The Bell and the Cat
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The Bell and the Cat, also known as Belling the Cat or The Mice, the Bell, and the Cat, is a fable attributed to Aesop, providing a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and the feasibility of their execution, and how this plays into the value of a given plan. In the numbering system established for Aesopic fables by B. E. Perry, it is number 613.[1] The fable has been retold or adapted in a number of modern works.
Synopsis
The Fable concerns a group of mice who debate over a variety of plans to nullify the threat of the cat. In the end, one mouse proposes a plan having to do with placing a bell around the neck of the cat, which is lauded by the other mice, until one mouse asks who it is who would place the bell on the cat. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan based not only on how desirable the outcome would be once executed, but to think first of how the plan would be executed. Some versions of the fable state a moral at the end, along the lines of:
- It is one thing to suggest and another thing to do
- It is easy to propose impossible remedies
Ancient versions
Versions of the fable are found in the verse collections of Babrius and Aphthonius, and in several prose collections including those attributed to Ademar and Odo of Cheriton.
See also
References
- ^ Ben Edwin Perry (1965). Babrius and Phaedrus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. p. 487, no. 373. ISBN 0-674-99480-9.
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