Aesop's Fables

Here is the cast that has wandered through common speech ever since. The Fox who flatters a Crow out of her cheese, then remarks she has voice but no wits. The overconfident Hare who lies down to nap while the Tortoise plods steadily past. The mice who agree that belling the cat is an admirable plan, until one old mouse asks who, exactly, will do it. A thirsty Crow drops pebbles into a pitcher one by one, watching the water climb to the brim. The North Wind blusters at a traveller's cloak and only makes him clutch it tighter, while the Sun simply warms him until he lets it fall.

The telling is spare and wry, no wasted motion. Each fable does its work in a page or less and trusts the reader to catch the point — "Slow and steady wins the race," a phrase so worn into daily talk that many will meet it here as if for the first time.

There is a pleasure in seeing where these sayings were born, and in watching how much a handful of sentences can hold. Open to any page and a whole small world is waiting, complete in itself, ready to hand over its quiet lesson and let the next one begin.