The Crow and the Pitcher: A Retelling of Aesop's Fable

Abstract

Here is a large (11¼" x 9") landscape book "Dedicated to the indomitable spirit." As the opening T of C shows, the book's 24 pages include a preface, three chapters, a glossary, and an author biography. The preface identifies happiness as salvation and finds overwhelming evidence that Aesop was African in origin. The author means the book "to address our current economic reality: In the new economy, achieving happiness (salvation) is elusive because materialism permeates all facets of life." Further, "In the final hour, the crow's inherent materialistic tendencies hamper his efforts, and without divine intervention, there is no hope for him." I have not seen this interpretation before. I both applaud the effort to see fables touching contemporary challenges and find this particular interpretation forced. I do concur with Ernest in seeing in the crow an "indomitable spirit." The moral Ernest draws at the end of the fable makes utter sense to me. The narrative of Ernest's chapters follows the plan of his reading. The crow awakening at the summer solstice has been a victim of his own success, trapped in his own ego. As he seeks desperately to deal with his thirst, a surprise wind lifts him. In a state of some delirium, he realizes that his life has been trapped in illusion. He finds himself airborne again and soon finds the jar of precious elixir. Of course he at first cannot get at it. "At the point of his greatest despair, a little thought came to him." Ernest is the founder of Z.E. Graphics.