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A brief anecdote about a wren and an elephant which has a Sumerian forerunner, occurs in a cuneiform tablet from Aššur dated 716 BCE and reappears in almost identical form in three versions of Aesop’s Fables from the Roman period. In the Greek versions, the wren has become a mosquito and in two of them the elephant has become a bull (but in the third remains an elephant).
Sumerian Proverb Collection 5.1:
An elephant spoke to himself and said, “Among the wild creatures of Šakkan, there is no one comparable to me.” The wren answered to him. “And yet, in my own proportion, I am equal to you,” it said.
VAT 8807, 3.50-54 (in Lambert 1960: 216ff.):
A wren, as it settled on an elephant, said, “Brother, am I pressing your side? I will remove myself at the watering place.” The elephant answered the wren: “When you settled, I didn’t know it - what do you amount to? - and when you arise I shan’t know it.”
Aesop 137 (Perry):
A mosquito alighted on a bull’s horn and sat there for a while. When it was ready to leave, it asked the bull whether it now wanted it to go. The bull said: “I neither knew it when you came, nor will know it if you depart.”
Babrinus, Fabulae 84:
A mosquito alighted on a bull’s curly horn and after a short stay whined, “If I’m a weight and a pain on your neck, I’ll get off and sit on a poplar by the river.” But he said, “I don’t care whether you stay or go; I didn’t even notice when you came.”
Mesomedes 11 (Heitsch):
On an elephant’s ear a mosquito with wings all aflutter alighted and foolishly said, “I will fly away, for my weight you cannot support.” But he smiled in amusement and said, “But I neither knew when you flew down, nor when you fly off, O mosquito.”
Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Aesop 137 (Perry)
Babrinus, Fabulae 84
Mesomedes 11 (Heitsch)
Sumerian Proverb Collection 5.1
VAT 8807, 3.50-54
Bibliography
| Alster 1997, 121 | Alster, Bendt. Proverbs of Ancient Sumer. The World's Earliest Proverb Collections. 2 Vols. Bethesda: CDL Press 1997. |
| Borger 2004 | Borger, Rykle. “Eine altorientalische und antike Fabel Zaunkönig/Mücke und Elephant/Stier.” Bibliotheca Orientalis 61 (2004) 461-474. [Peeters Online Journals (requires subscription)] |
| Lambert 1960, 213-214 | Lambert, Wilfred G. Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1960. |
| West 2000, 95-96 | West, Martin L. “Fable and Disputation.” In: R. Whiting and S. Aro (eds.). The Heirs of Assyria. Melammu Symposia 1. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project 2000, 93-98. [PDF] |
Robert Whiting
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000056.php
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