Aesop in Verse
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Authors
Wetherell, J. E
Issue Date
1926
Type
Book, Whole
Language
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Abstract
The introduction finds verse appealing for children and even adults and offers the combined authority of Socrates, Phaedrus, and La Fontaine in favor of fables in poetry. At any rate, among the countless current editions of the Fables one edition in verse will not be regarded as quite out of place (ix). The morals are given in pentameter couplets, while the stories themselves are in couplets apparently of four feet and then three. The T of C on xiii-xvi numbers the one hundred fables here, and there is an AI at the back. A fable and its illustration take up either one or two pages. I read the first ten fables and enjoyed them and their illustrations. Wetherell is faithful to the tradition. The wolf's final retort to the lamb is nicely done: All your excuses but vex me the more,/And there's yet one way to treat you:/If I'm always wrong and you're always right,/I still can manage to eat you (3). Does it help MM to have the maid walking home rather than to market (4)? Poetry is a cruel mistress, and WC may show the compromises Wetherell needs to make to keep his rhyme and rhythm going (7). I am surprised that I have never heard or read of this book. May it not have been distributed outside Canada? Not in Bodemann. Page 105 of the extra copy is damaged, and its front cover is growing loose.
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Citation
Publisher
The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited, at St. Martin's House