The Fox and the Mask
The Fox and the Mask is one of Aesop's Fables, of which there are both Greek and Latin variants. It is numbered 27 in the Perry Index.[1]
A fable for the empty-headed
The fable is always briefly stated and seems chiefly the vehicle for a criticism of the good-looking but stupid upper class. A fox comes across a mask anciently used by actors; after an examination, it remarks, 'So full of beauty, so empty of brains!' The Latin version of this, generally shortened to caput vacuum cerebro, then became proverbial. It is recorded by Erasmus in his Adagia, along with its Greek equivalent (Ὦ οἷα κεφαλὴ, καὶ ἐγκέφαλον ούκ ἔχει), with the explanation that it originates from Aesop's fable.[2]
There are different versions of the story, sometimes involving a wolf contemplating the broken head of a statue.[3] Its earliest English appearance is in William Caxton's collection of the fables (1484), under the title of "The wulf and the dede man’s hede”, as an example of the proposition that ‘Many one ben whiche haue grete worship and glorye but noo prudence’ .[4] But Andrea Alciato, the influential Italian originator of the emblem book, generally pictures a fox contemplating a mask. The six-line Latin poem accompanying it declares that it is mind, not outward form, that is most important (Mentem, non formam, plus pollere).[5] This version also appeared in a Neo-Latin poem by Gabriele Faerno.[6]
The version in La Fontaine's Fables is told of a fox and a bust (IV.14). However, the fable is merely alluded to in his poem, which is more a meditation on appearance and comments at the end that the fox's remark "to many a lord applies".[7] When the caricaturist J. J. Grandville illustrated the Fables in 1838 he updated the social comment, using animals instead of humans. At an Academy exhibition, a fox glances sideways at a pompous portrait bust that is being examined closely by an ass, with the figures of a uniformed duck and an owlish dandy in the background.
The German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing also reinterpreted the fable in 1759, identifying chatterers as its target.[8] In England it was young children who ignore their studies to whom the versified fable of "The Fox and the Mask" was applied by Richard Scrafton Sharpe in his Old friends in a new dress: familiar fables in verse (London, 1807).[9] Later in the century, W. S. Gilbert revisited the dichotomy between reality and representation in his comic poem "The Pantomime 'Super' to His Mask".[10] There the actor condemns the mask as being brainless and reliant on him for the histrionic success of the inane emotions it expresses. The mask replies that if the actor looked within he would find a correspondence between what he enacts and his true personality.[11]
References
- ^ Aesopica site
- ^ Desiderius Erasmus Adagiourum epitome, Amsterdam 1650, p.319
- ^ Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, History of the Graeco-Latin Fable III, Leiden NL 2003, p.700
- ^ Text on the Aesopica site
- ^ Emblemata, emblem 189
- ^ Vulpes et Larva, Fable 66
- ^ Elizur Wright's translation at Gutenberg
- ^ Fables and Epigrams of Lessing translated from the German, London 1825, fable 55
- ^ Digital archive, Fable VI
- ^ The Bab Ballads (1869), pp.108-9
- ^ Richard Moore, Genres and Provenance in the Comedy of W.S. Gilbert, Routledge, 2019
External links
- Book illustrations of "The wolf and the head" from the 15th century
- Book illustrations of "The fox and the mask" from the 15th - 19th century
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Fables
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Ass and his Masters
- The Ass and the Pig
- The Ass Carrying an Image
- The Ass in the Lion's Skin
- The Astrologer who Fell into a Well
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Belly and the Members
- The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
- The Bird in Borrowed Feathers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Cock, the Dog and the Fox
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Crow and the Snake
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and Its Reflection
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dove and the Ant
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Fir and the Bramble
- The Fisherman and the Little Fish
- The Fowler and the Snake
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Fox and the Lion
- The Fox and the Mask
- The Fox and the Sick Lion
- The Fox and the Stork
- The Fox and the Weasel
- The Fox and the Woodman
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Goat and the Vine
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Horse and the Donkey
- The Horse that Lost its Liberty
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
- The Man with Two Mistresses
- The Mischievous Dog
- The Miser and his Gold
- The Moon and her Mother
- The Mountain in Labour
- The Mouse and the Oyster
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Oak and the Reed
- The Old Man and Death
- The Old Woman and the Doctor
- The Rose and the Amaranth
- The Satyr and the Traveller
- The Sick Kite
- The Snake and the Crab
- The Snake in the Thorn Bush
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- The Travellers and the Plane Tree
- The Trees and the Bramble
- The Two Pots
- The Walnut Tree
- Washing the Ethiopian White
- The Weasel and Aphrodite
- The Wolf and the Crane
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Woodcutter and the Trees
- The Young Man and the Swallow
- An ass eating thistles
- The Bear and the Gardener
- Belling the Cat (also known as The Mice in Council)
- The Blind Man and the Lame
- The Boy and the Filberts
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- The Dog in the Manger
- The drowned woman and her husband
- The Elm and the Vine
- The Fox and the Cat
- The Gourd and the Palm-tree
- The Hawk and the Nightingale
- The miller, his son and the donkey
- The Monkey and the Cat
- The Priest and the Wolf
- The Scorpion and the Frog
- The Shepherd and the Lion
adaptations
- Aesop's Film Fables
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
adaptations
- Demetrius of Phalerum
- Phaedrus
- Babrius
- Avianus
- Dositheus Magister
- Alexander Neckam
- Adémar de Chabannes
- Odo of Cheriton
- John Lydgate
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Laurentius Abstemius
- Roger L'Estrange
- Gabriele Faerno
- Hieronymus Osius
- Marie de France
- Robert Henryson
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Ivan Krylov
- Nicolas Trigault
- Robert Thom
- Zhou Zuoren