Fables Quiz

Answer: A cheese. In this fable (Book I), the crow holds a cheese in its beak. The fox, to get it, flatters the crow on its beautiful voice. As soon as the crow opens its beak to sing, it drops the cheese. The moral: 'Every flatterer lives at the expense of those who listen to them.'

Answer: She bursts. A small frog sees an ox and wants to match its size. She puffs up more and more, asking the ant about her progress, until she bursts. The moral condemns the pride and vanity of those who want to seem bigger than they are. (Book I, fable 3)

Answer: Because he refused all fish he deemed unworthy. By a river full of fish, the heron first ignores the carp and the pike, waiting to be hungrier, then rejects the tench and the gudgeon as unworthy of him. Starving, he ends up making do with a snail. The moral condemns excessive disdain. (Book VII, fable 4)

Answer: By using the goat as a stepping stone. The fox and the goat fall into a well together. The fox persuades the goat to put his hooves against the wall so he can climb on his back and get out first. Once outside, he leaves the goat at the bottom, giving him just a word of advice for the future. The moral: 'In all things, one must consider the end.' (Book III, fable 5)

Answer: The Shepherd and the Wolf. In Aesop's 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf', a young shepherd amuses himself by alerting villagers that a wolf is attacking his flock. Twice, the villagers rush over for nothing. When a real wolf arrives, no one believes his calls anymore. This fable gave rise to the expression 'cry wolf' to describe a repeated false alarm.

Answer: That she moved it all by herself. Six horses struggled to pull the heavy coach; the fly buzzed around, thinking herself indispensable. The fable mocks busybodies who take credit for others' work.

Answer: Heaven helps those who help themselves. Hercules tells him to free his cart's wheels himself. Once he gets to work, he succeeds.

Answer: He was hungry. The wolf seeks three successive false pretexts against the lamb (muddying his water, having spoken ill of him the year before, belonging to a cursed race), but the real reason is that he was hungry. The moral: 'The strongest party is always right.' (Book I, fable 10)

Answer: He leaves it, preferring a grain of barley. In Aesop and Phaedrus, the cock leaves the pearl in the dunghill, saying a grain of barley would be more useful to him. In La Fontaine, he takes it to the first jeweller he meets: 'I think it's fine… but the smallest grain of millet would suit me much better.' The moral: a thing's value depends on whoever can appreciate it. (Book I, fable 20)

Answer: Athens. A monkey falls into the sea during a shipwreck. A dolphin, thinking it is saving a man, picks him up. He asks if he knows Athens, to which the monkey says yes to everything. When the dolphin asks if he knows the Piraeus (the harbor), the monkey thinks it's a person and claims to know him too. The dolphin, realizing the deception, lets him sink. (Book IV, fable 7)

Answer: A freed slave. According to Herodotus and ancient tradition, Aesop was a Phrygian slave of the 6th century BC, who reportedly gained his freedom thanks to his wit. His actual existence is debated by historians. His 'Life of Aesop', a biographical novel written well after his death, depicts him as ugly, stuttering, and exceptionally clever.

Answer: A natural enemy cannot be tamed. Babrius (2nd century AD) rewrote Aesop's fables in Greek verse. In this fable, a farmer warms a frozen snake against his chest. Once warm, the snake bites him. Moral: the deep nature of a dangerous creature does not change, even in the face of kindness. This fable is the origin of the proverb 'to nurse a viper in one's bosom'.

Answer: No, Aesop's version does not mention an arbitrator. Aesop's original version is very short and mentions no arbitrator. The hare simply rests too long and arrives after the tortoise. Later adaptations (notably in 19th-century illustrated versions) added a fox or another animal as arbitrator, but this is not in the source text.

Answer: The donkey. The lion bears the others' blows, but the donkey's is "dying twice". Hence the French expression "le coup de pied de l'âne" (the donkey's kick).