The Fly and the Ant 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 m ...

that appears in the form of a debate between the two insects. It is numbered 521 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 ...

A question of precedence

In the fable as recounted by Phaedrus, the fly claims precedence since it tastes sacrifices even before the gods, and in the human sphere perches on crowned heads and makes free with any woman. The ant argues that taking liberties without a prior invitation proves nothing. Working for the common good is the true measure of worth, not vainglory, and winter will be the final arbiter. On account of the ant’s boast of its industry and anticipation of winter, it has been argued that their debate is a derivative of the fable of

the ant and the grasshopper The Ant and the Grasshopper, alternatively titled The Grasshopper and the Ant (or Ants), is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 373 in the Perry Index. The fable describes how a hungry grasshopper begs for food from an ant when winter comes and is ...

. In some retellings, it is the ant’s reply that the fly perches on dung equally with places of prominence that is stressed. This is so in

Odo of Cheriton Odo of Cheriton (1180/1190 – 1246/47) was an English preacher and fabulist who spent a considerable time studying in Paris and then lecturing in the south of France and in northern Spain. Life and background Odo belonged to a Norman family whic ...

’s ecclesiastical interpretation, in

Roger L'Estrange Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of Kin ...

’s racy version and

William Somervile William Somervile or Somerville (2 September 167517 July 1742) was an English poet who wrote in many genres and is especially remembered for "The Chace", in which he pioneered an early English georgic. Life Somervile, the eldest son of a long e ...

’s clash between a courtier and his country cousin.

William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage a ...

used the story to censure those who praise themselves, while pride is the target of the

neo-Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

poem based on the fable by

Hieronymus Osius Hieronymus Osius was a German Neo-Latin poet and academic about whom there are few biographical details. He was born about 1530 in Schlotheim and murdered in 1575 in Graz. After studying first at the university of Erfurt, he gained his master's ...

. 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 ...

the ant’s provident industry is highlighted, as it is in the contemporary collection illustrated by Francis Barlow as well as in the prose reflections of

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 ...

and

Thomas Bewick Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 17538 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating ch ...

. In

Ivan Krylov Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (russian: Ива́н Андре́евич Крыло́в; 13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844) is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journali ...

's variant "The Fly and the Bee", the bee tries to point out that the fly is despised and constantly driven out, to which the fly replies it cares not, since it can always fly back in.

References

External links

Illustrations in books
from the 15th – 19th centuries {{DEFAULTSORT:Fly and the Ant, The Aesop's Fables La Fontaine's Fables