Source
Although the Aesopian tale of The Cock and the Jewel, which Henryson re-tells, is typically simple, it is one of the most ambiguous in the fable canon. It presents what is, in effect, a riddle on relative values with almost the force of a kōan. One modern translation of the fable, in its most cogent form, runs thus:
A Cock, scratching the ground for something to eat, turned up a Jewel that had by chance been dropped there. "Ho!" said he, "a fine thing you are, no doubt, and, had your owner found you, great would his joy have been. But for me ! give me a single grain of corn before all the jewels in the world."
- Aesop's Fables, translated by V.S. Vernon Jones (1912)
The standard medieval interpretation of the fable, however (which Henryson follows) came down firmly against the cockerel on the grounds that the jewel represents wisdom rather than mere wealth or allure. This interpretation is expressed in the verse Romulus, the standard fable text across Europe in that era, written in the lingua franca, Latin.
Henryson tacitly acknowledges this "source" in his own expanded version by claiming to be making a "translatioun" from the Latin and directly quoting some of its lines. The Romulus was a standard classroom text used in primary education to teach Latin. Since The Cock and the Jewel (De Gallo et Jaspide) was the first fable in this standard collection, it was, de facto, a universally familiar text in literary consciousness throughout Europe.
Read more about this topic: The Taill Of The Cok And The Jasp
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