The North Wind and the Sun is one of Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...

 (Perry Index

Perry Index

The Perry Index is a widely-used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the story-teller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC...

 46). It is type 298 (Wind and Sun) in the Aarne-Thompson folktale classification.

The story and its application

The story concerns a competition between the North wind

North wind

A north wind is a wind that originates in the north and blows south. The north wind has had historical and literal significance, since it often signals cold weather and seasonal change in the Northern hemisphere.-Mythology:...

 and the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 to decide which is the stronger of the two. The challenge was to make a passing traveler remove his cloak. However hard the North Wind blew, the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter, but when the Sun shone, the traveler was overcome with heat and had to take his cloak off.

The fable was well known in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 and was alluded to in an anecdote concerning the dramatist Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

. After persuading a lad to have sex with him,

'This boy laid his own cloak on the ground under them, and they wrapped themselves in Sophocles’ cape. After the act the boy snatched Sophocles’ cape and went off leaving Sophocles his own boyish cloak. The incident was widely reported. Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

 heard of it and made a joke out of it, saying that he had had that boy too and it did not cost him anything; Sophocles had let himself go and had paid with ridicule. When Sophocles heard that, he composed an epigram against Euripides in the following sense, alluding to the story of the North Wind and the Sun, and at the same time satirising Euripides’ adulteries:

It was the Sun, and not a boy, whose heat stripped me naked;

As for you, Euripides, when you were kissing someone else’s wife

The North Wind screwed you. You are unwise, you who sow

In another’s field, to accuse Eros

Eros

Eros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....

 of being a snatch-thief.'

The Latin version of the fable first appears centuries later in Avianus

Avianus

Avianus, a Latin writer of fables, generally placed in the 5th century, and identified as a pagan.The 42 fables which bear his name are dedicated to a certain Theodosius, whose learning is spoken of in most flattering terms. He may possibly be Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, the author of...

 as De Vento et Sole (Of the wind and the sun, Fable 4); early versions in English and Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...

's poetic version in German also give it as such. It is only in mid-Victorian times that the title "The North Wind and the Sun" begins to be used. In fact the Avianus poem refers to the characters as Boreas and Phoebus, the gods of the north wind and the sun, and it is under the title Phébus et Borée that Jean de la Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...

 wrote his version of the fable (VI.3).

Victorian versions give the moral as 'Persuasion is better than force', but it has been put in different ways at other times. In the Barlow edition of 1667, Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...

 teaches the Stoic

STOIC

STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...

 lesson that there should be moderation in everything: 'In every passion moderation choose,/For all extremes do bad effects produce,' while La Fontaine's conclusion is that 'Gentleness does more than violence' (Fables VI.3). In the 18th century, Herder comes to the theological conclusion that 'Superior force leaves us cold,/Warm Christian love dispels that' (Gedichte V.4). and the Walter Crane limerick edition of 1887 gives a psychological interpretation, 'True strength is not bluster'. Most of these examples draw a moral lesson, but La Fontaine hints also at the political application that is present also in Avianus' conclusion: 'They cannot win who start with threats'. There is evidence that this reading has had an explicit influence on the diplomacy of modern times: in South Korea's Sunshine Policy

Sunshine policy

The Sunshine Policy was the foreign policy of South Korea towards North Korea until Lee Myung-bak's election to presidency in 2008. Since its articulation in 1998 by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, the policy resulted in greater political contact between the two nations and some historical...

, for instance, or Japanese relations with the military regime in Burma.

The fable in the arts

Jean Restout

Jean II Restout

Jean II Restout was a French painter, whose late baroque classicism rendered his altarpieces, such as the Death of Saint Scholastica an "isolated achievement" that ran counter to his rococo contemporaries.-Biography:...

 made a painting of La Fontaine's fable for the Hôtel de Soubise

Hôtel de Soubise

The Hôtel de Soubise is a city mansion entre cour et jardin , located at 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, in the IIIe arrondissement of Paris....

 in 1738. This shows a traveller on horseback among mountains under a stormy sky. In his print of the same subject, Jean-Baptiste Oudry

Jean-Baptiste Oudry

Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game.-Biography:...

 reverses the perspective to show the god of the north wind riding a cloud chariot with the horseback traveller merely a small figure below. In modern times the fable has been used as a theme for a stained glass window in the U.S.A. and as part of a 1987 set of Greek stamps.

In 2008 the composer Bob Chilcott

Bob Chilcott

Robert "Bob" Chilcott is a British choral composer, conductor, and singer, based in Oxford, England.Born in Plymouth, Chilcott sang in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, both as a boy and as a university student. He performed the Pie Jesu of Fauré's Requiem on the 1967 recording. In 1985 he...

 did a setting as one of the five pieces in his “Aesop’s Fables” for piano and choir.

Use in phonetic demonstrations

The fable is made famous by its use in phonetic descriptions of language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s as an illustration of spoken language. In the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association and the Journal of the International Phonetic Association, a translation of the fable into each language described is transcribed into the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

. It is recommended by the IPA for the purpose of eliciting all phonemic contrasts that occur in English when conducting tests by foreign users or of regional usage. For example, the description of American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association includes the following as a sample text:

Broad transcription

ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ən (ð)ə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjutɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt ɪn ə ˈwoɹm ˈkloʊk.

ðe əˈɡɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈkloʊk ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ ðən ðɪ ˈəðɚ.

ðɛn ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmoɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmoɹ ˈkloʊsli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævlɚ ˈfold hɪz ˈkloʊk əˈɹaʊnd ɪm;

ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌɡev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwoɹmli ənd ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz kloʊk.

ən ˈsoʊ ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪdʒd tə kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ əv ðə ˈtu.

Narrow transcription (Differences emphasized.)

ðə ˈnɔɹθ ˌwɪnd ən ə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjuɾɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt ɪn ə ˈwɔɹm ˈkloʊk.

ðe əˈɡɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈkloʊk ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ ðən ðɪ ˈʌðɚ.

ðɛn ðə ˈnɔɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz hi ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmɔɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmɔɹ ˈkloʊsli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævlɚ ˈfold hɪz ˈkloʊk əˈɹaʊnd ɪm;

ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnɔɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌɡev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwɔɹmli ənd ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz kloʊk.

ən ˈsoʊ ðə ˈnɔɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪdʒd tɪ kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɹɑŋɡɚ əv ðə ˈtu.

Orthographic version

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.

They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;

and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.

And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

The fable has also been proposed as a parallel text

Parallel text

A parallel text is a text placed alongside its translation or translations. Parallel text alignment is the identification of the corresponding sentences in both halves of the parallel text. The Loeb Classical Library and the Clay Sanskrit Library are two examples of dual-language series of texts...

 in comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....

 as it provides more natural language than the Lord's Prayer. In addition, impromptu tellings can indicate differences within languages such as dialects or national varieties. The example above, for instance, has 'shined' where British English

British English

British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

 usage would be shone.

External links

• Linguistics Handbook Downloads — Audio samples of The North Wind and the Sun in various languages, from the International Phonetic Association
• Edinburgh IPA — Audio samples of The North Wind and the Sun in 70 languages, from Edinburgh IPA database
• Watch The North Wind and the Sun: A Fable by Aesop, a National Film Board of Canada
  National Film Board of Canada
  The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
  
  animated adaptation.
• 15th-20th century book illustrations of "The North Wind and the Sun online
• 15th-20th century book illustrations of "The Sun and the Wind online