The miller, his son and the donkey is a widely dispersed fable

Fable

A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...

, number 721 in the 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...

. Though it may have ancient analogues, the earliest extant version is in the work of the 13th century Arab writer Ibn Said. There are many eastern versions of the tale and in Europe it was included in a number of Mediaeval collections. Since then it has been frequently included in collections 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...

 as well as the influential Fables of 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...

.

The fable

The basic situation in this fable is of a man and his son who are accompanied by their donkey and meet constant criticism from passers by of the way it is used or treated by them. The story's purpose is to show that everyone has their own opinion and there is no way one can satisfy all. There are four or five different elements to the story that are ordered differently according to version. When both walk beside the donkey they are criticised for not riding it. When the father rides, he is blamed for making his young son walk; when the son rides, he is blamed for leaving his elderly father on foot. When both ride, they are berated for overburdening their beast. In later versions the father then exclaims that the only option left is to carry the donkey on his back; in others he does so, or father and son tie the donkey to a pole which they carry on their shoulders. This action causes general mirth and has an unhappy outcome, resulting in the donkey's death through one cause or another.

History

Although there is no ancient source for the tale, there may be some link with a dialogue in Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

' The Frogs

The Frogs

The Frogs is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place.-Plot:...

, produced in 405 BC. Dionysos is talking to his slave Xanthias, who is riding on a donkey but also carrying a burden himself. Xanthias says the donkey is no help with that weight on his shoulders. "All right, then," answers Dionysos, "Since you claim the donkey’s useless to you, why not take your turn and carry it?"

Eastern

The oldest documented occurrence of the actual story is in the work of the historian, geographer and poet Ibn Said (1213-1286), born and educated in Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

.
There are many versions of the tale in the East. It occurs in the Forty Vezirs translated from Arabic into Turkish by Sheykh Zada in the early 17th century, summarised as:

An old gardener, having mounted his son upon an ass, is going to his garden, when he is met by certain persons who jeer at him; he then makes the boy get down and mounts himself, when certain others jeer at him; next he makes the boy get up before, and then behind him, always with the same result; at length both go on foot, and thus reach the garden.

The story occurs in the Mulla Nasreddin

Nasreddin

Nasreddin was a Seljuq satirical Sufi figure, sometimes believed to have lived during the Middle Ages and considered a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or...

 corpus, where it is the Mulla and his son who are subject to the advice and comments of passers-by. After the experience is over, the Mulla advises his son:

"If you ever should come into the possession of a donkey, never trim its tail in the presence of other people. Some will say that you have cut off too much, and others that you have cut off too little. If you want to please everyone, in the end your donkey will have no tail at all."

Many Nasreddin tales are also told of Goha in the Arab world

Arab world

The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

, and sure enough, Goha features in a similar story, popular as a subject for the patchwork story cloths of the tentmakers of the Street of Tentmakers (Sharia al Khiyamiya) in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. The story is framed as a deliberate lesson on the part of the father. As Sarah Gauch comments in The adventures of Goha, the Wise Fool, a book illustrated with the tentmakers' creations, "every tentmaker has a Goha... but whatever the Goha, it seems the favourite story is the tale 'Goha Gives His Son a Lesson About Life'."

European

In Mediaeval Europe it is found from the 13th century on in collections of parables created for inclusion in sermons, of which Jacques de Vitry

Jacques de Vitry

Jacques de Vitry was a theologian chronicler and cardinal from 1229 – 40.He was born in central France and studied at the University of Paris, becoming a regular canon in 1210 at the church of Saint-Nicolas d'Oignies in the Diocese of Liège, a post he maintained until 1216...

's Tabula exemplorum

Liber de similitudinibus et exemplis

Liber de similitudinibus et exemplis is a 13th century Latin collection of moral tales and proverbial wisdom, arranged in alphabetical order of topics, beginning with accidia and ending with Xristi ascensio .-Bibliography:*J. Th...

is the earliest. Among collections of fables in European tongues, it makes its earliest appearance in the Castilian of Don Juan Manuel. Titled "What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market" (story 23), it is included in his Tales of Count Lucanor (1335). Here it is the son who is so infirm of will that he is guided by the criticisms of others along the road until the father expostulates with him that they have run out of alternatives. The moral given is:

In thy chosen life’s adventures, stedfastly pursue the cause,

Neither moved by critic’s censure, nor the multitude’s applause.

In this version the episode of the two carrying the ass is absent, but it appears in Poggio Bracciolini

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini

Poggio Bracciolini was an Italian scholar, writer and humanist. He recovered a great number of classical Latin texts, mostly lying forgotten in German and French monastic libraries, and disseminated manuscript copies among the educated world.- Biography :Poggio di Duccio was...

's Facetiae (1450), where the story is related as one that a papal secretary has heard and seen depicted in Germany. The miller and his son are on the way to sell the ass at market but finally the father is so frustrated by the constant criticism that he throws the ass into the river. The same story is told among the "100 Fables" (Fabulae Centum) of Gabriele Faerno

Gabriele Faerno

Gabriele Faerno, also known by his Latin name of Faernus Cremonensis, was born in Cremona about 1510 and died in Rome on November 17, 1561. He was a scrupulous scholar and an elegant Latin poet who is best known now for his collection of Aesop's Fables in Latin verse.-Life:Gabriele Faerno was born...

 (1564) and as the opening poem in Giovanni Maria Verdizotti's Cento favole morali (1570). It also appeared in English in The Hundred merry tales: or Shakspeare's jest book

The Hundred Merry Tales

The Hundred Merry Tales, also Tales and Quick Answers, is the earliest known joke book in the English language. It was published in 1526.- Cultural references :...

(1526) with the same ending of the old man throwing the ass into the water.

A slightly later version by the German meistersinger

Meistersinger

A Meistersinger was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.-Guilds:...

 Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...

 was created as a broadsheet in 1531. In his retelling a man is asked by his son why they are living secluded in the woods and replies that it is because there is no pleasing anyone in the world. When the son wishes to test this, they set off with their ass and meet criticism whatever they do. Finally they beat the ass to death, are criticised for that too and retreat back into the forest. In drawing the lesson that one should stick to one's decisions despite what the world says, Sachs refers to the story as an 'old fable', although it is obviously not the one with which Poggio's fellow secretary was acquainted. The Latin version created in Germany by Joachim Camerarius

Joachim Camerarius

Joachim Camerarius , the Elder was a German classical scholar.-Life:He was born at Bamberg, Bavaria...

 under the title Asinus Vulgi ("The public ass") follows the standard story with the single variation that father and son throw the ass over a bridge when they reach it. It is this version too that the Dane Niels Heldvad (1563-1634) used for his translation of the fable.

When 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...

 included the tale in his work (Fables III.1, 1668), he related that it had been told by the poet François de Malherbe

François de Malherbe

François de Malherbe was a French poet, critic, and translator.-Life:Born in Le-Locheur , his family was of some position, though it seems not to have been able to establish to the satisfaction of heralds the claims which it made to nobility older than the 16th century.He was the eldest son of...

 to his indecisive disciple Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan

Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan

Honorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan was a French aristocrat, soldier, poet, dramatist and member of the Académie française....

. The order of the episodes are radically altered, however, and the story begins with the father and son carrying the ass between them so that it will arrive fresh for sale at market. The laughter of bystanders causes him to set it free and subsequent remarks have them changing places until the miller loses patience and decides he will only suit himself in future, for "Doubt not but tongues will have their talk" whatever the circumstances. Earlier on he had reflected that 'He's mad who hopes to please the whole world and his brother'. Robert Dodsley draws the same conclusion in his version of 1764: 'there cannot be a more fruitless attempt than to endeavour to please all mankind', a sentiment shortened by later authors to 'there's no pleasing everyone'.

The applied and decorative arts

The fable has been illustrated in a number of connections, including on a 1960 Hungarian postage stamp. In around 1800, a composite version of the episodes in the tale appeared as a design for printed cotton fabric in France and in 1817 Hippolyte Lecomte

Hippolyte Lecomte

Hippolyte Lecomte was a French painter best known for large scale historical paintings and ballet designs. His wife, born Camille Vernet, was the sister of the painter Émile Jean-Horace Vernet; the charicaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, better known as "J.J. Grandville", worked in Lecomte's...

 designed a lithograph of the fable suitable to be displayed in people's homes. Later in the 19th century it was the subject of cards issued by the Liebig meat extract company and Guérin Boutron chocolates. An educational postcard was also issued with the text on the back. Elsewhere, the American Encaustic Tiling Company of Zanesville, Ohio, produced in 1890 a series of printed decal tiles taken directly from the original plates of Walter Crane

Walter Crane

Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most prolific and influential children’s book creator of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of...

's Baby’s Own Aesop. The fable was one of these and featured a composite design of its episodes.

At the start of the 18th century, French artist Claude Gillot

Claude Gillot

Claude Gillot was a French painter, best known as the master of Watteau and Lancret. He had Watteau as an apprentice between 1703 and 1708....

 produced a coloured drawing of father and son riding side by side on the donkey. In 1835 it is recorded that the French Baron Bastien Felix Feuillet de Conches, a collector and great enthusiast of La Fontaine’s fables, got a colleague to commission a miniature of this and other fables from the Punjabi court painter Imam Bakhsh Lahori. The composite design shows the group positioned sideways along a street of handsome Indian buildings. It is now on exhibition at the Musée Jean de La Fontaine at Château-Thierry, as well as Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot

Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot

Antoinette-Cécile-Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot was a French painter, mainly of genre scenes. A native of Paris, she began studies with Guillaume Lethière, a popular history painter and family friend, at the age of seven; when he was appointed director of the French Academy in Rome in 1807, she...

's oil painting of the father riding through the town with the son holding onto the bridle. Other minor artists who painted the subject were Jules Salles-Wagner (1814-1900), Jules-Joseph Meynier (1826-1903) and Emile Louis Foubert (1848-1911).
Some artists painted more than one version of episodes from the fable. One was Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....

, whose painting of 1849/50 is now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum and art gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. The building houses one of Europe's great civic art collections...

. This shows a group of three women turning back to mock the miller and son as they cross the end of the street; but another version has them watched by a women and her children as they take the road round the edge of the town. Another such artist was the American Symbolist painter Elihu Vedder

Elihu Vedder

Elihu Vedder was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City....

, whose nine scenes from the story (dating from 1867/8) are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 and follow the donkey's course through an Italian hill town until it topples over a bridge into a ravine. European Symbolist painters who treated the subject include the French Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...

, who made it part of a set of watercolours dedicated to La Fontaine's fables, and the Swiss Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the 19th century.-Life:Hodler was born in Berne, the eldest of six children. His father, Jean Hodler, made a meager living as a carpenter; his mother, Marguerite , was from a peasant family...

 (1853-1918). In the 20th century there has been an etching by Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

 and a coloured woodcut by André Planson (1898-1981).

External links

• wikisource:The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass, the Aesop's fable translated by George Fyler Townsend
  George Fyler Townsend
  Reverend George Fyler Townsend was the translator of the standard English edition of Aesop's Fables.Although there are more modern collections and translations, Townsend's volume of 350 fables introduced the practice of stating a succinct moral at the conclusion of each story, and continues to be...
  
   (1887) from Three Hundred Æsop's Fables
• http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1215.htmlThe Man, the Boy, and the Donkey, Folktales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 1215 translated and/or edited by D. L. Ashliman
  D. L. Ashliman
  D. L. Ashliman is an American folklorist and writer. He maintains a website on folk and fairy tales through the University of Pittsburgh.-Works:*Fairy Lore: A Handbook. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005....
  
  ]
• illustrations of the fable, Pater, Filius, et Asinus, on laurakgibbs photostream on flickr