Water Bears水熊虫

邓元元

Have you heard the fable of The Crow and the Pitcher2 where the thirsty crow gets the water level in the pitcher up by filling it up with stones？ This story teaches us： Necessity is the mother of invention. There is another one about The Tortoise and the Hare where both the animals decide to get into a race. Contrary to the expecta-tion of swift hare winning the race， the unhurried tortoises wins. So it is said， “The slow and steady always wins the race.”

Most of the fables that we read today were actually written sometime between 620 and 560 BC by a Greek slave named Aesop. He wrote hundreds of fables while he was in captivity3. He keenly4 observed things around him and wrote gripping5 tales around them. In the end， he always added a wise advice.

Collection of fables written by Aesop is com-monly known as Aesops Fables.

Aesops Fables from Greece and Jataka Tales and Panchatantra from India have many stories in common. The details sometimes differ widely. For instance， the fable of The Wolf and the Crane is told in India as a story of A Lion and Another Bird.

So some historians debate6 whether， in ancient times， the Greeks learned these fables from Indian storytellers or the other way round.

Well， it does not matter who wrote them first. They are wonderful stories！

你聽说过《乌鸦和瓶子》这则寓言吗？口渴的乌鸦往瓶子里装石子升高了水面。这个故事告诉我们：需求是发明之母。另外一则寓言《乌龟和兔子》则讲述的是两只动物决定进行一场比赛。人们期待敏捷的兔子获胜，但与此相反，不紧不慢的乌龟赢得了比赛。因此有了这样的说法：“又慢又稳总能赢比赛。”

我们现在读的大部分寓言是公元前620年至560年之间一个叫做伊索的希腊奴隶所写。他被囚禁的期间写了数百则寓言。他敏锐地观察身边的事件并将其写成了扣人心弦的故事。在末尾，他通常会加上一条智慧的建议。

伊索写的寓言集就是家喻户晓的《伊索寓言》。

希腊的《伊索语言》和印度的《本生经》、《五卷书》中的很多故事有共通之处，而细节却大相径庭。例如，《狼和鹤》的寓言在印度则是《狮子和鸟》的故事。

因此，有些历史学家争论在古代究竟是希腊人从印度讲故事的人那里还是由其他途径学到了这些寓言。

不过，谁先写出这些故事并不重要。重要的是这些都是非常精彩的故事。endprint