The Cock, the Dog and the Fox is one of

Aesop's Fables Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...

and appears as number 252 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 ...

. Although it has similarities with other fables where a predator flatters a bird, such as The Fox and the Crow and

Chanticleer and the Fox Chanticleer and the Fox is a fable that dates from the Middle Ages. Though it can be compared to Aesop's fable of The Fox and the Crow, it is of more recent origin. The story became well known in Europe because of its connection with several po ...

, in this one the cock is the victor rather than victim. There are also Eastern variants of this story.

Versions of the fable

In the Greek story, a cock and a dog go on a journey together. At night, the cock roosts in a tree while the dog curls up at its roots. When the cock crowed in the morning, it attracted a fox that made friendly overtures and tried to lure the bird down. The cock agrees, telling it to ask the porter to open the door so that it can come out. The fox stumbles on the sleeping dog and is killed. An ancient Indian variant of the theme appeared in the Buddhist scriptures as the ''Kukuta-

Jataka The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, th ...

''. Here a predatory cat, having killed all the other fowls, tries to woo the cock down with a promise of marriage, but he is not to be deceived and denounces the cat for its former slaughter. In its journey westwards, the tale was eventually included in

The Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

and was translated by Richard F. Burton as ''The Pleasant History of the Cock and the Fox''. This version, enlarged by the fox's many flights of rhetoric, recounts how the beast tries to lure the cock down from a wall with the news that universal friendship has been declared between the hunters and the hunted. The cock refuses even to acknowledge the fox's fine words but finally announces that he is convinced for he can see greyhounds running towards them who must be messengers from the King of the Beasts. When the agitated fox starts to leave, the cock asks him the reason; the fox replies that he fears the dogs were not present when the peace was announced. This version of the story was an influence on the fable's retelling in Europe. It is to be found early among the humorous tales of

Poggio Bracciolini Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classi ...

's ''Facetiae'' (1450), where the fleeing fox explains only that the dogs have not yet heard that peace has been declared. In France the story reappeared in the first book of

emblems An emblem is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a king or saint. Emblems vs. symbols Although the words ''emblem'' and ''symbol'' are often used in ...

of Guillaume Gueroult (1550). There the fable is told at length and it is explained that the suspicious cock has invented his report of the approaching hounds because he distrusts the fox. The telling is prefaced with the summary of the fable's meaning: “To the trickster comes a trickster and a half” (''A trompeur, trompeur et demi''). When Jean de la Fontaine retold the story as ''Le coq et le renard'' (II.15), he underlined his use of Geroult by concluding with a moral that echoed his source: “Pleasure is doubled in tricking the trickster” (''c’est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur''). The Greek and the Oriental versions of the fable were soon to be confounded together. In Francis Barlow's illustrated edition of the fables (1687), Aphra Behn's English verse summary tells the Eastern tale with the cock concluding that “I’le not my strength forgoe, If true today, tomorrow ‘twill be so.” The accompanying Latin prose summary, on the other hand, follows Aesop's account but concludes that treachery is to be met with treachery.

Artistic interpretations

There is a carving of "The Cock and the Cat" from the

Bharhut Bharhut is a village located in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, central India. It is known for its famous relics from a Buddhist stupa. What makes Bharhut panels unique is that each panel is explicitly labelled in Brahmi characters mentioni ...

stupa, dating from 150 BCE, which is now displayed in the

Indian Museum The Indian Museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India, also referred to as the Imperial Museum at Calcutta in colonial-era texts, is the ninth oldest museum in the world, the oldest and largest museum in India as well as in Asia. It has rare ...

in Calcutta. Aesop's fable can be found on household china in Europe, but it is not always clear whether the story of "Chanticleer and the Fox" is meant instead without the appearance of the dog as well. The dog occupies the foreground on an 18th-century ornamental dessert dish from the

Chelsea porcelain factory Chelsea porcelain is the porcelain made by the Chelsea porcelain manufactory, the first important porcelain manufactory in England, established around 1743–45, and operating independently until 1770, when it was merged with Derby porcelain. ...

, while in Marc Chagall's 1952 series of etchings, which are of La Fontaine's fables, the dog is shown running in from the distance.Plate 2
available online
La Fontaine's version of the fable has also been set by several composers: * Louis Lacombe, as the third in his ''Fables de La Fontaine'' (Op. 72 1875) *

Jean Françaix Jean René Désiré Françaix (; 23 May 1912, in Le Mans – 25 September 1997, in Paris) was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style. Life Françaix's natural gifts were encour ...

for solo or chorus and piano (1963) * Guy Reibel for wind instrument and three equal voices (1996) *Lucian Cristofor Tugui in 2006

References

External links

15th-20th century illustrations from books
on Flickr.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Cock, the Dog and the Fox, The Cock, the Dog and the Fox Cock, the Dog and the Fox Jataka tales Emblem books Fictional chickens Dogs in literature Literature featuring anthropomorphic foxes Animals in Buddhism Indian folklore Indian literature Indian fairy tales