Book review: Proverbial Aesop: The Complete Aesopic Proverbs Translated with Commentary by Chandler A. Phillips

I really enjoyed this book. The proverbs are insightful, witty, and wise. The author discovered a set of proverbs attributed to the famous story teller Aesop that were previously untranslated. So he set out to create the translations himself. When the translation were done he realized that the modern audience may not be able to fully appreciate them without additional context that would help them comprehend the proverbs as the ancient Romans and Greeks would have interpreted them. This is how the author came up with the idea of adding fables to the proverbs. He found fables that either supported or opposed the meaning of each proverb included in the book. The difference between proverb is fable is that the proverb is typically just one sentence, where is a fable is a short paragraph with a few sentences.

I am including one example from the book below to give you a flavor of how this book is organized.

PROVERB 6.1(7):
You see the face, but you cannot know the mind.
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SUPPORTING FABLE:
A cat was enamoured of a handsome youth and begged Aphrodite to change her into a woman. The goddess, pitying her sad state, transformed her into a beautiful girl, and, when - young man saw her, he fell in love with her and took her home to be his wife. While they were resting in their bedroom, a mouse ran in front of her. She at once forgot where she was, leapt up from the bed, and ran after the mouse to eat it. (Acs. 50, FAG. 88, SAH. 96 [etr.]).
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CONTRASTING FABLE:
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Cicero

I found that I enjoyed the combination of the proverbs and fables together very much, they really enhanced my comprehension and delight in the wit and spirit of the ancient observations.

You can find this book on Amazon by following this link.



Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Note: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book to provide fair and unbiased review