Though the eye sees, but the tooth is dumb, or the fable "The Fox and the grapes"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Ivan Andreevich Krylov reworked fables already written in antiquity. However, he did it extremely masterly, with a certain sarcasm inherent in fables. So it was with his famous translation of the fable "The Fox and the Grapes" (1808), which is closely related to La Fontaine's original of the same name. Let the fable be short, but the truthful meaning fits in it, and the phrase “Though the eye sees, but the tooth is dumb” has become a real catch phrase.

Content of the work

Once a hungry Fox (Krylov himself picked up a synonym for "kuma") climbed into someone else's garden, and large and juicy bunches of grapes hung there. The fox would not be a fox if she didn’t immediately want to try the ripe fruit, and she wanted to get at least a berry so much that not only her eyes, but even her teeth “flared up” (In this case, Ivan Andreevich uses an interesting verb that acts in the context as a sign of strong desire). No matter how “yakhont” the berries were, they hung high as luck would have it: the fox will come to them this way and that, but at least he sees the eye, but the tooth is numb.

Gossip for an hour fought, jumped, but was left with nothing. The fox walked away from the garden and decided that the grapes were probably not so ripe. It looks good, but green, you can’t even see ripe berries. And if she still managed to try, she would immediately set her teeth on edge (viscosity in her mouth).

Moral of the fable

As in any other work of this type, there is a moral here, and it is contained not in the proverb "even though the eye sees, but the tooth is dumb", but in the very last lines that talk about the fox's incorrect conclusion. This means that when we try to achieve something, achieve our goal, we do not always come out of the situation as winners, and after that we complain and get angry not at ourselves, not at our stupidity, laziness and insolvency, but at circumstances or some or other factors. Indeed, Krylov accurately noted that self-pity is characteristic of everyone, and after unsuccessful attempts, we begin to make excuses, to say that it didn’t hurt, and we wanted to, instead of continuing to fight, changing tactics. The moral of the fable can be reflected in another proverb: “Seek in yourself, not in the village.”

Due to the simple language used by the author, the reader clearly understands the meaning of this work. It can be said that the fable is based on a certain opposition, that is, at first the fox admired the fruits, and then began to look for minuses in them, to justify her failure.

Meaning of the proverb

Accurate morality, an interesting plot and artistic means of expression are not all that a fable is rich in. “Though the eye sees, but the tooth is dumb” - the expression is not only a proverb, but also the second name of the whole work.

It denotes what seems close, reachable, but it is difficult and sometimes even impossible to get. Such an expression is equivalent to the designation of a goal, a dream.

I. A. Krylov proved that a work does not have to take up several volumes in order to reflect the essence of human character. The proverb “Though the eye sees, but the tooth is dumb” and the moral of the fable convey the essence of human psychology.