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The Farmer & The Snake - Summary and Analysis | Aesop Fables

Summary

This fable tells us the story of a farmer who felt compassion and pity for a snake stiff and frozen by the cold.

He thus thought it wise to place the snake in his bosom, to save it apparently.

But the snake, after having revived by the warmth and resuming its natural instincts, mortally bit the farmer.

The farmer then, with his last breath, cried that he was rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.

The moral lesson of the fable is: “The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.”


Analysis

The moral lesson of this fable is a very important one and should be given due notice, though i find this fable as told here, not very successful for the following reasons: 

The story talks about a farmer, to whom nature’s dangers are not unknown. Why, why, why would a farmer ever place a poisonous snake in his bosom? So, it was naïve of  the farmer to rescue the snake in the first place and secondly, when he did, not carry it in a pouch but put it in his bosom. The fable itself informs us on the snake’s natural instincts, which are to bite when feeling in danger. I think it is clear on this fable who the fault lies with. It lies with the farmer who foolishly or naively decided to go against nature. For nature will not change under the influence of kindness. It is up to humans to understand how nature works, respect her and not to feel invincible or above her. So I think the moral lesson should be something like “think twice before taking action” or perhaps “don’t let sentiment override logic” or anyway something along those lines.

But, back to the moral lesson itself.

The point and the moral of the story is, that kind people might feel the need to help even evil individuals, but they should not expect any sentiment of gratitude from them. Instead they should probably expect the worst.

But of course, honestly kind people don’t show kindness to get something in return. It’s just in their nature to be kind and caring and that is why they are often taken advantage of and end up suffering, usually in silence.

Good people have faith in the humankind, they have faith in other people.

Kind, good people have the inherent need to help others, even at the cost of their own lives or wellbeing.

For them, it is like an instinct to help others, even if those others are bad people or even have harmed them.

And in the end, when they have been found harmed, good people will not accuse the other person but they will accuse themselves for having faith in people.

So what’ s the lesson? Don’t be kind? No. I think the lesson is “Be kind, but don’t forget to 1) trust your gut and 2) care about yourself not just for the others.


The fable

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