Thinking on Friendship, Wrong Roads, and Frogs

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Aesop, ancient greek, fable, friendship, frogs, love, Roads, wrong roads

Good Monday to all of you, my friends. It is fable day, and Aesop takes us to a pond where two frogs are friends.

One frog is on the road, on a pretty big pothole filled with water. The other is away from the road, in a small marsh with little space. The frog on the marsh beckons the one on the road to come to it, for the road is filled with danger. The frog on the road said it was too lazy to move, for it had found a good place to be plus, it was small, what could possibly happen? Suddenly, a carriage passed by and run over the small frog sitting in its waterhole on the road. Aesop writers the moral:

Μὴ μέλλετε, ὦ ἄνθρωποι, ἐπει ἔχετε τρέπειν τὰ κακὰ εἰς καλὰ.
Do not pretend, ō men, while able to move, [that] the bad [is] good.
No pretendais, ō humanos, mientras que podáis moveros, que lo malo es bueno.

I think this fable, as most by Aesop, is absolutely hilarious. Clearly, the frog on the marsh can tell its buddy on the road is on a bad position, thus wants it to come over. However, the frog on the road is too lazy and too comfortable to even make the attempt. “μέλλετε” here is quite telling as it is an imperative (as is usual with Aesop’s morals) and a plural. “Do not you all,” says the writer “plan, pretend, intend;” the choice of the frog is a conscious one, that is why the verb for wishing while planning is used here. We are our own worst enemies, that much is clear, and we may find that we are in a precarious position but, unable to see the full picture, we remain unaware of danger. We must depend on our friends to help us see, as they stand outside of our circumstances, what possible danger we may encounter while in our current positions.

That is the beauty of friends, as Aesop would say; for they have the capability of seeing what we cannot. Sometimes, even as the frog saw the danger but thought itself too small to be squished, we think ourselves immune to the problems others have faced. It is at this moment that we must listen to those beyond our circumstances the most. In the end, despite our not being able to see beyond our nose, we will discover that those who are admonishing us are only trying to protect us from what they know is a danger to our physical of spiritual well-being.

As Aesop puts it, sometimes we have the capability to move and we still choose not to because we turn the bad into good. Let us remember the little frog and the road. We may one day realize that the voice inside our head is not that of a god far of or the nagging of a stranger up close, but the loving warning of a friend who, caring for us, is trying to lead us away from a dangerous road and into friendly marshes.

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Thinking on Friendship

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Aesop, danger, fable, fables, friendship

How about a little Ancient Greek? We all know of Aesop’s fables; the great original storyteller who used his stories about nature to convey tropes we still use today. Here is one of his puns or, morals:

Ὁ φίλος ἐπεὶ ἐν τοῖς κινδύνοις τὸν φίλον λεὶπει, οὐ τᾖ ἀληθείᾳ φίλος.
The friend that when in danger forsakes a friend, [is] not a true friend at all.
El amigo que estando en peligro abandona un amigo, no es un verdadero amigo.
Amicus ubi in periculum amico relinquit, verus amicus non est.

Notice the friends are in danger together, making the ‘leaving’ that much more important. Both in Greek and Latin ‘leaving’ had a huge importance. The Ancient Greek protected the man next to him with his shield in the phalanx formation; thus if you left, you quite literally caused the death of the man next to you and the breaking of the phalanx. Further, the person next to you in formation was, more than likely, a very close friend, if not a father, uncle, or someone in your family, since the phalanx was formed by house, district, and neighborhood. Also, ‘philo’ was another word for love, love that grew out of common goals and experiences (think philadelphia – the city of ‘Brotherly Love’), so whoever you left behind to die was much more than just a buddy.

Although not tied by family, Romans thought of abandoning the line just as badly; a concept shared with the new brotherhoods of today, such as those created out of the military, aka Brothers at Arms who ‘leave no one behind.’ We could just as easily say ‘the lover (out from shared experiences) who, when in danger, leaves the beloved behind is no true lover at all.’

Thinking of People, Friendships, and Enemies

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Aesop, classical greek, enemies, fable, friendship, people

Let’s do a little A. Greek to brighten up your Monday morning! We will probably end up naming this the Aesop Series, so let’s take a look.

After a wolf convinces (weird word, from the Latin con-vicere – to win together by multiple things) a sheep to ditch her guarding dog because of some rumors, finally becoming lunch for the wolves, Aesop gives us the following moral:

Μὴ ἀποπέμπετε, ὦ ἄνθρωποι, τοὺς φἰλους διὰ τοὺς λὸγους τῶν πολεμίων.
Do not [you all] send away, O men [and women], your friends on account of words from your enemies.
No os deshagais, hombres [y mujeres], de vuestros amigos debido a palabras de vuestros enemigos.
Propter verba hostes, viri, amici non relinquitis.

Aesop is trying to tell us here that no matter how good our enemy’s arguments/rumors, we should always consider our friends first. After all, our friends have our well-being in mind, while we may easily think our enemies are just trying to get that friendship.

Notice the use of ‘ἄνθρωποι’ in the Greek and ‘viri’ in the Latin. They are both denoting men and women by virtue of language. Just like many writers in our time would say ‘Men’ and actually mean ‘mankind;’ or write ‘mankind’ as meaning both men an women. Despite arguments to the contrary, which are valid for other reasons, Aesop’s meaning includes men and women in it.

So, remember your friends, friends.