Aesop's Fables

A rich nobleman once opened the theaters to the people free of charge and gave public notice that he would handsomely reward anyone who invented a new amusement for the occasion. Various public performers competed for the prize. Among them came a Buffoon, well known among the populace for his jokes, who said that he had a kind of entertainment that had never been presented on any stage before. As this report spread, it caused a great stir, and every part of the theater was crowded. The Buffoon appeared alone on the platform, without any equipment or assistants, and the very sense of expectation caused an intense silence. He suddenly bent his head toward his chest and imitated the squeaking of a little pig so admirably with his voice that the audience declared he had a pig under his cloak and demanded that it be shaken out. When that was done and nothing was found, they cheered the actor and showered him with the loudest applause. A Countryman in the crowd, observing all that had happened, said, “So help me, Hercules, he will not beat me at that trick!” and at once proclaimed that he would do the same thing the next day, though in a much more natural way. The next day a still larger crowd assembled in the theater, but now partiality for their favorite actor was almost universal, and the audience came to ridicule the Countryman rather than to see the spectacle. Both of the performers appeared on the stage. The Buffoon grunted and squeaked away first and won, as on the previous day, the applause and cheers of the spectators. Next the Countryman began, and, pretending that he was hiding a little pig beneath his clothes (which in truth he was, though the audience did not suspect it), he managed to take hold of its ear and pull it, causing the pig to squeak. The crowd, however, cried out with one voice that the Buffoon had given a far more exact imitation and clamored for the Countryman to be kicked out of the theater. At this, the Countryman produced the little pig from his cloak and showed by the most positive proof how greatly they had been mistaken. “Look here,” he said. “This shows what sort of judges you are.”