To be sure, in the tortoise-rabbit race, many people think of the tortoise first. It comes from the west, but it is well known to women and children in China. This article will talk about this turtle first. The tortoise-rabbit race comes from Aesop's fable, starting with Aesop. Aesop's correct translation should be "Aesop". Translating into Aesop is the Latin pronunciation of English, which is used here for the time being. According to the textual research of Herodotus, a famous historian in ancient Greece (5th century BC), Aesop is considered to be a person of 6th century BC, originally from Virginia in Asia Minor (present-day central and western Turkey). However, Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) came to a different conclusion. He thought Aesop was a resident of a small town in Thrace (now Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish) called Mei Sen Brier. He once lived in Samos (a Greek island) for a while. The migration of Freudians from the Balkans to Asia Minor in history is also related. Herodotus enjoys the reputation of "father of history" and "father of history" in the west. In the second volume of History, section 134, Herodotus stated: "The heyday of Rhodes was during the reign of Amassis, not Mei Javier Chirinos, so she was many years after the king built the pyramids. She was a thracian, a slave girl of Jadermont, and the son of Samos Hippa Istauborys. She and Aesop, who wrote fables, are also slaves, because he is also a man of Yardmont. The most important evidence of this is that when Dairboyi people obeyed God's command and made many statements to anyone demanding compensation for Aesop's murder, no one did so except the grandson of the former and another Yademon. Therefore, Aesop is certainly Edmond's slave. " Rhodes mentioned in the article is a prostitute, the lover of Shapo's brother, an aristocratic poet. She is absolutely beautiful. "Her name is a household name among all Greeks." This quotation also contains an important message: "Rhodes' heyday was in Amasi", and scholars inferred Aesop's life time through this quotation.
There are different opinions about whether Aesop was born a slave or a prisoner of war became a slave. Later, because of his intelligence, he was released from slavery by the old Yadmen and became a free man. Then I traveled around and told fables. Aristotle wrote Rhetoric and Aesop's Tales, telling us that Aesop used to be a lawyer. It is said that Aesop was dumb earlier. In his dream, he had to meet a lucky god and put his hand in his mouth to relax his tongue. When he wakes up, he will talk and be witty and humorous. Others say that he is ugly, with a pointed nose, short neck, prominent lips, dark color, bent feet, swollen abdomen, short tongue and unclear speech. How could he be the special envoy of King Lydia? There must be some fallacies in these two theories. It's just the ideal of self-entertainment for ordinary people all over the world: humble origin and extraordinary wisdom; The image is ugly and the mind is noble. Aesop died when Delphi was thrown off a cliff for different reasons. It is said that it is because of the story of "Eagle and dung beetles"; It is said that it is controversial to send solatium to the king, which was thrown away by the citizens; Some people say that they have offended priests and so on. And when there is a plague after death, they ask God for signs, compensation and atonement. This is what Herodotus mentioned above: accepting compensation.
Let's talk about Aesop's fables again. The tradition of fable creation in ancient Greece is much earlier than the birth of Aesop's Fables. Fables can be found in Homer's epics and other works, and some stories in Aesop's Fables come from a bridge in these works. Aesop appeared in the era when fables flourished. He followed the times and became a master. As a literary genre, fable is an oral work at first, and its spread can only be recorded and copied. The first Aesop's Fables appeared in 300 BC and was edited by Demetrious (345 BC-283 BC), accounting for more than 0/00 of/kloc, which became a model for later centuries. This book has been lost. Descartes studied in Aristotle's Athens Academy for a long time, and probably completed Aesop's Fables with the help of the materials in the Academy Library. Ba Briouse, who is also a slave, cooperated with Phedros in the first century A.D. to expand Aesop's Fables into a book in the form of poetry. Although this book is rough and boring, it has attracted the attention of scholars and spread widely. According to Plato, Socrates planned to rewrite some Aesop's fables into verse before being sentenced to death by taking poison. Aesop's fables are often quoted in Plato and Aristotle's works, which shows the great influence of Aesop's fables. Aesop's fables have preserved more than 100 manuscripts since ancient times. The first printed edition was originally completed by Italian humanists in about 1479. Among Aesop's fables handed down, there are few real Aesop's creations. More than 250 stories in Aesop's Fables were added by later generations.
In ancient Greece, there were many kinds of foreign fables, none of which have survived to this day. Some of these fables may have been included in Aesop's Fables. According to textual research, some animals in Aesop's fables, such as camels, elephants, monkeys and some poisonous snakes, are not Greek animals, and there are myths and religious stories. Many of them may come from Libya, Egypt, India, Arabia and Christianity. Aesop may be a legend, a disguised person, or a collective creator handed down from generation to generation.
Most stories in Aesop's Fables have a motto at the end to express their meaning. Compared with the fable text, the implication is that some are relevant and some are beside the point; Some new ideas, some statements; Some are interesting and some are boring; Some are shocking, while others are hard to understand. Because the implication was added by later editors, Zhou Zuoren said, "If you say something that spoils the scenery, what you say is mostly the slave's morality, which is not enough for training." So he thinks Aesop's fables can only be called stories, not fables. "More specifically, it is an animal story." Robert, author of English Translation? Temple described: "In Athens in the 5th century BC, it became a routine to tell interesting and meaningful stories at more elegant banquets. In order to please others, people present will inevitably be gagged, so they have to be familiar with Aesop's fables. Most of the stories in Aesop's fables that have been passed down to this day ... are just a kind of joke that we now call one-liners. " So he came to the conclusion that Aesop's Fables is equivalent to a collection of jokes and an encyclopedia of ancient jokes in terms of its nature. "The content is humorous and interesting, and the text is indecent, which is often dismissed by orthodox scholars." However, when reading Aesop's fables, we are faced with farmers, businessmen and ordinary people, not well-dressed intellectuals. Murakami-style humor and jokes can be seen everywhere in the book, and some of them are still applicable to remote areas and hinterland of today's world. ""This is a kind of knowledge that we can't get when we read Plato or Thucydides. "
It can be seen that Aesop's Fables is not a children's book. It shows us the "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" of the life of ordinary people in ancient Greece. It depicts the details, protects animals and mourns heaven and man. "Life is unique in the world, and others are in trouble." This is the creed pursued by Aesop's World, which is of great value to deeply understand history and engage in the study of human nature.
According to the existing historical data, Matteo Ricci (1552-16 10), the first western missionary to China, introduced and quoted Aesop's fables in his book Ten Freaks (1608), which is the first time that Aesop's fables appeared in China. Later, Diego de Pantoja, Matteo Ricci's assistant missionary in Beijing, wrote The Complete Works of Seven Grams (16 14), in which several Aesop's fables were quoted. The first translation of Aesop's Fables in China was called KuangYi, which was dictated by French Jesuit Nicolas Trigaud and recorded by China Catholic priest Zhang Geng. Published in the fifth year of Apocalypse Tomorrow, namely 1625. The first English translation of Aesop's Fables in China was published in 1840, with the title "Yi Shi's Words" (Zhou Zuoren called Yi Shi "Mengyin", which means Aesop's Fables), and the English title was "esop Fables", indicating that it was written in Chinese by a knowledgeable and ignorant gentleman and compiled into the present form by their lazy pupils. This book is a textbook for foreigners to teach Chinese.
Aesop's Fables, first used by Lin Qinnan, was translated into/kloc-0 in the late 9th century. The word fable comes from Zhuangzi? Miscellaneous articles. And in Taiping Yulan and Shu Wei? The record in The Biography of Tu Gu Hun that one arrow is easy to fold, but nineteen arrows cannot be folded, is similar to the story in Aesop's fable The Farmer's Son, and seems to have reference significance. Aesop's fables enriched China's vocabulary, saying that grapes were sour, farmers and snakes, wolves came, wolves in sheep's clothing, and so on. Many children and even parents mistake it for an old story of China.
Finally, talk about the "tortoise and rabbit race". There are three fables about turtles in Aesop's Fables: tortoise and rabbit race, tortoise and eagle, Zeus and tortoise. Three turtles and three elephants, one positive, one negative and one neutral. Of course, the most famous race is the tortoise and the hare. Aesop's fables are not children's books. In China, most children's editions of Aesop's Fables have been carefully screened, revised repeatedly and added a lot. In order to meet the needs of children, language texts and sentences are full of childlike interest, which is far from the original.
Excerpted from a translation: "The annual animal sports meeting kicked off. The big forest is very lively. The animals cheered. The lion is the chairman of the meeting. Tigers and leopards are judges. The monkey is very busy, maintaining the order of the press conference. The most attractive cross-country race is about to begin. The contestants are rabbits and turtles. The game attracted everyone's attention. Rabbits are the number one seed that the audience is generally optimistic about. He is agile and a natural athlete. There is a great controversy among animals about the situation of turtles. Some people think that unless there is a miracle, the tortoise will run past the rabbit. Some people think that if the tortoise dares to challenge the rabbit, there must be hope of winning. The athletes appeared in bursts of warm music. The rabbit walked to the starting line with its head held high ... "There are too many miscellaneous things in Lala, and the game has not officially started.
Look at the original text again and choose Zhou Zuoren's translation: "The tortoise and the rabbit compete for who runs fast. So they set the date of the game and agreed on the place. At that time, the rabbit didn't pay attention to running because of its natural speed, but fell asleep on the side of the road. Knowing that he was walking slowly, the tortoise kept running forward, thus reaching the sleeping rabbit and winning the prize. This story shows that natural ability or negligence is often won by hard work. "
Concise and to the point. The French fable La Fontaine, one of the three greatest fables in the world, has selected some Aesop's fables, among which The Tortoise and Rabbit Race is more descriptive than Aesop's Fables, but it is still simpler than China's translation. China people, on the other hand, use their imaginations to think about the reasons why the tortoise won: gambling, kidnapping, black whistle, workplace, obedience, bribery, sleeping pills, stimulants and so on. And different endings have different inspirations: gold always shines (the rabbit wins); Core competitiveness (there is a river on the road); Each has its advantages and disadvantages (the rabbit is exhausted); Risk management (rabbits hitting trees); Cooperation * * * wins (mutual burden); Speed of the game (cooperation stopped); Team strength (find other partners to partner); Knowledge is power (learning from humans). And success also involves: wisdom (the tortoise bites the rabbit's tail); Sun Tzu's art of war (turtles go first); Tools ("hit by a turtle"); Brand (the car hit by the tortoise is Mercedes); Service (turtles travel by Didi); Standard (the standard set by the tortoise, there is a river on the way); Team (turtles holding a group to keep warm) and so on. , highlighting the current social state.
Mr. Qian Zhongshu formed his unique language style by misinterpreting the story, which attracted countless readers. He also interpreted Aesop's fables, which were unique and impressive. Take Mr. Qian's conclusion as the conclusion of this article: "Whether children should read fables depends on what kind of world and society we adults are creating for our children to grow and live." Rousseau believes that fables can make simple children complicated and lose their innocence, so they are unacceptable. I think fable is unacceptable, because the more simple it is to teach simple children, the more naive it is, thinking that the difference between right and wrong in personnel and the result of good and evil are as fair and clear as between animals, and they will be fooled everywhere when they grow up. The reason is that Rousseau is a primitivist and advocates retro, while I believe in progress-although I am not like a fly in a fable, sitting on the axle of a wheel and humming: "The progress of a car is my strength."