![Hercules & Waggoner2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Hercules_%26_Waggoner2.jpg)
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to
Aesop
Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...
. It is associated with the proverb "
God helps those who help themselves
The phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is a motto that emphasizes the importance of self-initiative and Agency (philosophy), agency. The expression is known around the world and is used to inspire people for self-help. The phrase origin ...
", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
The Greek proverb
![Spranger, Bartholomäus - Hermes and Athena - c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Spranger%2C_Bartholom%C3%A4us_-_Hermes_and_Athena_-_c._1585.png)
A number of the fables credited to Aesop seem to have been created to illustrate already existing proverbs. The tale of
Herakles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
and the Cowherd, first recorded by
Babrius
Babrius ( grc-gre, Βάβριος, ''Bábrios''; century),"Babrius" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 21. also known as Babrias () or Gabrias (), was the author of a collection of Greek fables, many of which ...
towards the end of the 1st century CE, is one of these. The rustic's cart falls into a ravine and he calls on the deified strongman for help, only to be advised by a voice from Heaven to put his own shoulder to the wheel first. In a variant recorded by the near contemporary
Zenobius
Zenobius ( grc-gre, Ζηνόβιος) was a Greek sophist, who taught rhetoric at Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138).
Biography
He was the author of a collection of proverbs in three books, still extant in an abridged form, ...
an ass founders in the mud, while in the later Latin of
Avianus
Avianus (or possibly Avienus;Alan Cameron, "Avienus or Avienius?", ''ZPE'' 108 (1995), p. 260 c. AD 400) a Latin writer of fables,"Avianus" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 5. identified as a pagan.
The 4 ...
it is a cart drawn by oxen that gets stuck there. The fable appears as number 291 in the
Perry Index
The Perry Index is a widely used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The index was created by Ben Edwin Perry, a professor of classics at the Un ...
. Another fable of the same tendency is numbered 30 in that index. It tells of a man who is shipwrecked and calls on the goddess
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
for help; he is advised by another to try swimming ('moving his arms') as well.
Evidence that the advice on which they close is old and probably of proverbial origin is provided by its appearance in
ancient Greek tragedies
Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from Ancient Greece and Greek inhabited Anatolia. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy.
Greek tragedy is widely believed t ...
, of which only fragments now remain. In the ''
Philoctetes
Philoctetes ( grc, Φιλοκτήτης ''Philoktētēs''; English pronunciation: , stress (linguistics), stressed on the third syllable, ''-tet-''), or Philocthetes, according to Greek mythology, was the son of Poeas, king of Meliboea (Magnes ...
'' (c.409 BCE) of
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...
appear the lines, "No good e'er comes of leisure purposeless; And heaven ne’er helps the men who will not act." And in the ''
Hippolytus'' (428 BCE) of
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
there is the more direct, "Try first thyself, and after call in God; For to the worker God himself lends aid."
Later applications
When the theme was taken up in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
, it was the variant of the laden ass that slips in the mire that appeared earlier on in Guillaume La Perrière's
emblem book
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Emblem books are collections ...
, ''Le theatre des bons engins'' (1544) . Though prayer to God is piously recommended in the accompanying poem,
::Yet while to Him you carry your trust,
::Let your own hands tarry not at first.
Not long after,
Gabriele Faerno
The humanist scholar Gabriele Faerno, also known by his Latin name of Faernus Cremonensis, was born in Cremona about 1510 and died in Rome on 17 November, 1561. He was a scrupulous textual editor and an elegant Latin poet who is best known now for ...
included the story of Hercules and the Wagoner in his influential collection of Latin poems based on Aesop's fables that was published in 1563. Then in England
Francis Barlow provided versions in English verse and Latin prose to accompany the illustration in his 1666 collection of the fables under the title "The Clown and the Cart". Two years later, a French version appeared in
La Fontaine's Fables
Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...
titled "The Mired Carter" (''Le chartier embourbé'', VI.18). The variation in this telling is that the god suggests various things that the carter should do until, to his surprise, he finds that the cart is freed. The first translation of this version was made by Charles Denis in 1754, and there he follows La Fontaine in incorporating the Classical proverb as the moral on which it ends: "First help thyself, and Heaven will do the rest."
The English idiomatic expression 'to set (or put) one's shoulder to the wheel' derived at an earlier date from the condition given the carter before he could expect divine help. Denis' translation apart, however, the link with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves" was slow to be taken up in English sources, even though that wording had emerged by the end of the 17th century. It was not there in
Samuel Croxall
Samuel Croxall (c. 1690 – 1752) was an Anglican churchman, writer and translator, particularly noted for his edition of Aesop's Fables.
Early career
Samuel Croxall was born in Walton on Thames, where his father (also called Samuel) was vicar. ...
's long 'application' at the end of his version, in which he stated that to neglect the necessity of self-help is ‘blasphemy’, that it is ‘a great sin for a man to fail in his trade or occupation by running often to prayers’, and that 'the man who is virtuously and honestly engaged is actually serving God all the while’. A century after the first appearance of his collection, the fables were reused with new commentaries in ''Aesop's fables: accompanied by many hundred proverbs & moral maxims suited to the subject of each fable'' (Dublin 1821). There it is titled "The Farmer and the Carter" and headed with the maxim 'If you will obtain, you must attempt'. At the end, a Biblical parallel is suggested with ‘The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing’ from the
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different ...
(13.4). Later in that century,
George Fyler Townsend
George Fyler Townsend (1814–1900) was the British translator of the standard English edition of ''Aesop's Fables''.
He was the son of George Townsend and was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge -DCL 1876. He was Vicar ...
preferred to end his new translation with the pithy 'Self-help is the best help'.
Fable 12
/ref>
References
External links
Book illustrations
of Aesop's fable from the 18th-19th centuries
Illustrations of La Fontaine's fable
from the 18th-19th centuries
{{Hercules media
Hercules and the Wagoner
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to Aesop. It is associated with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
The Greek proverb
A number o ...
La Fontaine's Fables
Heracles in fiction
Proverbs