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their frivolity, exaggeration and evident lack of all those features which would indicate an earnest and conscientious study of real life. They are none the less entertaining, and their genuine Turkish characteristics render them valuable to the student of Ottoman literature as well as to the general reader who may take them up merely pour passer le temps.

      The fables by unknown authors, which we include in this volume, and which have never before been translated into English, are much later productions of Turkish genius. In Europe the fable has always been, in its original form, one of the most effective and pungent vehicles of appeal to public opinion. Witness “The Belly and the Members” of Menenius Agrippa, so nobly rendered in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus.” It well illustrates La Fontaine’s excuse for his own fables, namely, that under some circumstances a man must be silent or “strike from afar.” From the vantage ground of the fable Menenius could rebuke a raging mob, and Le Fontaine score the ingratitude of kings, as in more recent times Krilof has satirized the despotic abuses of the Russian government.

      The Turkish fables also “hit from afar.” The tyranny of Turkish rulers is pointed out in “The Farmer and His Hounds.” The corruption that surrounds access to the great is vividly suggested in “The Sailors in Distress.” But the weaknesses of the Turkish character are also reflected in fables which contain but little wisdom; the apathy which puts up with everything is expressed in the moral of “The Candle”; the want of enterprise and energy which is characteristic of the Turk, in “The Shark” and “The Clown Turned First Soldier, then Merchant.”

      In the teachings of all these apologues there may be seen the same features of languid and unresisting acquiescence in things as they are, with a skit here and there on the oppression and ingratitude of those in power. Yet they bear a reality about them which is lacking in the artificial productions of Gay and Lessing. They come from the heart and go to the heart of the people, and some of them are neat and pointed, if not beautiful, in structure and expression. A collection of examples from Turkish literature would be quite incomplete without these specimens of the Turkish apologues, which reflect so plainly the ethical standard and general opinions of those to whom they were addressed.

Turkish Fables:
	PAGE
The Gardener and His Wife	3
The Fly	4
The Widow and Her Friend	4
The Two Young Men and the Cook	5
The Buffaloes and the Log	5
The Old Man and His Son	5
The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird	6
The Hens and the Eagles	6
The Pigeon and the Painting	7
The Lion and the Man	7
The Compliment to the Vezir	7
The Ass and the Frogs	8
The Tortoise and the King of Animals	8
The Fox and the Lion	8
The Farmer and His Hounds	9
The Bear and His Mate	9
The Eel and the Serpent	9
The Sailors in Distress	10
The Father and Son	10
The Poet and the Clown	10 Скачать книгу В начало < 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 > В конец