FOOTNOTES

1 (return)
[ A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, by K. O. Mueller. Vol.
i, p. 191. _London_, Parker, 1858.]


2 (return)
[ Select Fables of Æsop, and other Fabulists. In three books,
translated by Robert Dodsley, accompanied with a selection of notes,
and an Essay on Fable. _Birmingham_, 1864. P. 60.]


3 (return)
[ Some of these fables had, no doubt, in the first instance, a primary
and private interpretation. On the first occasion of their being
composed they were intended to refer to some passing event, or to some
individual acts of wrong-doing. Thus, the fables of the “Eagle and the
Fox” and of the “Fox and Monkey” are supposed to have been written by
Archilochus, to avenge the injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the
fables of the “Swollen Fox” and of the “Frogs asking a King” were
spoken by Æsop for the immediate purpose of reconciling the inhabitants
of Samos and Athens to their respective rulers, Periander and
Pisistratus; while the fable of the “Horse and Stag” was composed to
caution the inhabitants of Himera against granting a bodyguard to
Phalaris. In a similar manner, the fable from Phædrus, the “Marriage of
the Sun,” is supposed to have reference to the contemplated union of
Livia, the daughter of Drusus, with Sejanus the favourite, and minister
of Trajan. These fables, however, though thus originating in special
events, and designed at first to meet special circumstances, are so
admirably constructed as to be fraught with lessons of general utility,
and of universal application.]


4 (return)
[ Hesiod. Opera et Dies, verse 202.]


5 (return)
[ Æschylus. Fragment of the Myrmidons. Æschylus speaks of this fable as
existing before his day. ὡς δ’ ἐστὶ μύθων τῶν Διβυστικῶν λογος. See
Scholiast on the Aves of Aristophanes, line 808.]


6 (return)
[ Fragment. 38, ed. Gaisford. See also Mueller’s History of the
Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. pp. 190–193.]


7 (return)
[ M. Bayle has well put this in his account of Æsop. “Il n’y a point
d’apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd’hui son nom soient les
mêmes qu’il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la plupart,
quant à la matière et la pensée; mais les paroles sont d’un autre.” And
again, “C’est donc à Hésiode, que j’aimerais mieux attribuer la gloire
de l’invention; mais sans doute il laissa la chose très imparfaite.
Esope la perfectionne si heureusement, qu’on l’a regarde comme le vrai
père de cette sorte de production.”—_Bayle. Dictionnaire Historique_.]


8 (return)
[ Plato in Phædone.]


9 (return)
[ Apologos en! misit tibi