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#REDIRECT ] |
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'''''The Bell and the Cat''''', '''''The Mice, the Bell, and the Cat''''', or '''''The Mice in Council''''' is a ] often attributed to ] but not recorded before the ]. It has been confused with the quite different fable of Classical origin titled ]. In the classificatory system established for the fables by ], it is numbered 613, which is reserved for Mediaeval attributions outside the Aesopic canon.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ben Edwin Perry |title=Babrius and Phaedrus |series=] |year=1965 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=0-674-99480-9 |pages=487, no. 373 }}</ref> |
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{{Redirect category shell| |
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==Synopsis== |
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{{R from alternative name}} |
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The Fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat. One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat. All then make excuses. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan not only on how desirable the outcome would be, but also on how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan. |
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{{R with history}} |
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The story gives rise to the ] ''to bell the cat'', which means to attempt, or agree to perform, an impossibly difficult task<ref> thefreedictionary.com. Accessed November 9, 2007.</ref> and is the basis of the historical ] for the Scottish nobleman, ]. In 1482, at a meeting of nobles who wanted to depose and hang ]'s favourite, Robert Cochrane, Lord Gray remarked, "'Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat?" The challenge was accepted and successfully accomplished by the Earl of Angus. In recognition of this, he was always known afterwards as Archie Bell-the-cat.<ref>Alexander Hislop: ''The proverbs of Scotland'', Edinburgh 1868, p.314,</ref> |
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==Early versions== |
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One of the earliest versions of the story appears at the end of the 12th century in the ] of Marie de France. She concludes with the scornful comment that laws are of no effect without the means of adequately enforcing them and that such parliamentry assemblies as she describes are like the proverbial mountain in labour that gives birth to a mouse.<ref>''Ysopet-Avionnet, the Latin and French texts'', University of Illinois 1919; fable LXII, pp.190-2; </ref> A nearly contemporary version of the fable appears as a parable critical of the clergy in ]'s ''Parabolae''.<ref>http://journeytothesea.com/christianizing-aesop-odo</ref> Written around 1200, it was afterwards translated into Welsh, French and Spanish. A century later it appeared as a cautionary tale in ]'s ] ''Contes Moralisés'' (1320), referring to the difficulty of curbing the outrages of superior lords.<ref>''Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon''Paris, 1889, pp.144-5; </ref> It was in this context also that the story of a parliament of rats and mice was retold in ]'s allegorical poem '']''.<ref>''William’s Vision of Piers Plowman by William Langland'', edited by Ben Byram-Wigfield (2006), Prologue, lines 146-181; </ref> The episode is said to refer to the Parliament of 1376 which attempted unsuccessfully to remedy popular dissatisfaction over the exactions made by nobles acting in the royal name.<ref>http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/complaintlit/parliament.html</ref> |
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All of these works were written in England, and it is only later that we find the story current in Europe. It was told as a Latin poem titled ''De muribus tintinnabulum feli appendere volentibus'' (The mice who wanted to bell the cat) by the Italian ] in the late 15th century. The French poet ] popularised the tale by including it among his ''Fables'' (II.2) (1668) under the title ''Conseil tenu par les rats'' (The council held by the rats).<ref></ref> The first English collection to include the tale as one of Aesop's fables was Francis Barlow's of 1687; in this there is a fine woodcut, followed by an 10-line verse synopsis by ] and then the story and its moral in Latin.<ref>http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/barlow/21.htm</ref> |
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==References== |
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{{reflist}} |
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==See also== |
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{{wiktionary|bell the cat}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell And The Cat, The}} |
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