Aesop’s Saddest Fable

Yesterday, Naomi asked if I wanted to hear her tell me a fable.  She knows about Aesop’s Fables because I’ve read a number of them out loud and recorded them, so she can listen to them whenever she likes.  If you ask her to tell you the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, or the Fox and the Stork, she certainly can.  But this time, she had made one up.

[I am going to quote this as accurately as I can – I promise, I am not embellishing.]

“It’s called the Weed and the Bee,” she said, “and it goes like this.  One day a bee was flying near a weed.  The weed said, “Oh, Bee, why is it that you can fly and I cannot?”  But the weed did not hear any answer.  When the weed turned to see why, it saw that the bee had flown away.” 

I think that’s the saddest fable I ever heard.  Aesop often has his animals betraying each other (as in the Frog and the Scorpion or the Fox and the Goat), but here the whole poignancy is that the very lack of ability that makes the weed ask the question is the same lack that prevents it from hearing the answer.  Eat that, Aesop.