The Farmer and the Viper
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Serpens_griset.jpg/310px-Serpens_griset.jpg)
The Farmer and the Viper is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 176 in the Perry Index.[1] It has the moral that kindness to evil will be met by betrayal and is the source of the idiom "to nourish a viper in one's bosom". The fable is not to be confused with The Snake and the Farmer, which looks back to a situation when friendship was possible between the two.
The story
The story concerns a farmer who finds a viper freezing in the snow. Taking pity on it, he picks it up and places it within his coat. The viper, revived by the warmth, bites his rescuer, who dies realizing that it is his own fault. The story is recorded in both Greek and Latin sources. In the former, the farmer dies reproaching himself "for pitying a scoundrel", while in the version by Phaedrus the snake says that he bit his benefactor "to teach the lesson not to expect a reward from the wicked." The latter sentiment is made the moral in Medieval versions of the fable. Odo of Cheriton's snake answers the farmer's demand for an explanation with a counter-question, "Did you not know that there is enmity and natural antipathy between your kind and mine? Did you not know that a serpent in the bosom, a mouse in a bag and fire in a barn give their hosts an ill reward?"[2] In modern times the fable has been applied in the religious sphere to teach that if one participates in unrighteous activities one is not immune to harm.[3]
Aesop's fable was so widespread in Classical times that allusions to it became proverbial. One of the very earliest is in a poem by the 6th century BCE Greek poet Theognis of Megara, who refers to a friend who has betrayed him as the 'chill and wily snake that I cherished in my bosom'.[4] In the work of Cicero it appears as In sinu viperam habere (to have a snake in the breast) and in Erasmus' 16th century collection of proverbial phrases, the Adagia, as Colubrum in sinu fovere (to nourish a serpent in one's bosom).[5] The usual English form is 'to cherish a viper in one's bosom'.[6]
Variations on a theme
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Legrand-Oudry-La_Fontaine-Le_villageois_et_le_serpent.jpg/220px-Legrand-Oudry-La_Fontaine-Le_villageois_et_le_serpent.jpg)
In one of the fable's alternative versions, the farmer takes the snake home to revive it and is bitten there. Eustache Deschamps told it this way in a moral ballade dating from the end of the 14th century in which the repeated refrain is "Evil for good is often the return."[7] William Caxton amplified this version by having the snake threaten the farmer's wife and then strangle the farmer when he tried to intervene.[8] In still another variation, the farmer kills the snake with an axe when it threatens his wife and children. La Fontaine tells it thus as "Le villageois et le serpent" (VI.13).[9]
The Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov, who often used La Fontaine's fables for a variation of his own, adapted the story to address contemporary circumstances in his "The Peasant & The Snake". Written at a time when many Russian families were employing French prisoners from Napoleon I's invasion of 1812 to educate their children, he expressed his distrust of the defeated enemy. In his fable the snake seeks sanctuary in a peasant home and pleads to be taken in as a servant. The peasant replies that he cannot take the risk, since even if it is honest about its kindness, a single kind snake will set the precedent for a hundred wicked ones to enter.[10]
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Egotism or The Bosom-Serpent" (1843), the proverbial phrase as used in Milton's Samson Agonistes was given a new psychological twist. Samson was there alluding to cherishing the proverbial 'snake in the bosom', in that case the woman who had betrayed him. In Hawthorne's story a husband separated from his wife, but unable to forget her, becomes inturned and mentally unstable. The obsession that is killing him (and may even have taken physical form) vanishes once the couple are reconciled.
Khushwant Singh's short story "The Mark of Vishnu" (1950) adapts the situation of the fable to an Eastern background. A Brahmin priest, assured in the belief that a cobra has a godly nature and will never harm others if treated courteously, is nevertheless killed by the snake when trying to heal and feed it.[11] It also links with an ancient Indian analogue of the fable found in the Buddhist Veluka Jataka. There a hermit cherishes a young viper, keeping it in the joint of a bamboo (despite being warned by his teacher that "a viper can never be trusted"), and is eventually killed by its poisonous bite.[12]
It was also the same scepticism about relationships that Oscar Brown Jr. emphasised in the song he based on the fable called The Snake, first released in 1963.[13][14]
See also
References
- ^ Aesopica site
- ^ Fable 59
- ^ Harbertson, Robert B. "The Aaronic Priesthood: What's So Great about It". The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
- ^ The Elegiac Poems of Theognis, lines 601–602
- ^ Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi, Berlin 2000, p. 129 Available on Google Books
- ^ Wiktionary
- ^ Poésies morales et historiques d'Eustache Deschamps, Paris 1832, pp. 187–188
- ^ Fables of Esope 1.10
- ^ An English version is on the Guttenberg site
- ^ Krylov, Ivan Andreevich; Harrison, I. Henry (28 June 1883). "Kriloff's original fables;". London: Remington & Co. – via Internet Archive.
- ^ The collected short stories of Khushwant Singh, Delhi 1989, pp. 13–16 Available on Google Books
- ^ Merlin Peris,"Greek Motifs in the Jatakas", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Sri Lanka Branch, New Series, Vol. 25 (1980/81), p. 150
- ^ Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Tatar, Maria, eds. (2017). The Annotated African American Folktales. Liveright. ISBN 9780871407566.
- ^ Lyrics at Genius
External links
- 15th–20th century illustrations of "The countryman and the snake" from books
- v
- t
- e
Fables
- The Ant and the Grasshopper
- The Ass and his Masters
- The Ass and the Pig
- The Ass Carrying an Image
- The Ass in the Lion's Skin
- The Astrologer who Fell into a Well
- The Bear and the Travelers
- The Belly and the Members
- The Bird-catcher and the Blackbird
- The Bird in Borrowed Feathers
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf
- The Cat and the Mice
- The Cock and the Jewel
- The Cock, the Dog and the Fox
- The Crow and the Pitcher
- The Crow and the Snake
- The Deer without a Heart
- The Dog and Its Reflection
- The Dog and the Wolf
- The Dove and the Ant
- The Eagle and the Fox
- The Farmer and the Stork
- The Farmer and the Viper
- The Fir and the Bramble
- The Fisherman and the Little Fish
- The Fowler and the Snake
- The Fox and the Crow
- The Fox and the Grapes
- The Fox and the Lion
- The Fox and the Mask
- The Fox and the Sick Lion
- The Fox and the Stork
- The Fox and the Weasel
- The Fox and the Woodman
- The Frog and the Ox
- The Frogs Who Desired a King
- The Goat and the Vine
- The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs
- The Honest Woodcutter
- The Horse and the Donkey
- The Horse that Lost its Liberty
- The Lion and the Mouse
- The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
- The Man with Two Mistresses
- The Mischievous Dog
- The Miser and his Gold
- The Moon and her Mother
- The Mountain in Labour
- The Mouse and the Oyster
- The North Wind and the Sun
- The Oak and the Reed
- The Old Man and Death
- The Old Woman and the Doctor
- The Rose and the Amaranth
- The Satyr and the Traveller
- The Sick Kite
- The Snake and the Crab
- The Snake in the Thorn Bush
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Town Mouse and Country Mouse
- The Travellers and the Plane Tree
- The Trees and the Bramble
- The Two Pots
- The Walnut Tree
- Washing the Ethiopian White
- The Weasel and Aphrodite
- The Wolf and the Crane
- The Wolf and the Lamb
- The Woodcutter and the Trees
- The Young Man and the Swallow
- An ass eating thistles
- The Bear and the Gardener
- Belling the Cat (also known as The Mice in Council)
- The Blind Man and the Lame
- The Boy and the Filberts
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- The Dog in the Manger
- The drowned woman and her husband
- The Elm and the Vine
- The Fox and the Cat
- The Gourd and the Palm-tree
- The Hawk and the Nightingale
- The miller, his son and the donkey
- The Monkey and the Cat
- The Priest and the Wolf
- The Scorpion and the Frog
- The Shepherd and the Lion
adaptations
- Aesop's Film Fables
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
adaptations
- Demetrius of Phalerum
- Phaedrus
- Babrius
- Avianus
- Dositheus Magister
- Alexander Neckam
- Adémar de Chabannes
- Odo of Cheriton
- John Lydgate
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Laurentius Abstemius
- Roger L'Estrange
- Gabriele Faerno
- Hieronymus Osius
- Marie de France
- Robert Henryson
- Jean de La Fontaine
- Ivan Krylov
- Nicolas Trigault
- Robert Thom
- Zhou Zuoren