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The Heron and the Fish is a situational fable constructed to illustrate the moral that one should not be over-fastidious in making choices since, as the ancient proverb proposes, 'He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay'.〔Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs at (Answers.com )〕 ==Origin and variations== The first occurrence of the fable about the fastidious heron occurs in a late Mediaeval manuscript of Latin prose fables called ''Opusculum fabularum'' (little collection of fables), which claims to have rendered them from the Greek.〔Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, ''History of the Graeco-latin Fable: Inventory and documentation of the graeco-latin fable''. Volume three, Brill 2003, (p.895 )〕 A heron stands by the waterside one morning, surrounded by a rich choice of fish which it ignores since it is not ready to eat. During the afteroon it rejects humbler types of fish as unworthy, hoping for better pickings but, by evening, is so hungry that it settles for a snail. The Italian fabulist Laurentius Abstemius seems to have imitated the theme in his story of the Fowler and the Chaffinch (''De aucupe et fringilla''), included in his ''Hecatomythium'' as fable 39.〔(text online )〕 A bird-catcher waits all day, hoping for a larger catch, and comes away in the end with no more than a chaffinch. Roger L'Estrange included a translation of it in his 1695 fable collection, drawing the moral that '‘Men are so greedy after what’s to come, which is uncertain, that they slip present Opportunities, which are never to be recover’d’.〔(Aesopica site )〕 The fable of the heron was given popularity in France at a slightly earlier date by being included in the second edition of La Fontaine's Fables, (VII.4).〔(See the Elizur Wright translation online )〕 Here it is given a certain intertextuality, when the heron's 'disdainful choice' is compared to that of the town mouse visiting his country cousin in the tale of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. La Fontaine here refers to Horace's version of the fable, but then proposes to give a human example of the situation he describes and proceeds straight away to tell the fable of a fastidious beauty (VII.5) who turns down all suitors when young and has to take what she can get when her looks fade.〔(Wright's translation )〕 It was this latter illustration of human conduct that was taken up by La Fontaine's imitators. Charles Denis gives it a lively recreation as "The Old Maid" who eventually married her footman in his ''Selected Fables'' (1754).〔(Google Books, pp.385-9 )〕 It was also included as "The Dainty Spinster" among Ivan Krylov's fables.〔''Krylov’s Fables'', trans. Sir Bernard Pares, London 1936, p.32.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Heron and the Fish」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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