SOURCE: Agnes Perkins, in an introduction to "The Five Hundredth Anniversary of Aesop in English," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer, 1984, pp. 60-75.

In the following essay, Perkins argues that Aesop's fables do not promote the morality of kindness and generosity that the fables of the Indian "Jatakas" do, and that Aesop's fables present what is to one's personal advantage through a satiric representation of human-like foibles.

In 1484, William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop's Fables on the first English press. It has remained in print ever since; the book is still available in at least sixteen versions for children published in the United States alone. Five hundred years is a good long run for a book; it behooves us to try to understand its lasting quality.

When a current political figure proposed that the budget could be balanced by increasing defense spending and cutting taxes...