Do Our Actions Lead to Consequences?

Aesop’s Camel fable #146, The Camel and Zeus, tell us a story about a camel being jealous of a bull because he wants to obtain some horns as well. The camel’s desire led him to seek out Zeus and plead him to acquire him some horns like the bull. Zeus on the other hand was not happy from his pleading because the camel wanted more apart from him already having his large size as well, having his strength. In the end, instead of Zeus accepting the camel’s desire, he took the route of cutting off parts of the camel’s ears. The significance of this message translates to “So it is that many people, through greed, look upon others with envy, not realizing that they are losing their own advantages.” (Aesop, pg.191) The moral message of this fable deviates that this complicates the life and action of the camel. The camel had the option to not go to Zeus and just continue living his life, but he feels so much greed that he made the choice to beg for horns that overall led him to lose parts of his ears. Before losing parts of his ears, the camel probably had the advantage of having great hearing but because of his actions, this could mean his hearing is not as great anymore. The camel was punished because he already had so much, yet he still asks for more; the camel can be seen as a selfish creature because one should be thankful for what they possess.

I do believe that the call for environmental justice to these fables and their human-ascribed morals achieves this because it shows us how we humans want more but this results in consequences. Tuesday’s reading, Justice beyond humanity, by Steve Cooke, explains different points of view on how we should approach animal rights and the environment’s rights. Each point of view describes their solutions, but the consequence is that many people won’t agree to their plan. For example, should animals have rights, and should the environment have rights? Do we need to set them up with a lawyer? What are their rights to say? Can they even speak for themselves? Another example, should there be a stop to the illegal trading of animals? Many would argue yes because they state that animals have value for themselves. Others would counterargue that illegal animal trading should continue because they make a profit out of it, or they like how their fur/scales look on them. The consequence of this is that animals are going extinct, and this puts the risk on the environment because they depend on each other. Overall, this shows that we should be grateful for what we have but because of our actions from the past and currently the present, we now want to change what we have done, and this will lead to future consequences; this complicates many things, and this fable explains the consequences of our past/present/future actions.

– Sandra Hernandez Gonzalez

Alas, a Ribbit is not a Roar

Alejandro Joseph Serrano

There are definitely some instances of when the moral of the story in Aesop’s fables, some of which had just been shoehorned in to give the story some semblance of meaning. In one infamous fable that makes no sense, as well as the moral provided by the translator, is the fable “The Camel Who Shat in the River,” which has such a confusing message in both the original text and the included moral, that it had taken a good portion of the class to find several different layers with no real conclusion; instead, it was decided that it should be left up to interpretation. However, the fable I will discuss today will not deal with the shitting camel, but rather the fierce Lion and the little Frog, affectionately called, “The Lion and The Frog.”

 

In the story of The Lion and The Frog, the Lion hears a frog croak, and he believes it comes from a large creature. He waits so he can see the loud beast, but when he sees that it is but a small frog, he crushes it under his paw and exclaims, “So much noise from one so small!” The moral underneath then goes on to state that, “This fable applies to people who are all noise and have no substance to them.”  Now, I feel as if there are several confusing articles to this fable. First of all, it doesn’t seem like the Lion’s style to just kill another animal without the intention of eating it. As is seen in other fables, he would either kill other animals so that he may consume them or he would converse with them in a regal fashion. In the fables assigned, he has not killed a single animal without reason, except in this one.

 

Second, the moral feels as if it were a tad confusing. When the moral says it, “applies to people who are all noise and have no substance to them,” it makes it sound as if the main character of the story is the frog. However, it makes very little sense since he is only presented to the Lion for such a short time before meeting an untimely end. With such a grim demise for one croak, despite how loud it was to the lion, it has very little bearing on the story. If the Frog had more dialogue or even had more to do in the story, then maybe the fable would at least make the moral have some sense in the end.

 

In the end, although the moral of the fable did not feel as if it were a strong enough moral, it now feels also feels mildly ironic that the story is all noise with a moral to match, and yet neither has the substance to support each other.