The Ass and his Masters

The Ass and his Masters is a fable that has also gone by the alternative titles The ass and the gardener and Jupiter and the ass. Included among Aesop's Fables, it is numbered 179 in the Perry Index.^[1]

The fable only appears in Greek sources in classical times. In it, an ass in the employ of a gardener complains to the king of the gods that he is not fed adequately and asks for a change of master. He is transferred to a potter and prays for another change because the loads are so heavy. Now he passes to a tanner and regrets leaving his first employer. At a time when slavery was common, the fable was applied to the dissatisfaction felt by slaves.^[2]

In Renaissance times two Neo-Latin poets contributed to making the story better known. Gabriele Faerno as Asinus dominus mutans, with the moral that a change of master only brings worse;^[3] and Hieronymus Osius as Asinus et olitor (The ass and the gardener, the title by which it was known in Greece),^[4] with the comment that habitual dissatisfaction always brings a desire for change.^[5] Jean de la Fontaine also added the story to his Fables as L'ane et ses maitres (The ass and his masters, VI.11) with the even harsher comment that providence has better things to do than listen to those who are never satisfied.^[6]

In Britain the fable was generally known under the title "The ass and Jupiter" and appears as such in the verse paraphrase of John Ogilby;^[7] in the prose collections of Samuel Croxall^[8] and Thomas Bewick;^[9] and the poetical version of Brooke Boothby.^[10] The Dutch painter Dirck Stoop also made an etching of the fable under that title in 1655.^[11]

Change is never for the better

Laurentius Abstemius told a different version of the fable in his Hecatomythium (1490). In this the ass, tired of cold and only straw to eat, pines for the end of winter. In spring there is so much work that he wishes for summer, and then for autumn, under the burdens each season brings him, and in the end 'his last Prayer is for Winter again; and that he may but take up his Rest where he began his Complaint'.^[12]

Phaedrus, who was a freed slave, did not record the fable about the discontented ass, but a similar moral appears at the end of his version of The Frogs Who Desired a King. The citizens of Athens are grumbling at their new ruler and Aesop advises them, after he has told the fable, 'hoc sustinete, maius ne veniat, malum (hang on to your present evil, lest it become worse).^[13]

Some quite different stories exist with much the same moral as this, retaining certain aspects of the story-line of "The Ass and his Masters". These include a succession of three changes, each worse than before, followed by prayer for the preservation of the last.

An early Tudor jest book records a later Classical anecdote. In this an old lady prays for the continued well-being of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse. On being asked by him why, she replies,^[14]

Whan I was a mayde, we had a tyran raignynge ouer us, whose death I greatly desyred; whan he was slayne, there succided an other yet more cruell than he, out of whose gouernance to be also deliuered I thought it a hygh benifyte. The thyrde is thy selfe, that haste begon to raygne ouer vs more importunately than either of the other two. Thus, fearynge leest, whan thou arte gone, a worse shuld succede and reigne ouer vs, I praye God dayly to preserue the in helthe.

The story had earlier appeared in Thomas Aquinas' De Regimine Principum, in the context of a discussion of the drawbacks of resisting tyranny.^[15]

Slightly earlier in the Middle Ages, Odo of Cheriton had drawn a similar lesson from a monastic situation. His light-hearted story concerns monks who pray for the death of their abbot. The first had given them three courses at a meal but not enough to satisfy their hunger; after his death he is succeeded by an abbot who allows them only two courses, and then on his death by one who allows only a single course. One of the monks then prays for the long life of this abbot for fear that they might starve altogether under a successor.^[16]

v t e Aesop
Aesop's 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
Apocryphal	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
Related	Jataka tales Panchatantra Perry Index The labyrinth of Versailles Lion's share Out of the frying pan into the fire Still waters run deep The milkmaid and her pail Wolf in sheep's clothing Aesop's Fables (album)
Screen adaptations	Aesop's Film Fables The Grasshopper and the Ants
Print adaptations	Ysopet The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian "The Cock and the Jasp" "The Taill of how this forsaid Tod maid his Confessioun to Freir Wolf Waitskaith" "The Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe" "The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous and the Burges Mous" La Fontaine's Fables
Translators	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

The Ass and his Masters

Change is never for the better

References

External links

Related Articles