fable, fabull

& a. [Fr. fable, from Lat. fabula a narrative, from for = to speak; Sp. & Port.fabula; Ital. favola.] A. As substantive : *1. A story, a narrative, a tale. 2. A feigned tale or story intended to enforce some moral precept; a fictitious narrative conveying some useful information, or intended for entertainment; an allegory. Jotham's fable of the trees (Judges ix., about 1209 B. C.) is the oldest extant, and as beautiful as any made since. Nathan's fable of the poor man (2 Sam. xii., about 1034 B. C.) is next in antiquity. The earliest collection of fables extant is of eastern origin, and preserved in the Sanscrit. The fables of Vishnoo Sarma, or Pilpay, are the most beautiful, if not the most ancient in the world. Profe or Max Müller traced La Fontaine's fable of the Milkmaid to a very early Sanscrit collection. Esop's fables, supposed to have been written about 565 or 620 B. C., were versified by Babrius, a Greek poet, about 130 B. C., and turned into prose by Maximus Planudes, a Greek monk, about 1320, who added other fables and appended a worthle life of Æsop. The fables of Phædrus in elegant Latin-iambics (about A. D. 8), of La Fontaine (1700) and of Gay (1727) are justly celebrated. *3. The plot of a poem or story; the connected series of events in a dramatic or epic poem. " Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegor ical, and the marvellous." - Pope: Homer's Iliad . (Pref.) fabric 4. A foolish story. "But refuse profane and old wives' fables."-1 Tim. iv. 7. 5. A falsehood, an untruth, a fiction, a fabrication. "And eke what folke there with him were Without fable I wol discrive." Romaunt of the Rose. *6. A by-word; a subject of go ip or talk. "We grew The fable of the city where we dwelt." Tennyson: Gardener's Daughter. *B. As adj .: Pertaining to or of the nature of a fable; fictitious, fabulous. "Thou fable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd Through dreary coasts, which I tho' blind behold." Pope : Thebais of Statius , 83, 84. Crabb thus discriminates between fable , tale , novel, and romance : "Different species of composition are expre ed by the above words: the fable is allegorical; its actions are natural, but its agents are imaginary: the tale is fictitious, but not imaginary; both the agents and actions are drawn from the pa ing scenes of life. Gods and godde es, animals and men, trees, vegetables, and inanimate objects in general, may be made the agents of a fable ; but of a tale , properly speaking, only men or supernatural spirits can be the agents: of the former description are the celebrated fables of Esop; and of the latter the tales of Marm on tel, the tales of the Genii, . Fables are written for instruction: tales principally for amusement; fables consist mostly of only one incident or action, from which a moral can be drawn: tales always of many, which excite an interest for an individual. The tale when compared with the novel is a simple kind of fiction; it consists of but few persons in the drama; while the novel , on the contrary, admits of every po ible variety in characters. The tale is told without much art or contrivance to keep the reader in suspense, without any depth of plot or importance in the catastrophe; the novel affords the greatest scope for exciting an interest by the rapid succe ion of events, the involvements of interests, and the unraveling of its plot. If the novel awakens the attention, the romance rivets the whole mind and engages the affections; it presents nothing but what is extraordinary and calculated to fill the imagination." (Crabb: Eng . Synon.) *fable-maker, *fable-monger, s. An inventor or writer of fables. "To distinguish the true and proper allegorists from the fable -mongers or mythics."- Water land : Works , vi. 16. fa-ble, *fa-blen, v . i . & t . [O. Fr. fabler , from Lat. fabulor , from fabula .] A. Intransitive : 1. To talk, to discourse, to converse. "While the i talkiden or fableden."-- Wycliffe : Luke xxiv. 15. 2. To compose or write fables or fiction. "To loftier rapture thou canst wake the thought Than all the fabling poets' boasted powers. Warton: Pleasures of Melancholy. 3. To tell falsehoods or untruths. "He fables not: I hear the enemy." Shakesp.: Henry VI., Pt . I. , iv. 2. B. Trans.: To feign, to invent, to tell or say falsely. "It being fabled that when the words were spoken aloud, some shepherds had repeated them over their bread, which was thereupon presently turned into flesh." -Burnet: Hist. Reformation (an. 1548).