The Travellers and the Plane Tree
The Travellers and the Plane Tree is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 175 in the Perry Index.[1] It may be compared with The Walnut Tree as having for theme ingratitude for benefits received. In this story two travellers rest from the sun under a plane tree. One of them describes it as useless and the tree protests at this view when they are manifestly benefiting from its shade.
The historian Plutarch quotes Themistocles as applying the fable to himself, saying 'that the Athenians did not honour him or admire him, but made, as it were, a sort of plane-tree of him; sheltered themselves under him in bad weather, and as soon as it was fine, plucked his leaves and cut his branches.’[2] But the fable was not included in collections of Aesop's fables in the rest of Europe until the 19th century. One of the first to do so in French was Baron Goswin de Stassart, who included it in his collection of fables, published in 1818 and many times reprinted. There he transposes the scene and makes the travellers a couple of Normandy cider farmers. It was eventually translated by John Henry Keane in 1850[3] and a prose translation from the Greek appeared in George Fyler Townsend's collection of Aesop's fables in 1867.
A similar story from Ancient China about the survival of a useless tree is told by the 4th century BCE Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu.[4] Its preservation is owed to the fact that it is good for nothing else but providing shade.[5] A similar theme reappears in the Hecatomythium of Laurentius Abstemius as Fable 12, De arboribus pulchris et deformibus (Trees fair and crooked). In this an entire plantation is felled to build a house, leaving as the survivor the one tree that cannot be used because it is 'knotty and ill-favoured'.[6] Two hundred years later Roger L'Estrange included the story in his Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists (1692) and was followed shortly afterwards by Edmund Arwaker in his verse collection, Truth in Fiction (1708).[7] All teach that one should be content with one's looks for 'beauty is often harmful'.
References
- ^ Aesopica site
- ^ Lives in Dryden's translation
- ^ Available on Google Books
- ^ Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu available online
- ^ John S. Major, The efficacy of uselessness, Philosophy East and West 25.3, July 1975 available online
- ^ Text online followed by the L'Estrange version
- ^ "The Trees" pp259-60
External links
20th century illustrations from books online
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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 Eagle and the Fox
- 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