The Tortoise and the Hare V1
The Tortoise and the Hare is one of those rare stories that almost everyone knows and can tell. It's very old, back to the ancient Greek Aesop about 2,600 years ago. It has been translated, rewritten, and adapted many times over the millennia. I think there are two fruitful things we can explore. One, the variety of moral lessons that can be taken from the story, which can be formulated in different ways. Two, as a writing exercise for playing with perspective, point of view, and style.
Here is a version called The Hare and the Tortoise translated from the Greek by V. S. Vernon Jones in 1912.
A Hare was one day making fun of a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "Wait a bit," said the Tortoise; "I'll run a race with you, and I'll wager that I win." "Oh, well," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the time came both started off together, but the Hare was soon so far ahead that he thought he might as well have a rest: so down he lay and fell fast asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise kept plodding on, and in time reached the goal. At last the Hare woke up with a start, and dashed on at his fastest, but only to find that the Tortoise had already won the race.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Here are some other ways people have put the moral of the story:
"Slow and steady wins the race." (Aesop, Traditional Moral)
"Industry and perseverance bring success." (Phaedrus, 1st Century CE)
"The race is not always to the swift." (Babrius, 2nd Century CE)
"Patience and diligence triumph over arrogance." (Jean de La Fontaine, 17th Century)
"Plodding wins the race." (Samuel Croxall, 18th Century)
"Overconfidence loses the race." (Joseph Jacobs, 19th Century)
"The surest way to success is to keep going and never stop." (James Baldwin, 19th Century)
"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard." (Modern Interpretation)
"Stay humble and focused." (Modern Interpretation)
Here are some ways AI put it:
"Arrogance leads to downfall."
"Speed is useless without consistency."
"Even the slowest can win with perseverance."
"Underestimation can be your greatest advantage."
"True competition is about consistency, not speed."
"Different abilities have different strengths."
"A strong mindset and strategy beat raw talent."
I think other similar ways of putting it can be:
"Stopping loses the race."
"Lack of focus loses the race."
"Arrogance loses the race."
There could even be the idea of, "Don't make fun of people, they might beat you."
G. K. Chesterton in his 1912 introduction said it this way: "These ancient and universal tales are all of animals; as the latest discoveries in the oldest pre-historic caverns are all of animals. Man, in his simpler states, always felt that he himself was something too mysterious to be drawn. But the legend he carved under these cruder symbols was everywhere the same; and whether fables began with Aesop or began with Adam, whether they were German and mediAeval as Reynard the Fox, or as French and Renaissance as La Fontaine, the upshot is everywhere essentially the same: that superiority is always insolent, because it is always accidental; that pride goes before a fall; and that there is such a thing as being too clever by half. You will not find any other legend but this written upon the rocks by any hand of man. There is every type and time of fable: but there is only one moral to the fable; because there is only one moral to everything."
Toni Morrison even wrote a version where the hare wins, and the real lesson is making a friend. I find that alternative ending interesting because it also seems arrogant for the tortoise to believe he can beat the hare, which ends up back at a similar moral lesson about arrogance.
I watched a short video a couple of weeks ago where a school or parent group had set up the actual scenario. They had a real tortoise and a real hare. They had built racing lanes with a start and a finish. There were a bunch of young kids around all yelling because they were excited. When they started the race the rabbit shot out quick, but then seemed to be scared by everyone yelling and stopped. The tortoise slowly kept going. A kid used a stick or something and tried to prod the rabbit to go. It went a little further and stopped again. The tortoise just kept going. And... the tortoise won! It was the real life version. I don't think any of the parents were expecting it to turn out like that. In that case the moral might be something like, "Reacting to a scary and unknown situation with a freeze response will lead to loss or lack of progress."
A more thought out moral lesson may be, "We cannot fully determine the circumstances that we will be in nor the end result, but we can determine our choices and actions within those circumstances, and choosing to continue working has a good chance of leading to progress and potentially success even when the odds seem against us, while stopping out of arrogance or lack of hope will guarantee our failure." That seems a bit long to put into a simple story for children, but J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis both make the case that children's stories don't have to be for children.
In further articles I'm going to do at least a few rewrites. There are different perspectives within the story to view the situation from: the tortoise, the hare, the fox, and any other animals that I want to incorporate. This goes well with the idea of writing from different points of view: third person, third person objective, first person, second person, and omniscient. I want to play with these because I think new insights may emerge.
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