The Trumpeter Taken Captive 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 is numbered 370 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 ...

. One of the rare tales in which only human beings figure, it teaches that association with wrongdoers makes one equally culpable.

Sharing the guilt

The fable concerns a trumpeter who is taken by the enemy in battle and pleads to be spared on the grounds that he bears no weapons. His captors tell him that encouraging others to fight by means of his trumpet is even worse. In the Latin version by

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 ...

, an old soldier is disposing of his weapons in a fire and the trumpet asks to be spared but is disposed of in the same way. In the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Andrea Alciato Andrea Alciato (8 May 149212 January 1550), commonly known as Alciati (Andreas Alciatus), was an Italian jurist and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists. Biography Alciati was born in Alzate Brianza, n ...

included the story among his ''

Emblemata Usually known simply as the ''Emblemata'', the first emblem book appeared in Augsburg (Germany) in 1531 under the title ''Viri Clarissimi D. Andreae Alciati Iurisconsultiss. Mediol. Ad D. Chonradum Peutingerum Augustanum, Iurisconsultum Emblemat ...

'' under the heading ''Parem delinquentis et suasoris culpam esse'' (The fault belongs alike to the wrongdoer and the persuader) and was followed by the English emblematist

Geoffrey Whitney Geoffrey (then spelt Geffrey) Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601) was an English poet, now best known for the influence on Elizabethan writing of the ''Choice of Emblemes'' that he compiled. Life Geoffrey Whitney, the eldest son of a father of the sa ...

in asserting that those who encourage a crime are equally guilty. 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 ...

poets

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 ...

and Pantaleon Candidus also follow Alciato in stating that, though the trumpeter is equally at fault, he causes greater harm. Most illustrators of the fables pictured ancient battle scenes, but

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 ...

updated it by dressing the trumpeter in the uniform of his times. Brooke Boothby also modernised the fable in his poetic version, which ends with the line "The poor Trumpeter was shot".

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 ...

similarly chooses a contemporary setting, making his “Captive Trumpeter” the French prisoner of “a party of hussars” and condemning him to an ignominious death. ::Thou by the hangman shalt expire. ::’Tis just , and not at all severe, ::To stop the breath that blew the fire. Other poems of the time reserve their final lines for enforcing the moral. A school edition of 1773 concludes severely, ::Peace breakers should be thoroughly detested, ::Their contrivances expos’d, their plans arrested. Boothby's contemporary, H.Steers, agrees: ::The world no greater scoundrel bears ::Than one who sets folk by the ears. Another poet of that decade, the moralistic

Fortescue Hitchins Malachy Hitchins (1741–1809) was an English astronomer and cleric. Life The son of Thomas Hitchins, he was born at Little Trevince, Gwennap, Cornwall, and was baptised on 18 May 1741; Thomas Martyn, compiler of a map of Cornwall, was an uncle, ...

, devotes no less than fourteen lines to drawing the fable's lesson, applying it in addition to grumblers and gossips. It was appreciation of the arguments employed in the fable and the belief that "musical elements lurk in gifted oratorical arguments" that later inspired the composer Jerzy Sapieyevski to feature it as the fifth piece in his ''Aesop Suite'' for brass quintet and narrator (1984), where great use is made of counterpointing.There is a performance availabl
online
A second version exists scored for oboe, string trio, piano & narrator.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trumpeter Taken Captive, The Trumpeter Taken Prisoner Emblem books