By reframing the perspective on fable, from genre and vita to a cultural format deriving from identifiable cognitive dispositions, I explore the paradigmatic function of the tale of the fox and the eagle in Archilochus’ fragments. Anthropomorphism is explored as a cognitive phenomenon, in light of which animal fable is described as a communicative, and therefore sense-making, strategy. 172-181: the fox, the eagle, and Zeus (the third anthropomorphic character, largely neglected by scholars who have worked on the epode). This article focusses instead on the anthropomorphisation of the characters in frr. In short, the tale is usually analysed in the context of the Archilochean vita tradition or in the context of the fable “genre”. Traditionally, scholars have been interested in the tale of the eagle and the fox principally as a metaphorical expression of the Archilochus-Lykambes relationship, and also as a Greek parallel or development of the Assyrian-Babylonian fable of the serpent and the eagle. The epode is considered an example of Archilochus’ vituperation skills, which came to be seen as the prototypical feature of his poetry.
The meaning of these fragments is tied in an interpretative knot of autobiography, genre, and poetics.
172-181), Archilochus reproaches Lykambes for breaking an oath and tells the tale of a disastrous friendship between the two animals. In the epode of the fox and the eagle (frr. On the whole, how is the idea of the use of reason and language among animals substantiated in early modern writings? Are the cats and their Queen Grimalkin, the spearhead of the feline community, translated by Baldwin into Catholics, to the point of being equated with them? Whether they be beast epics, theatre plays or poems staging animals, or even religious tracts, such writings prove to be structured by a complex organisation, but also, especially in relation to popish impiety, to be fraught with verbal acrobatics meant to give the reader his biggest thrill. The story relies on Puss in Boots talk, a first-person narrator’s game of penning and punning. Élisabeth de Fontenay’s distinction between objective genitive (talking about beasts) and subjective genitive (having beasts talk) will serve to analyse the dialectical relationship between human language domination and animals’ traditionally muted linguistic subjection.
In Baldwin’s Beware the Cat Gregory Streamer, the storyteller, is instrumental in giving voice to Mouse-slayer’s banter, as she exposes men’s vices and follies, talking in an almost uninterrupted ‘stream’ of words.
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