ASAP’S FABLES
This series puts a modern spin on twenty traditional Aesop tales in four-line iambic tetrameter. Illustrator Neiel Davis Cavin (neiel.net) provided his wonderfully fanciful images for the five verses included below.
In original, plodder accepts race challenge; braggart pulls over to side of road and takes afternoon nap during race; plodder wins trophy.
The Tortoise and the Hare
The slower folks who win the roads
Might heed this culinary scoop:
Without the proper engine power
One still could end up in the soup.
Bumpkin invites urbanite to visit; urbanite snubs country fare, invites reciprocal visit; country mouse bails when dangerous household pets arrive on scene.
The Country Mouse
and the City Mouse
A feast had in anxiety,
Or crusts without the social grease?
Perhaps a better fête would be
Enjoying banquets had in peace.
Lion spares mouse, lion gets caught in big net, mouse chews lion out, quite literally.
The Lion and the Mouse
That bridge not burned before it’s built
May someday spare one’s end on earth:
It’s when the scales of justice tilt
That kindness shows its true net worth.
Wolf wears discarded sheep pelt to infiltrate flock; shepherd goofs and kills wolf for mutton dinner.
The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
In uniform or one’s own threads,
One must identify the war
And heed with care the realm one treads
Or be a corpse in either corps.
In original, grasshopper dallies the summer away as ants lay up stores for winter; in the cold season he comes knocking and they refuse him.
The Grasshopper and the Ants
In summer he would play and dance,
Though roundly chastised by the ants.
In winter, though, they asked him in,
For life is dull sans violin.
© Image copyrights 1998–2020 Neiel Davis Cavin.