This week I found out that the story of 'The Fox and the Grapes' is based on a Greek original. It belongs to Aesop's (around 620 and 560 BC) collection of fables.
The 'original' story reads:
"Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked, 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves."
A more detailed version:
A more detailed version:
One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are sour." Moral: It is easy to despise what you cannot get.
Why am I telling you this? Sometimes I think it's this kind of rationalisation people (most of them?) use when they say "Being Rich makes you Unhappy". They don't want Sour Grapes. They don't want Being Unhappy.
The Fox could have used a ladder to get up to the grapes. What "ladder" do people need that are Not Rich?
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