Кто не помнит выражение “говорить Эзоповским языком”? Те мы, кто жил и учился в стране Советов, часто использовали это выражение и этот язык в целях конспирации.
Кто бы мог подумать, что древнегреческий поэт-баснописец вновь появится, но уже в моей английской жизни?!
Недавно мы с Наташей купили в магазине книжку под названием “Aesop’s fables”. Признаюсь честно, пролистав книгу, я совсем не связала имя автора с Эзопом, но подумала: “Вот забавно, все истории – один к одному басни дедушки Крылова!”
Только начав записывать видео, которое мы предлагаем сегодня вашему вниманию, до меня дошло, кто же такой этот Aesop и что за книга попала нам в руки.
Эзоп имел счастье жить на этой земле так много лет назад, что трудно сказать, насколько все факты его биографии достоверны: где и на кого он работал, был рабом или нет, кому принадлежит авторство маленьких поучительных рассказов из жизни животных и вообще, это был один человек или много?
Вопросы, вопросы… Ясно одно, что басни, с изменениями и дополнениями, были переведены на множество языков мира и пользуются большой популярностью и в наши дни.
Сегодня Наташа представит вам 4 басни: Про Лису и Виноград, про Змею и Крестьянина, про Гуся и Золотые Яйца, и про Северный Ветер и Солнце.
Очень поучительно. We are never too old to learn – говорит Наташа в заключении. Век живи – век учись! Совершенствуйте свой английский вместе с Наташей!
Как обычно, мы добавили к видео субтитры, которые вы можете активировать или убрать, нажав специальный значок в ролике внизу справа. Для тех, кто предпочитает смотреть видео без субтитров, размещаем полный текст того, что говорит Наташа, ниже.
Hello, friends! Natasha is here again!
We are having a very interesting topic today. I'm going to read you some Aesop's fables.
Do you know what fables are?
Fables can be found in literature of almost every country.
A fable is a fictional story, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants or objects.
They can speak and act as humans. At the end of story there is always a moral lesson.
Now, you are probably interested in who Aesop is.
Historians believe that Aesop was a slave and a storyteller, and he used to live in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 Before the Common Era (BCE).
That is all that we know for certain of his life, although a large number of legends grew up around him.
It is quite probable that few of the 200 or so fables which have come down to us as 'Aesops's fables' were actually made up by Aesop himself.
In the first place, ancient Greece (like all other countries) had always had a folk tradition of local story-telling, so a number of the fables will simply have been retold by Aesop.
In the second place, his brilliance as a story-teller was immediately recognized by the people that almost any fable which could have been told by him became attributed to him.
But let me tell you some.
Sour grapes.
A hungry fox tried to reach some clusters of grapes which he saw hanging from a vine trained on a tree, but they were too high. So he went off and comforted himself by saying: 'They weren't ripe anyway!'
The moral of the story is: In the same way some men, when they fail through their own incapacity, blame circumstances.
Evil for good.
One winter's day a farmer found a snake frozen stiff in the cold, and moved by compassion he picked it up and put it in his bosom.
But with the warmth its natural instinct returned, and it gave its well-doer a fatal bite.
As he died he said: 'I have got what I deserve for taking pity on an evil creature.'
The moral is: This story shows that even the greatest kindness cannot change a bad nature.
The Goose and The Golden Egg.
There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.
The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich.
But it wasn't long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg each day.
He was not getting rich very fast.
Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open.
But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.
The moral: Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.
The North Wind and the Sun.
The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the strongest.
While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveller passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.
'Let us agree,' said the Sun, 'if you can strip that Traveller of his cloak you are the strongest of us both.'
'Very well,' growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast towards the Traveller.
With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveller's body.
But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him.
The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.
Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveller unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders.
The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer.
The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside.
The moral of the story is: Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.
Without a doubt, learning is one of the most important things in life: whether it’s maths, art, sport or more importantly life lessons.
We are never too old to learn.
I hope you enjoyed today’s video. See you next time. Goodbye!
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