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The Tortoise and the Birds is a fable of probable folk origin, early versions of which are found in both India and Greece. There are also African variants. The moral lessons to be learned from these differ and depend on the context in which they are told. ==Early Indian versions== A tale concerning a talkative tortoise appears in the Buddhist scriptures as the ''Kacchapa Jataka''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Jataka Tales, H.T.Francis and E.J.Thomas, Cambridge University, 1916, pp.178-80 )〕 In this version, it is framed by the account of a talkative king who finds in his courtyard a tortoise that has fallen from the sky and split in two. His adviser explains that this had come about as a result of talking too much. A tortoise had become friendly with two geese who promised to take it to their home in the Himalayas. They would hold a stick in their beaks while the tortoise would grasp it in his mouth, but he must be careful not to talk. Children below made fun of it during the journey and when it answered back it fell to its destruction. Jataka tales were a favourite subject for sculpture and this story is found as a bas relief on various religious buildings in India and Java. Often depicted as synoptic narratives, the episodes encountered include the birds carrying the tortoise between them, its fall and its fate on reaching the earth.〔Jean Philippe Vogel, ''The Goose in Indian Literature and Art'', Leiden 1962 (pp.44-6 )〕 In the 9th century Mendut temple in Java, for example, the birds and tortoise appear at top right, while on the ground huntsmen take aim with bows. Immediately below, the same three are preparing the fallen body for food. As in the Mendut example, other versions of the story are depicted even in Buddhist contexts. In the Indian literary variation of the story in the ''Panchatantra'', the tortoise and her friends live in a lake that is beginning to dry up. Pitying the future suffering of their friend, the geese suggest they fly off with her in the manner already described. On hearing the comments of people in the city they are passing, the tortoise tells them to mind their own business. After her fall in consequence, she is cut up and eaten.〔Franklin Edgerton, ''The Panchatantra Reconstructed'', American Oriental Series, New Haven, 1924〕 The story was eventually included in the tales of Bidpai and travelled westward via translations into Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. The last of these began to be translated into other European languages at the end of the Middle Ages. A still later retelling appears in the ''Hitopadesha'', where the migration occurs because of the appearance of a fisherman. Cowherds below suggest that the flying tortoise would make a good meal and it falls while making an acid response.〔J.P.Vogel, p.43〕 An Italian version of Bidpai's fables was early translated into English by Thomas North under the title of ''The Morall Philosophie of Doni'' (1570).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Thomas North, the earliest English version of the fables of Bidpai, originally published in 1570, pp.171-5 )〕 The story of the tortoise and the birds appears in a section illustrating the sentiment that 'a man hath no greater enemy than himself'. The French fabulist Jean de la Fontaine also found the story in an early digest of Bidpai's work and added it to his fables as ''La Tortue et les deux Canards'' (X.3). For him the story illustrates human vanity and imprudence. His tortoise tires of living in the same place and decides to travel. Two ducks offer to fly her to America but, while on their way, she hears people below describe her as 'the queen of tortoises' and shouts agreement.〔(Translation of the poem )〕 It is on this that Alexander Sumarokov appears to have based his Russian version, in which the ducks set out to carry the tortoise to France.〔Item XI, "Черепаха", in ( ПОЛНОЕ СОБРАНІЕ ВСѢХЪ СОЧИНЕНIЙ въ СТИХАХЪ И ПРОЗѢ, ПОКОЙНАГО ... АЛЕКСАНДРА ПЕТРОВИЧА СУМАРОКОВА ) (Complete Works in Verse and Prose by the late... Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov), Moscow, 1787〕 Travelling eastwards too, the story exists as a Mongolian folk tale with a different animal character. In this variation, a frog is jealous of geese discussing their coming migration and complains that they are fortunate to be able to fly to a warmer climate in winter. The geese suggest the stick plan to the frog and they set off. The frog is so delighted with himself that he cannot resist shouting down to the frogs he is leaving behind and soon rejoins them disastrously. A variation on this appears in the Russian author Vsevolod Garshin's story called "The Traveler Frog" (Лягушка-путешественница), which was adapted into a cartoon in 1965.〔The 17-minute Russian-language version is available on (YouTube )〕 There, the frog falls because it wants to tell those below that the traveling was its own idea, and not that of the ducks that carry him. Unlike in most variants, the frog falls into a pond and survives to boast of its supposed travels.〔An English translation appears as the final story in (this collection )〕 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 Tortoise and the Birds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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