A rich Nobleman once opened the theater without charge to the people, and gave a public notice that he would handsomely reward any person who invented a new amusement for the occasion. Various public performers contended for the prize. Among them came a Buffoon well known among the populace for his jokes, and said that he had a kind of entertainment which had never been brought out on any stage before. This report being spread about made a great stir, and the theater was crowded in every part. The Buffoon appeared alone upon the platform, without any apparatus or confederates, and the very sense of expectation caused an intense silence. He suddenly bent his head towards his bossom and imitated the squeaking of a little pig so admirably with his voice that the audience demanded that it should be shaken out. When that was done and nothing was found, they cheered the actor, and loaded him with the loudest applause. A Countryman in the crowd, observing all that had passed, said: “So help me, Hercules, he shall not beat me at that trick!” At once he proclaimed that he would do the same thing on the next day, though in a much more natural way. On the morrow a still larger crowd assembled in the theater, but now partiality for their favorite actor generally prevailed, and the audience came rather to ridicule the Countryman that to see the spectacle. Both of the performers appeared on the stage. The Buffoon grunted and squeaked away first, and obtained, as on the preceding day, the applause and cheers of the spectators. Next the Countryman commenced, and pretending that he concealed a little pig beneath his clothes, which in truth he did unsuspected by the audience, he contrived to take hold and to pull its ear thus causing the pig to squeak. The crowd, however, cried out with one consent that the Buffoon had given a far more exact imitation, and clamored for the Countryman to be kicked out of the theater. On this the rustic produced the little pig from his cloak and showed by the most positive proof the greatness of their mistake. “Look,” he said, “this shows what sort of judges you are.”

From Aesop’s Fables, translated by George Fyler Townsend, Collins Classics, London: Harper Press, 2011, pp. 284-285.

Addendum (January 27, 2015)

What is this about? Is it about squeaking and grunting both fake and real? Or is it about some undiscerning audience in Greece of old? Of course not. To Aesop’s credit, it is about the collective gullibility of the human race that stretches through untold millennia. But I had my last book about climate change in mind, I should add in passing. When the squeaking and grunting starts for true, nobody will recognize it for all the science fiction they have gobbled up, as well as applauded to, well ahead of time. To anticipate, the Buffoon will be nowhere in sight when the going gets tough, but the Countryman will be laughing his head off at long last.