History of the Graeco-Latin Fable. Vol. 3: Inventory and Documentation of the Graeco-Latin Fable (review)

This weighty tome completes the translation of Adrados' massive Historia de la fábula greco-latina (Madrid 1979–1987). It joins the first two volumes of what will be the standard work on its subject for some time to come. The total number of indexed fables (1,485) is impressive (compare 725 in Perry's Aesopica). And the amount of information made available is staggering. Few will be able to cough up the Euros needed to purchase the new History, but no serious student of the "Graeco-Latin" fable can afford to be without access to it.

Four Appendices make up the body of the book. Three are based on the "Inventory" of fables in the Spanish original: (1) fables from the anonymous Greek collections in Hausrath's Corpus fabularum Aesopicarum, (2) fables not found in those collections, and (3) medieval fables. Numeration within each group follows the original ("H." 1–307; "not-H." 1–311; "M." 1–512). A continuous numbering like Perry's would be less confusing, at least for appendices 1–2. The choice of Hausrath ("H.") is understandable, but not without its problems. His is not the best critical edition of the oldest collection of "Anonymous Fables" (sc. the Augustana), and adoption of its complex annotation makes the documentation of sources something of a puzzle for all but experts.

Appendix 4 is a major addition to our knowledge of the fable. It contains 355 new (or "S.") fables organized alphabetically by title, each with summary, analysis, and documentation. Culled mostly from medieval Latin sources by both Adrados and Van Dijk, their range is nevertheless wide and varied, extending from the lion cub of Aeschylus' Agamemnon to the pious Jews of the Haggadah. Full reference to modern editions appears below each fable number, but the abbreviations used here and in the documentation of sources that follows require frequent reference to three long lists at the beginning of the book (xix–xlvii). This can be a bit cumbersome, since the appendices cover over 1,000 pages. But the lists themselves have been thoroughly reorganized and greatly expanded. A clear improvement over the original, they are a contribution in themselves.

Van Dijk has done an admirable and painstaking job with the indices. Three new and ample indices have been added to a much expanded index locorum (1088–1168). The index fabularum (1033–87) will be the one most often consulted, but no less important is the comparatio numerorum (1009–28). As one would expect, the six principal modern collections are included; but decoding their abbreviations is not always easy, and the long lists of numbers are not clearly marked off from one another. Especially troubling is the case of "P." (=Perry's Aesopica), virtually lost among the other five collections. It is, after all, the basis of the much used and user-friendly index of fables in Perry's Babrius and Phaedrus.

The main text of appendices 1–3 combines material from the Spanish original with new documentation of sources and further discussion added separately by Adrados and Van Dijk. Indeed, one of the chief virtues of this book is the full reference to the different versions of a given fable together with an examination of the relationships among these variants. In addition, for each fable there is a summary of the narrative and an analysis of theme(s) and structure. Here the reader will find an epitome of the views expounded at length in volumes 1 and 2. Though not without controversy, Adrados' overall conception of the form, function, and evolution of the fable remains the necessary starting point for any future research on the subject.