Ambrose Bierce Thanksgiving Fable

An Invitation

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A PIOUS Person who had overcharged his paunch with dead bird by way of attesting his gratitude for escaping the many calamities which Heaven had sent upon others, fell asleep at table and dreamed. He thought he lived in a country where turkeys were the ruling class, and every year they held a feast to manifest their sense of Heaven's goodness in sparing their lives to kill them later. One day, about a week before one of these feasts, he met the Supreme Gobbler, who said:

"You will please get yourself into good condition for the Thanksgiving dinner."

"Yes, your Excellency," replied the Pious Person, delighted, "I shall come hungry, I assure you. It is no small privilege to dine with your Excellency."

The Supreme Gobbler eyed him for a moment in silence; then he said:

"As one of the lower domestic animals, you cannot be expected to know much, but you might know something. Since you do not, you will permit me to point out that being asked to dinner is one thing; being asked to dine is another and a different thing."

With this significant remark the Supreme Gobbler left him, and thenceforward the Pious Person dreamed of himself as white meat and dark until rudely awakened by decapitation.

Fantastic Fables

Something you should know about me.... I absolutely am in love with this guy. I most especially love reading his fables in the snobbiest British accent I can muster, while looking down my nose at the rest of the world.

http://www.americanliterature.com/FF/FFINDX.HTML

The Moral Sentiment

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A PUGILIST met the Moral Sentiment of the Community, who was carrying a hat-box. "What have you in the hat-box, my friend?" inquired the Pugilist.

"A new frown," was the answer. "I am bringing it from the frownery - the one over there with the gilded steeple."

"And what are you going to do with the nice new frown?" the Pugilist asked.

"Put down pugilism - if I have to wear it night and day," said the Moral Sentiment of the Community, sternly.

"That's right," said the Pugilist, "that is right, my good friend; if pugilism had been put down yesterday, I wouldn't have this kind of Nose to-day. I had a rattling hot fight last evening with - "

"Is that so?" cried the Moral Sentiment of the Community, with sudden animation. "Which licked? Sit down here on the hat-box and tell me all about it!"

Other interesting Versions

The original Greek Version

http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/chambry/60.htm

The original Latin Version

http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/avianus/29.htm

The First English Version

http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/caxton/722.htm

Our translation/version has been misplaced. When I find it I will put it up...

Conclusion

The generic “Man” of recent versions, or the simple “Peasant” of the paintings, was originally a traveler in the Greek and Roman. The archetype of the traveler, still present in our literature today, is hybrid by nature, being both inside and outside of society. The first English version has the Man as a Pilgrim or Palmer, a traveler who has gone on a holy journey. The story bears a strong resemblance to folklore about meeting Beelzebub in the forest. It was Christian demonization of sensuality that resulted in the Satyr becoming a representation of Satan.

Fables, like all art, are changed significantly by the societal contexts they are found in. Translations sometimes improve upon older versions and gain more meaning, other times I feel we let ourselves down. By not exploring the original context, artists are unable to create better versions within their own contexts. Recreating ethics, instead of blindly following what previous generations have passed down, involves exploration of exactly what those ethics are and were about.

Fables are dangerous not only because of their glossy morals handed down to us from the Victorian era, but because of their deceptive simplicity that makes us forget that retelling them is participation in making deep statements on ethics and reality. Simplicity is also a gift, if we return to the original context of creating snapshots of the world’s complexity in order to inspire ethical debates. In other words, I think we could learn from the Ancient Greek’s serious handling of fables.

Since a fable is capable of adaptation and of exciting the imagination, it is no wonder the histories of fable and poetry have been so intertwined. I believe the most amazing aspect of a fable is its dual ability to be a simple children’s story while also containing a serious ethical debate. Writing a fable, brushing past characters, setting, and events, and honing in on the agon (or conflict) of the story is a treasure trove for any poet.

Johann Liss

http://www.jssgallery.org/Other_Artists/Liss_Johann/SatyrPeasant.html

Johann Liss’ painting also sets the Satyr in the man’s house; the Peasant has invited the Satyr in out of gratitude for his guidance through the storm. However, Liss’ painting involves fewer characters. It is even more obvious that the Satyr’s interest is in the Peasant’s wife, and not in the Peasant. The Peasant has a beautiful wife, and a family, while the Satyr has his charm. Not only does the wife seem charmed, but so does the infant. The dark figure in the background is even looking over his or her shoulder to view the Satyr. As in the Jordaen painting, the Peasant is busy eating, and keeping a close eye on the Satyr. In fact in both paintings all eyes are on the Satyr, who is foreign and bold.

Both paintings contrast with the most common versions of the story. The paintings included with these stories range from portraying the Satyr as a mischievous looking Faun to a dark looking monster of a Satyr, and everything in between.

Jacob Jordaens

Some Northern European painters have translated the story into painting, portraying the Satyr visiting the Man’s house. In this way they translate the original concept of strangeness and distrust inherent in a meal shared between Satyr and Man to modern audiences. The Satyr looks foreign, and fearsome, holding particular sway over the female members of the Man’s household.

Jordaen’s painting portrays the Satyr as nearly naked and wild, and yet he is the one speaking while everyone else, especially the women, are paying close attention. Visually he is a part of the circle of animals, but also a part of the line of humans. He looks intimidating, with his height and his sneer. The Peasant’s wealth, the many animals he surrounds himself with, contrast with the Satyr’s poverty. The Peasant’s family and society is represented by a wide variety of age groups. Jordaen recognized the moral of the story as the duality of humanity. The painting is of the moment when the Satyr denounces the man, but he does not look afraid as much as proud.

More on Air

Today air is understandably associated with speaking; if we say someone is “full of hot air” we mean they are being untruthful or bragging. The current interpretation of the fable has to do with being consistent in your speech. However, this has always seemed an unfair interpretation of the fable to me. The Man has not lied to or even falsely flattered the Satyr. The Satyr seems cruel, under this translation, and the Man unjustly accused. Of all the ways to show Man’s hybrid nature, why would the Greeks choose air? One of the reasons is that it was a great mystery being explored by the most respected poets, scientists, and philosophers of the time.

The pre-Socratic philosophers were concerned with determining one substance from which everything was made. Anaximenes believed everything was made of air, "when it is thinned it becomes fire, while when it is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed it becomes water, then earth, then stones. Everything else comes from these." Not much of Anaximenes’ writing has survived; it is through later philosophers that his theories remain accessible.

Aristotle discusses Anaximenes’ answer to the puzzle of cold and hot breath:

According to Anaximenes…the compressed and the condensed state of matter is cold, while the rarefied and relaxed (a word he himself uses) state of it is heat. Whence he says it is not strange that men breathe hot and cold out of the mouth; for the breath is cooled as it is compressed and condensed by the lips, but when the mouth is relaxed, it comes out warm by reason of its rarefaction.

Originally, those familiar with the fable were familiar with the scientific puzzle and many were familiar with Anaximenes.

The first readers of the fable would not have received it as a children’s story. The Man, placed within the framework of this prominent scientific issue, would have been revered and further contrasted with the Satyr, who in the Greek view was typically fascinated with knowledge but also feared it. Originally, the Satyr is merely being a Satyr, and the Man is misfortunate that the only help offered could not be trusted.

In the fable’s original context, nobody has to be morally culpable; the story is a snapshot of the differences between Man and Satyr and the relationship between them. The complex truth about reality is that Man is conflicted, dual in nature, and mysterious, as is the Satyr. The Man is superior because he is not afraid of this duality, and instead explores its implications. In the original Greek and Roman versions of the fable the Satyr is afraid of the Man; it is only when the fable is first translated into English that the Man begins to be described as afraid of the Satyr a tradition which continues to today with rare exceptions.

One lesson from the original fable is not to trust the sensuality and chaos that a Satyr and the Forest represent. This fable can probably be classified as a friendship fable, meaning it was meant to establish Satyr as an enemy to Man, and to explain the distrust that must exist between them. When the moral is uttered at the end of the story, it is an ironic one. The last line was quite possibly viewed with humor, as many of the original fables were; it is laughable that the Satyr who is a hybrid is accusing the Man of being dual.

Other aspects have been changed in translations across generations. The setting started as a Greek pit, became a cave in Rome, and then the Satyr’s house (usually portrayed as a hut or cottage). The setting has remained rural and rustic throughout these transformations. This may be why the original offering of the wine was transformed to soup, porridge, or hot water. Wine has taken on a sophisticated and urban symbolism, whereas soup and porridge are distinctly rustic and homey as a symbol.

About Brigit Pegeen Kelly

The Satyr in Kelly’s poem is stone and separate from the reproducing flowers surrounding him, but somehow he takes on the heart of the garden. As the poem progresses the Satyr is headless, he doesn’t have a heart. And yet, the poem is meant to reveal his heart. There is the contrast of the world quickly changing and the stillness of the statue. There is the wind “fingering” the twigs, when the wind does not have fingers. One line sets up the expectation of hearing the bird’s sound, and the next line falls on the bird “crying”. The contrast between the smell of the fruit and the smell of the coins, the sweetness and sadness of the earth, are held within the Satyr’s heart. Kelly focuses on the Satyr as both a part of nature, surrounded by nature, and yet also separate from it.

This is close to the original idea that the Greeks would have had about the Satyr. As part animal, he was part of nature and what the Greeks would have considered chaos. The Man’s world is the world of order. The Satyr might have been considered the guardian of the forest, and yet that did not mean he made the forest a friendlier or less chaotic place.

A Satyr often embodied the nature of which he was a part. The forest originally seemed to offer the traveler a path, but then the weather changed and the forest betrayed and endangered him. As part human the Satyr is separate from nature. Therefore, the Satyr is conflicted. He offers help to the Man, but he is so afraid of what he does not understand that he withdraws that help. Both the forest and the Satyr interact with the Man in the same way, and the Satyr is only slightly more morally culpable for this than the forest is. The fable explains what Man can expect from Satyrs, they will be as chaotic as the nature they embody.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly

The Satyr's Heart (excerpt)

Now I rest my head on the satyr's carved chest,

The hollow where the heart would have been, if sandstone

Had a heart, if a headless goat man could have a heart.

His neck rises to a dull point, points upward

To something long gone, elusive, and at his feet

The small flowers swarm, earnest and sweet, a clamor

Of white, a clamor of blue, and black the sweating soil

They breed in...If I sit without moving, how quickly

Things change, birds turning tricks in the trees,

Colorless birds and those with color, the wind fingering

The twigs, and the furred creatures doing whatever

Furred creatures do. So, and so.  There is the smell of fruit

And the smell of wet coins. There is the sound of a bird

Crying, and the sound of water that does not move...

If I pick the dead iris?  If I wave it above me

Like a flag, a blazoned flag?  My fanfare? Little fare

with which I buy my way, making things brave? The way

Now I bend over and with my foot turn up a stone,

And there they are: the armies of pale creatures who

Without cease or doubt sew the sweet sad earth.

About Matthea Harvey

Matthea Harvey’s poem focuses on the difference between poetry and actual experience, and also between poetry and prose. The poem itself is purposefully formed into a straightforward paragraph. Harvey’s point was that it is both and neither poetry and/or prose, just as the centaur is both horse and man, the mermaids are both women and fish, and the griffins are both lions and birds. The Berlin Wall too, separates two halves of a country which are both the same country and no longer the same country.

As the centaur sketches on his napkin, a “Wall” is something that saws in half, “you know this too” that each half of you is you and yet is not you without the other half. What one part of the reader may want, such as knowledge, the other half despises. The other half wants to be free of all knowledge, blissfully unaware, amid a mystical or ultimately real experience. The poem and the poet try to do both, and the poem and the poet are both hybrids.

Matthea Harvey

You Know This Too
 The bird on the gate and the goat nosing the grass below make a funny little fraction, 
thinks the centaur. He wonders if this thought is more human than horse, more poetry 
than prose. Sometimes it’s hard not to abandon the whole rigmarole of standing at the 
counter- using a knife and fork to politely eat his steak and peas- to go outside and put his 
head in the grass. But what his stomach wants, his tongue won’t touch; what his mouth 
wants, his stomach recoils from. Through the restaurant window he sees flashes of silver
 and pink in the river. It’s so clogged with mermaids and mermen, there’s no room for 
fish. And under the bridge, a group of extremist griffins, intent on their graffiti- Long 
Live the Berlin…The spray paint runs out and while they’re shaking the next can in their 
clenched claws, the centaur spells out Wall on his napkin, and sketches next to it a girl in 
sequins getting sawed in half. 

More Lecture

This fable follows its form perfectly, it places it in time and scene, tells who the protagonist and antagonist are, and then gets right down to what happens between them. However, this particular fable bothered me from a young age, because I could not accept the moral explained to me, nor could I puzzle out a fitting moral for it on my own. So eventually I dropped the matter thinking I would understand when I got older. I still didn't understand when I got older, so I found myself on this train of thought again.

I think this fable focuses both on the mysterious nature of the world and how man interacts with it, and on the double nature of man who is constantly inventing hybrids because he himself would like to be half animal and half something else. While most Fables involve animals, this fable includes a mythical creature that is half human and half animal. Brigit Pegeen Kelly and Matthea Harvey are contemporary poets, who deal with duality in poems involving hybrid creatures.

Contrasting Version

Now I would like to follow that with Laura Gibb’s translation. I like this translation because it combines aspects of the original Greek and Roman texts. She keeps much of the imagery and detail of the original versions. The difference between this and the more widespread versions is obvious.

Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

368. THE SATYR AND HIS GUEST
As winter grew rough with heavy frost and every field stiffened as the ice grew hard, a traveler was brought to a halt by thickening fog. He could no longer see the trail in front of him, making it impossible to go on. A satyr, one of the guardians of the woods, is said to have taken pity on the man and offered him shelter in his cave. This child of the fields was then amazed by the man and terrified by his prodigious powers. First, in order to restore his frozen limbs to life's activities, the man thawed his hands by blowing hot air on them from his mouth. Then, when the man had begun to get warm and was eager to enjoy his host's extravagant hospitality (for the satyr wanted to show the man how country folk lived, offering him the forest's finest products), he brought out a full bowl of warm wine whose heat could spread throughout the man's body and dispel the winter's chill. But the man hesitated to touch the steaming cup with his lips and this time his mouth emitted a cooling breath. The man's host shook with terror, dumbfounded at this double portent. The satyr drove his guest out into the woods and ordered him to be on his way. 'Do not let any man ever come near my cave again,' said the satyr, 'if he can breathe in two different ways from the very same mouth!'

Note: Satyrs were mythical creatures who were part human and part animal. They were usually represented as men with the legs and tail of a goat, or sometimes the tail of a horse.

Basic Version of The Man and the Satyr

www.soupsong.com

A Man had lost his way in a wood one bitter winter's night. As he was roaming about, a Satyr came up to him, and finding that he had lost his way, promised to give him lodging for the night, and guide him out of the forest in the morning. As he went along to the Satyr's cell, the Man raised both his hands to his mouth and kept on blowing at them. "What do you do that for?" said the Satyr.

"My hands are numb with the cold," said the Man, "and my breath warms them."

After this they arrived at the Satyr's home, and soon the Satyr put a smoking dish of soup before him. But when the Man raised his spoon to his mouth he began blowing upon it. "And what do you do that for?" said the Satyr. "The soup is too hot, and my breath will cool it."

"Out you go," said the Satyr. "I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath."

Intro

Fables & poetry share at least two traits, their use of imagery and their nature as snapshots of reality. Fables, like poetry, have traditionally contained word play and cultural allusions. Many fables have been put into verse, made into poetry, and many poets have written poems that are fables. In fact my Dictionary of Poetic Terms includes the term “Fable”:

(from Latin for “to talk, to discourse”) a short unadorned story, often using animals as characters who exemplify human morality or behavior. Fables, thought to have originated in the allegories of tribal societies, were orally

passed on and were often improved in the hands of skilled writers. Aesop, a sixth-century-B.C. Greek about whom very little is documented, is

renowned for his beast fables which offer lessons... The oldest known f. is

Hesiod's poem of the hawk and the nightingale (eight century B.C.)...

Fabulists throughout history, include... American 20^th-century poets such

as Marianne Moore and Russell Edson.

In Appendix 2, under figurative expressions, fable is included in a list of “figures of similarity and dissimilarity”, which includes allegory, metaphor, parable, and symbol among others. I think the Dictionary of Poetic Terms has accurately and efficiently got right to the center of why I think fable is so important and intertwined with poetry. Poetry and fable build reality out of symbolic terms. Both poetry and fable are self-aware because metaphors & symbols, the stuff of language, cannot reach the level of the real truths they are pointing to.

The more I research the more I am aware that fable has been important to poets from the earliest recorded poetry to the most recent, even those considered “avant-garde.” Several Greek poets after Aesop put his fables into verse, Socrates included. Possibly the oldest love poem known to us (4000 B.C.) works within myth and fable. Mysticism and surrealism are connected at their earliest roots to myth, fairy tale, and fable.

Though now associated with children, fables have long been the material of philosophers: Hesiod, Socrates, Leonardo DaVinci, and Emerson, just to name a few.

A fable after all is a story that cuts to the chase, slices right through to a sudden truth about reality. Though modern readers may consider this truth a neat little moral, the actual beauty of a fable is its ability to portray reality as it really is: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Instead of building characters, the fable calls upon archetypal images onto which a society already loads significant meaning.

Fables exist within a light-hearted world of fictional talking animals, which is largely why modern readers associate them with children. However, fables are talking serious philosophy; they are trying to show both the justice and the injustice of the world, and this is something our society sometimes misses.

On the other hand, does it? Folklore long thought of as the stuff of childhood is now being reinvented to contain the gravity it once represented. Fairy tales like “Pan’s Labyrinth” are set in the midst of dark historic circumstances, in this case a grisly Spanish Civil War. People question whether the Harry Potter series should even be classified as children’s literature. Mythically-minded super heroes are being considered on deep philosophical levels in both television shows like Heroes, and movies like the Dark Knight. And the heavily mythical works of JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George Pullman are being made into movies that are as theologically serious as they are magical.

I think each poet has a fable, a fairy tale, a myth that holds significant meaning for her or him. My calling is “The Man and the Satyr.” I would like to start out by reading a widespread version of this fable.

The Man and the Satyr: The Poet as Hybrid

To the Pisos the Art of Poetry: Notes for Aspiring Poets and Playwrights (excerpt)

Suppose some painter had the bright idea

of sticking a human head on a horse's neck

and covering human nether limbs up with 

assorted feathers so that a beautiful

woman uptop was an ugly fish below,

and you were invited in to take a look,

How could you possibly manage to keep a straight face?

Dear Pisos, dear friends, a poem's exactly like

such pictures as those, when the poet's fantasies

are like a sick man's raving dreams in which

you can't tell head from foot nor what it is

that they're attached to...

trans David Ferry

Shakespeare comes through for me again

SONNET 56
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view;
Else call it winter, which being full of care
Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd,
more rare.

Combining both the ideas of blind/seeing love and the ocean/sea theme.

This sonnet almost reads like a prayer for me.

Please Love, continue to change with the seasons. Continue to empower me to be free and to enslave me to the point of surrender. Continue to excite and comfort me. Continue to bring me joy and sweetbitter despair. Amen.

Coraline, Keats, and Suzanne

The movie Coraline, the poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and the song Suzanne. All three appeal to me.

If I am honest it is not Coraline, the errant knight, or Suzanne's blind lover that I feel for. I relate to the beldam, the faery's child, Suzanne. This is partially because men have followed me blindly before, when I had no desire for them to do so.

I realize there is a twisted aspect to these characters, in other words. Not only do they fool others, but they also have their selves completely fooled. The heroes are not so different from the villains in these stories.

Keats, in his poem, seems to have been speaking about the poet's relationship to fantasy. I have often wondered if it is this ability toward fantasy that draws the victims to the villains.

These temptresses, especially Other Mother, can seem like they are capable of getting whatever they want. They can seem just as bad as the victims, as if they were only looking for their own happiness. But I can't help but project and wonder, if they are never getting the one thing that they actually want, someone to love them for who they really are. Because the temptresses realize that their worlds are fake, they want love to be real.

I mean doesn't anyone else feel that Coraline and the other children are really spoiled brats who don't care at all ever about the other mother or even their own parents but only want what the other mother can offer them? The ghost children admit they were given everything but wanted more.

The cat speculates about the reasons the other mother is the way she is. He first mentions that maybe she just wants to love and be loved. "She wants something to love, I think. Something that isn't her. Or, maybe she'd just love something to eat."

People strong in fantasy, strong people in general, have this way of making wills and circumstances bend their way. I think what the other mother is really attached to is the game. The cat also tells us she has a "thing" for them. It's a fun little game called "let's see who will actually try to get to know me, or at the very least manage to outwit me, instead of just walking into my trap like all the other idiots."

In Keat's poem I think the knight is a classic idiot. He follows a beautiful woman, he doesn't know who she is nor does he care, he gets what he gets.

Maybe what I am saying here is that I think blind love can only happen as an after effect of curious love. We must first approach another person with open mind, heart, and arms. Then we can close our eyes and take the extra blind leap of faith that love requires.

I have trouble believing that some brat that hates her own loving parents, and wouldn't even like me if she knew I am a spider, could ever love me. Coraline going to the other parents is never about loving them, it's all about Coraline. Likewise she doesn't take the time to see who her real parents are.

Likewise, I have trouble believing that the Knight took any time to see who the beautiful woman really was or even cared. Just so long as she is beautiful, and feeds him sweet things, and sings sweetly everything is fine.

I feel a bit more sympathy for Suzanne's lover. He seems to get her, and he seems to truly try to see who she is. He seems at the very least genuinely curious about her rather than what she can do for him. But even he accepts her tea and oranges, even though he feels he has no love to give her. The song doesn't absolutely doom him, though. I like to think he breaks the spell, that he gains insight into Suzanne, and actually loves her. (Note: Suzanne traps both heroes and children.)

As a woman who has been followed blindly, I know that the man following you has no idea who you are. You can say to their face, "look I have no love to give you." You can even admit that you have turned men into ghosts before, and yet that doesn't matter to them. These men think they're special, they're different, they could really have something. They could have your love, and eat your oranges, honey, and gravy from your gravy train. They could do all of this blind, thinking only of their selves, never trying to see or love who you really are, and somehow this could all end well.

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be told you are loved by someone who it is obvious loves only self and what you can do for them?

It could turn you a little evil pretty easily. If these people are really only serving their selves, and there is no possibility of making them see who you really are, then it doesn't seem so bad to turn it around and use them.

Add to that the fact that each time it can feel like, maybe this time this knight/hero/child/ is different. Maybe this time they will open their eyes, see who I really am, and actually love me. You can trick your self into thinking, maybe it's okay to use others if they used me. Or maybe this time it isn't just a game, maybe I really care about this person. Certainly the Other Mother seems to have really tried to see who Coraline is and give her what she wanted.

When it comes to me, I find this game especially dangerous, because I really do want to make people happy and I really am trying to pay attention to who they actually are. But when I find out they were only after me for their own happiness, that they still don't know who I am or even care... I can turn into a bit of a monster.

It's hard to say whether I was a monster to begin with, or whether the fault lies with the victims. It's a dangerous cycle and it's hard to break. I like to think I am just looking for people to love. I know for sure I am not just looking for people to eat, as Coraline says "that's ridiculous". I only settle for "eating" people once I don't get what I really want.

But I wonder if what I am really looking for is somebody to love me. I wonder if that's what these other temptresses are looking for too. If we slowed down and allowed ourselves to pursue others with our own happiness in mind as well as theirs to begin with, in other words if we didn't trick ourselves from the start that we were really just concerned about others' happiness, then maybe we could break the cycle.

For the whole movie Coraline is so concerned about the fact that she is not being listened to, that she doesn't seem to realize she isn't listening to anyone else. It is only through confronting the Other Mother, that she learns there has to be some balance between being listened to and listening, between loving and being loved, between following blindly and opening your eyes in order to see people as they really are.