The Fox and the Grapes

The Fox and the Grapes (Greek: Αλώπηξ καὶ βότρυς ) is a fable, which is attributed to the Greek fabulist Aesop, Phaedrus wrote a Latin version ( De vulpe et uva, Phaedrus, Fables 4, 3) in the meter of iambic Senars.

Content

In this fable, a fox is scornful of the grapes that he can not reach:

The fable caricatured the dishonest dealing with defeat: In order not to have to admit that he can not reach the grapes, claiming the fox, not to want to achieve.

The moral of the story is: "It is easy to despise something that you can not reach ... "

In psychology, such a spin from a failure is also called rationalization or cognitive - dissonance reduction. An attempt is made to give a konfliktären situation subsequently a rational sense.

Poem

The German poet and philosopher Karl Wilhelm PeterRamler wrote in his fable read the following poem:

A fox, who went on the loot found a vine, the grapes full of heavy hung on a high wall. They seemed to him a good thing alone arduous abzuklauben. He turned around, auszuspähn the next access. In vain! No jump was abzusehn. Themselves not to shame before the troop of birds, sat on the trees, he reverses himself and says, and contemptible pulls the face: What should I take me a lot of trouble? You're bitter and are not suitable.