Aesop's Fable: The Tortoise and the Hare

One day a hare was boasting about how fast he could run. He was laughing at the tortoise for being so slow.

The tortoise surprised him by challenging him to a race. The hare thought this was a big joke and said yes. The fox was selected to act as umpire and to hold the prize.

The race began. As expected, the speedy hare soon left the tortoise far behind. After he got half-way, however, the hare decided to stop. The day was warm, so he took a nap in a shady spot. He thought if the tortoise passed him while he slept, he could easily overtake him and reach the finish line first.

The tortoise went straight on towards his goal without stopping or resting.

The hare slept longer than he intended. When he woke up, he didn't see the tortoise and dashed off at full speed. When he reached the finish line, the tortoise was already there, waiting for him.  

Moral:   Slow and steady wins the race.

As you can see, a fable is a very short story with a lesson at the end called the moral.

Aesop’s fables present good human values, so parents often read them to their children as bedtime stories. There are about 50 of them. As in cartoons and animations, animals are the main characters, but the emotions and thoughts are human. Traces and echoes of these stories are deeply embedded in the English language. In addition to Slow and steady wins the race, here are some other sentences or expressions you might see or hear:

One good turn deserves another.

Leave well enough alone.

Don’t push your luck.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Another Aesop's Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a story about how a boy yelled a warning so frequently that nobody believed him when a real wolf showed up. You may hear someone say: ‘He’s crying wolf.’ This is a good example of how the content of an Aesop's fable can easily enter into everyday conversation.

These tales counsel us to beware of people who suddenly want to be our friends and other flatterers, and those who insist they are not after our money. In a time when people did not know about unconscious motives, Aesop's fables carried the message: Never trust anyone based on how they look. These tales are filled with conservative advice. In modern terms, the basic message is that if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

Educated people know of Aesop’s fables but usually have not heard all of them. There is no definitive printed version. If you retell the story of the Tortoise and the Hare in your own words, you will find that the main points are very easy to remember.

Some questions for discussion:

1. People like Aesop’s fables. With their animal characters, they are more like cartoons. Why do you think they have stayed alive so long?
2. One of Aesop’s morals is: Misfortune tests the sincerity of friendship. Can you tell a story about how you realized your friend was not really your friend when he abandoned you in your time of need? But before you blame another person, are you sure you yourself never betrayed a friend?
3. Going by sayings and aphorisms, you could receive contradictory advice. For example, we have the saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ But we also have the expression, ‘Clothes make the man,’ which implies the opposite. What is the best advice? Can truth be determined from sayings?
4. One of Aesop's fables teaches the lesson: Never try to be someone you’re not. Can you tell a story from your own life that comes to the same conclusion?
5. One of Aesop’s fables has this moral: He who tries to please everybody pleases nobody. Tell a story about a time when you were trying to please everybody, and this had undesirable consequences.

Copyright © 2011     Barbara A. English     All rights reserved.