"The farmer found a frozen snake while chopping wood in winter, so he felt sorry for it and held it in his arms. When the snake woke up, it bit the farmer. Before he died, the farmer said to the snake, "I shouldn't have saved you, this evil guy." . Saving you is like killing myself. Then he died. "
This well-known fable "The Farmer and the Snake" comes from Aesop's Fable written by Sumerians, and other well-known stories such as Wolf, Wolf in sheep's clothing and Race between the Tortoise and the Rabbit are also based on it. Aesop's Fables is the most popular classic literary work in the world and a model of western literature. It profoundly reflects the social life of the classical world through extremely interesting fables. Aesop, its author, is therefore regarded as the ancestor of animal fables. Aesop was born in Greece in 600 BC. When he was a child, he was dumb and only made strange noises. Besides, he is short and ugly, and his neighbors all discriminate against him as a madman. But his mother loves him very much and often tells him stories. However, misfortune soon befell the poor child, and the only mother who loved him left him. Later, he wandered around, during which he learned a lot about birds, insects and animals. It never rains but it pours. Suffering befell him again. He was sold by a shepherd to a rich man and became a slave. Maybe it was a painful experience. In his darkest days, fortune took care of him. One day, he dreamed that fate smiled at him and put his finger in his mouth to relax his tongue. When he woke up, he was surprised to find that he could speak. He dictated many fables from memory. According to the stories he told, people integrated them into one, which became the works that spread all over the world today. But many "archetypes" in Aesop's fables can be traced back to the Sumerian and Akkadian animal fables one or two thousand years before him. Animals occupy a very important position in Sumerian wisdom literature. According to the current materials and research results, there are 64 species of animals involved in nearly 300 fables and proverbs translated so far. They include not only wild animals and livestock, such as cattle, horses, dogs, foxes, wolves, donkeys and sheep, but also various birds, fish and insects. Besides animals, there are also plants, tools and natural phenomena in the fables of the two river basins. The contents involved in these fables generally reflect the cruelty and greed of animals, as well as the internal struggle between plants, tools and natural phenomena and their weaknesses such as arrogance. These fables undoubtedly reveal some aspects of social life in Mesopotamia to some extent. Among them, the well-preserved and famous ones are The Story of Fox, Cattle, Horses, Riding Donkeys, Tamarix and Jujube, The Story of Willow, Debate on Livestock and Grain, Debate on Winter and Summer, Debate on Copper and Silver, Debate on Ploughing and Plowing, Debate on Birds and Fish, etc. Most of these "argumentative essays" ended in one party winning.
2. Literary proverbs and aphorisms
Proverbs and aphorisms are one of the important forms of Babylonian literature. Sumerians and Babylonians enjoyed the reputation as the earliest creators of proverbs and aphorisms. Most Sumerian proverbs and maxims predate the ancient Egyptians by centuries. A considerable number of existing Sumerian-Babylonian proverbs and aphorisms are written in two languages, namely Sumerian, with Akkadian translation between the lines; Some of them are written only in Babylonian dialect. Some of the carving periods were in 1000 BC, while others were in early 2000 BC. But many proverbs and aphorisms must have existed in oral literature for a long time before they were written. The content or theme of Sumerian-Babylonian proverbs and aphorisms can be summarized as follows: First, there are a large number of proverbs and aphorisms reflecting the lives of the poor and the rich, which have already reflected the consciousness of social class differences. For example, "rich people may be happy, people with barley may be equally happy, but people with nothing may sit back and relax."
Secondly, there are many proverbs and aphorisms reflecting people's political concepts and social systems in the two river basins. For example, "a man has no king (just as a sheep has no shepherd;" People without leaders are like rivers without managers; Workers without supervisors (like fields without plowmen); A house without a master is like a woman without a husband. "This may reflect people's yearning for a better social system and political order, which may have some similarities with the ancient China people's thinking of expecting a good emperor.
There are also some proverbs about the so-called friendship between people, such as: "Friendship lasts for a day, but business lasts forever." Some reflected the social atmosphere at that time, such as: "The wife is the future of the husband, the son is the patron of the father, and the daughter-in-law is the nemesis of the father-in-law." Some are profound summaries of life experience, such as: "shoes are people's eyes, and walking increases people's knowledge." Wait a minute.