올드코난의 이솝우화 제3화 여우와 포도 (Perry 15. The Fox and the Grapes)

올드코난 (Old Conan)이 재해석하는 현대판 이솝우화 (Aesop's Fables, Aesopica) => 원 저작자: Aesop; 참고 번역본 저자: 조지 파일러 타운센드(George Fyler Townsend, 1814-1900) 외 / 현재 알려진 이솝우화들을 현대적으로 해석해  소개해 드리겠습니다.

올드코난의 이솝우화 세 번째 이야기 제3화 여우와 포도 (Perry 15. The Fox and the Grapes) 

이 우화 역시 많이 알려진 이야기로, 라틴 버전 외에 많은 세기에 걸쳐서 유사하게 재해석되어 전해 내려오고 있는 이야기이다.

 

[한글 본]

굶주린 여우가 길을 걷다 맛있게 익은 포도를 발견했다.

여우는 포도를 따기 위해 뛰었지만 포도에 닿지를 않았다.

여러번 펄쩍 뛰어 봤지만 도저히 안되자 여우는 혼잣말로 이렇게 중얼거렸다.

“가만히 보니 포도가 아직 덜 익었네, 먹고 싶지 않아”

그리고 여우는 그 자리를 떠나 버렸다.

 

[교훈]

여우는 단지 혼자 뛰어 보기만 했을 뿐이다. 포도 밑에 돌을 쌓아 보거나 하는 생각이나 고민을 하지 않고 무조건 덤비기만 하는 사람들은 쉽게 좌절하고 남 탓을 하고는 한다. 그리고 자신은 최선을 다했다고 변명을 한다.

성공을 위한 노력보다 실패할 수 밖에 없는 이유들을 만드는 사람들에게 자신의 부족함을 탓하라는 교훈이 담긴 이야기.

 

  (그림 François Chauveau (1613-1676) 작품)

 

[영어 본]

Perry 15. The Fox and the Grapes out of Reach

A fox tries to get grapes to eat but cannot. The fox goes away in disgust saying he didn’t want them anyhow.

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

1. Aesop For Children

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.

The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

“What a fool I am,” he said. “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.”

And off he walked very, very scornfully.

Moral: There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

2. Eliot/Jacobs Version

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

3. JBR Collection

A hungry Fox one day saw some tempting Grapes hanging at a good height from the ground. He made many attempts to reach them, but all in vain. Tired out by his failures, he walked off grumbling to himself, “Nasty sour things, I know you are, and not at all fit for a gentleman’s eating.”

4. V.S. Vernon Jones Version

A hungry Fox saw some fine bunches of Grapes hanging from a vine that was trained along a high trellis, and did his best to reach them by jumping as high as he could into the air. But it was all in vain, for they were just out of reach: so he gave up trying, and walked away with an air of dignity and unconcern, remarking, “I thought those Grapes were ripe, but I see now they are quite sour.”

5. Townsend version

A famished fox saw some clusters of ripe black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: “The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.”

6. L’Estrange version

There was a time, when a fox would have ventur’d as far for a bunch of grapes as for a shoulder of mutton, and it was a fox of those days, and of that palate, that stood gaping under a vine, and licking his lips at a most delicious cluster of grapes that he had spy’d out there; he fetched a hundred and a hundred leaps at it, ’till at last, when he was as weary as a dog, and found that there was no good to be done; Hang ’em (says he) they are as sowr as crabs; and so away he went, turning off the disappointment with a jest.

Moral: ‘Tis matter of skill and address, when a man cannot honestly compass what he would be at, to appear easy and indifferent upon all repulses and disappointments. 

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