Aesop's Fables - Aesop's Fables in Other Languages

Aesop's Fables in Other Languages

• Ysopet, an adaptation of some of the fables into Old French octosyllabic couplets, was written by Marie de France in the 12th century. The morals with which she closes each fable reflect the feudal situation of her time.
• In the 13th century the Jewish author Berechiah ha-Nakdan wrote Mishlei Shualim, a collection of 103 'Fox Fables' in Hebrew rhymed prose. This included many animal tales passing under the name of Aesop, as well as several more derived from Marie de France and others. Berechiah's work adds a layer of Biblical quotations and allusions to the tales, adapting them as a way to teach Jewish ethics. The first printed edition appeared in Mantua in 1557; an English translation by Moses Hadas, titled Fables of a Jewish Aesop, first appeared in 1967.
• Äsop, an adaptation into Middle Low German verse of 125 Romulus fables, was written by Gerhard von Minden around 1370.
• Chwedlau Odo ("Odo's Tales") is a 14th century Welsh version of the animal fables in Odo of Cheriton’s Parabolae. Many of these show sympathy for the poor and oppressed, with often sharp criticisms of high-ranking church officials.
• Eustache Deschamps included several of Aesop's fables among his moral ballades, written in Mediaeval French towards the end of the 14th century, in one of which there is mention of what 'Aesop tells in his book' (Ysoppe dit en son livre et raconte). In most, the telling of the fable precedes the drawing of a moral in terms of contemporary behaviour, but two comment on this with only contextual reference to fables not recounted in the text.
• Isopes Fabules was written in Middle English rhyme royal stanzas by the monk John Lydgate towards the start of the 15th century. Seven tales are included and heavy emphasis is laid on the moral lessons to be learned from them.
• The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian was written in Middle Scots iambic pentameters by Robert Henryson about 1480. In the accepted text it consists of thirteen versions of fables, seven modelled on stories from "Aesop" expanded from the Latin Romulus manuscripts.

• The main impetus behind the translation of large collections of fables attributed to Aesop and translated into European languages came from an early printed publication in Germany. There had been many small selections in various languages during the Middle Ages but the first attempt at an exhaustive edition was made by Heinrich Steinhőwel in his Esopus, published c.1476. This contained both Latin versions and German translations and also included a translation of Rinuccio da Castiglione (or d’Arezzo)'s version from the Greek of a life of Aesop (1448). Some 156 fables appear, collected from Romulus, Avianus and other sources, accompanied by a commentarial preface and moralising conclusion, and 205 woodcuts. Translations or versions based on Steinhöwel's book followed shortly in Italy (1479), France (1480) and England (the Caxton edition of 1484) and were many times reprinted before the start of the 16th century. The Spanish version of 1489, La vida del Ysopet con sus fabulas hystoriadas was equally successful and often reprinted in both the Old and New World through three centuries.
• 47 fables were translated into Nahuatl in the late 16th century under the title In sasanilli in Esopo. The work of a native translator, it adapted the stories to fit the Mexican environment, incorporating Aztec concepts and rituals and making them rhetorically more subtle than their Latin source.

• Portuguese missionaries arriving in Japan at the end of the 16th century introduced Japan to the fables when a Latin edition was translated into romanized Japanese. The title was Esopo no Fabulas and dates to 1593. This was soon followed by a fuller translation into a three-volume kanazōshi entitled Isopo Monogatari (伊曾保物語?). This was the sole Western work to survive in later publication after the expulsion of Westerners from Japan, since by that time the figure of Aesop had been acculturated and presented as if he were Japanese. Coloured woodblock editions of individual fables were made by Kawanabe Kyosai in the 19th century.
• The first translations of Aesop's Fables into Chinese were made at the start of the 17th century, the first substantial collection being of 38 conveyed orally by a Jesuit missionary named Nicolas Trigault and written down by a Chinese academic named Zhang Geng (Chinese: 張賡; pinyin: Zhāng Gēng) in 1625. This was followed two centuries later by Yishi Yuyan 《意拾喻言》 (Esop’s Fables: written in Chinese by the Learned Mun Mooy Seen-Shang, and compiled in their present form with a free and a literal translation) in 1840 by Robert Thom and apparently based on the version by Roger L'Estrange. This work was initially very popular until someone realised the fables were anti-authoritiarian and the book was banned for a while. A little later, however, in the foreign concession in Shanghai, A.B. Cabaniss brought out a transliterated translation in Shanghai dialect, Yisuopu yu yan (伊娑菩喻言, 1856). There have also been 20th century translations by Zhou Zuoren and others.
• La Fontaine's Fables, published in French during the later 17th century, were inspired by the brevity and simplicity of Aesop's. Although the first six books are heavily dependent on traditional Aesopic material, fables in the next six are more diffuse and of diverse origin.
• At the start of the 19th century, some of the fables were adapted into Russian, and often reinterpreted, by the fabulist Ivan Krylov. In most cases, but not all, these were dependent on La Fontaine's versions.