Moon and her Mother
- The Mountain in Labour
- The Mouse and the Oyster
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Oak and the Reed
- The Old Man and Death
- The Old Woman and the Doctor
- The Rose and the Amaranth
- The Satyr and the Traveller
- The Sick Kite
- The Snake and the Crab
- The Snake in the Thorn Bush
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- The Travellers and the Plane Tree
- The Trees and the Bramble
- The Two Pots
- The Walnut Tree
- Washing the Ethiopian White
- The Weasel and Aphrodite
- The Wolf and the Crane
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Woodcutter and the Trees
- The Young Man and the Swallow
- An ass eating thistles
- The Bear and the Gardener
- Belling the Cat (also known as The Mice in Council)
- The Blind Man and the Lame
- The Boy and the Filberts
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- The Dog in the Manger
- The drowned woman and her husband
- The Elm and the Vine
- The Fox and the Cat
- The Gourd and the Palm-tree
- The Hawk and the Nightingale
- The miller, his son and the donkey
- The Monkey and the Cat
- The Priest and the Wolf
- The Scorpion and the Frog
- The Shepherd and the Lion
adaptations
- Aesop's Film Fables
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
adaptations
- Demetrius of Phalerum
- Phaedrus
- Babrius
- Avianus
- Dositheus Magister
- Alexander Neckam
- Adémar de Chabannes
- Odo of Cheriton
- John Lydgate
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Laurentius Abstemius
- Roger L'Estrange
- Gabriele Faerno
- Hieronymus Osius
- Marie de France
- Robert Henryson
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Ivan Krylov
- Nicolas Trigault
- Robert Thom
- Zhou Zuoren