Morals

Aesop's Fables proved to be a tremendously easy and fast read - I was surprised to see how simple and short (most of them one pagers) the stories were, as I had never actually seen them on paper. I was familiar with many of them, being something of a know-it-all when it comes to fairy tales and children's stories. It's funny to think that I could learn about fifteen lessons in a matter of minutes.

An aspect that I really enjoyed about this collection was the simple country mood that was embodied through the scenarios. I was somewhat envious of the pretty, relaxed scenes in nature...maybe because my experience with such a lifestyle is so limited. Regardless, I liked, if only briefly, being able to glimpse that kind of life (maybe I'm channeling a little bit of Marie Antoinette, with her pink flocks).
My favorite, being a lover of cute girly things, was "Venus and the Cat" in which a cat falls in love with a young man and asks Venus to turn her into a beautiful damsel. Precious.

I took most of these stories at face value for their age and main point lying in their lesson teaching, but I can't help but to question a few. For example, "The Mouse and the Frog":

"It was an evil day for the mouse when he made the acquaintance of a frog on the eve of a journey into the country. Protesting his great affection, the frog persuaded the mouse to allow him to go along. But we shall never know what possessed the mouse when he let the frog tie one of his own forefeet to one of the frog's hindfeet, for surely it made traveling most uncomfortable indeed".

...what? And let me tell you, (spoiler alert), that this only ends in the two drowning in a river and getting eaten, leading to the moral "he who compasses the destruction of his neighbor often is caught in his own snare". Is this really the best thing he could come up with? To have two animals tie their limbs together? Seriously, that doesn't even make sense. I'm thinking he was stretching it a bit, here. Let me suggest my own lesson to you, Aesop; quit while you're ahead (though perhaps the fault is not your own, but rather the publisher's for including it).