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The fable of The Walnut Tree is one of Aesop's and numbered 250 in the Perry Index. It later served as foundation for a different fable based on a proverb about three things that are the better for beating, a misogynistic saying widespread in Europe that has many variants worldwide. ==A fable of ingratitude== There are two related Greek versions of the fable. Illustrating the ingratitude of those who requite good deeds with cruelty, it concerns a walnut tree (καρυα) standing by the roadside whose nuts the passers by used to knock off by throwing sticks and stones. It then complained, 'People gladly enjoy my fruits, but they have a terrible way of showing their gratitude.'〔(Aesopica site )〕 Its complaint is related to a debate on gratitude that occurs in a parallel Indian story from the ''Panchatantra''. There a mango tree is asked whether it is lawful to return evil for good and replies that its experience of man is violent treatment despite providing him with fruit and shade.〔Stanley Rice, ''Ancient Indian Fables and Stories'', London 1924, (p. 34 )〕 On the other hand, the 18th century German rationalist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, questioned whether there are real grounds for gratitude in his fable of "The Oak Tree and the Swine".〔''Fables and Epigrams of Lessing translated from the German'', London 1825, (Fable 33 )〕 The pig feeding at the foot of an oak is reproached for its motives of pure greed by the tree and replies that it would only feel grateful if it could be sure that the oak had scattered the acorns there out of love for it. The Greek fable was later the subject of an epigram by Antipater of Thessalonica: :::They planted me, a walnut-tree, by the road-side :::to amuse passing boys, as a mark for their well-aimed stones. :::All my twigs and flourishing shoots are broken, :::hit as I am by showers of pebbles. :::It is no advantage for trees to be fruitful; I, indeed, :::bore fruit only for my own undoing.〔''The Greek Anthology'', trans. W.R.Paton, London 1917, (Vol 3, IX.4 )〕 This in turn gave rise to Latin versions, in one of which the tree is represented as being pelted with rods. There was also a much longer poem, at one time ascribed to Ovid but now thought to be an imitation, in which the nut tree complains at length of the violent way in which it is despoiled.〔''A companion to Ovid'', Peter E. Knox, Oxford UK 2009, (pp 213-4 )〕 In this more leisurely work of 182 lines, as well as Aesop's fable of the nut tree being the subject, there is a glance at another concerning The Travellers and the Plane Tree. While the fruit tree is treated with no respect, ‘barren plane trees have more honour for the shade they provide’ (''at postquam platanis sterilem praebentibus umbram uberior quavis arbore venit honor''). In Renaissance times the fable was taken up by the compilers of emblem books, starting with the originator of this genre, Andrea Alciato. Eventually numbered 193 in the many editions of his ''Emblemata'', it bore the device ''In fertilitatem sibi ipsi damnosam'' (fruitful to its own ruin), deriving from the last line of the original epigram by Antipater. Many of the illustrations accompanying this feature boys stoning the tree and gathering its fruit from the ground.〔(Alciato at Glasgow )〕 In others, however, youths are shown with substantial sticks in their hands, as in the illustration here, and so suggest the folk belief that beating it made the tree more fruitful. 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 Walnut Tree」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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