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The Oak and the Reed
The Oak and the Reed is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 70 in the Perry Index. It appears in many versions: in some it is with many reeds that the oak converses and in a late rewritten version it disputes with a willow.
==The story and its variants==
There are early Greek versions of this fable and a 5th-century Latin version by Avianus. They deal with the contrasting behaviour of the oak, which trusts in its strength to withstand the storm and is blown over, and the reed that 'bends with the wind' and so survives. Most early sources see it as a parable about pride and humility, providing advice on how to survive in turbulent times. This in turn gave rise to various proverbs such as 'Better bend than break'〔Emanuel Strauss, ''Concise Dictionary of European Proverbs'' (London 1998) #622〕 and 'A reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall', the earliest occurrence of which is in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde'' (II.1387-9). It so happens that there is an overlap here with the old Chinese proverb 'A tree that is unbending is easily broken'. The saying originally occurred in the religious classic, the ''Tao Te Ching'', with the commentary that 'The hard and strong will fall, the soft and weak will overcome'.〔''Tao Te Ching'' section 76, translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, London 1972; (available online )〕
A variant Greek version of the fable substituted an olive tree for the oak. The tree taunts the reed for its frailty and yielding to every wind but the reed does not answer back. The wisdom of its behaviour becomes apparent when the tree is snapped in the buffeting of a storm. Similar advice, evidence that the fable was then current among Jews, is given in the Talmud (''Tanis'' 20b), where the saying 'Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar' is attributed to Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar. Although the fable with an oak has prevailed over the one with an olive, a group of 16th century fabulists preferred the latter version. They include the French author Gilles Corrozet (1547)〔''Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien, mises en Ryme Francoise'', (Fable 81 )〕 and two Italians, Gabriele Faerno (1564)〔''Centum Fabulae'', (fable 50 )〕 and Giovanni Maria Verdizotti.〔''Cento favole morali'' (1570), (p.87 )〕 In Heinrich Steinhowel's 1479 edition of the fables a fir tree (''tanne'', Latin ''abies'' in bilingual editions) is the protagonist. This suggests that the fable has become confused with that of The Fir and the Bramble, in which another tree that trusts in its superior qualities is bested. However, that too appears independently in Steinhowel's collection as "The Thornbush and the Fir" (''Der Dornbusch und die Tanne''). Ultimately all these versions refer back to the ancient genre of Near Eastern dispute poems which also included the tamarisk and the palm as disputants, and the poplar and the laurel.〔Jean Bottéro, "La tenson et la reféxion sur les choses en Mésopotamie'', (pp. 7-22 )〕
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