Progymnasmata: Fable

So, for my History of Rhetoric class, we're doing the progymnasmata, a series of rhetorical exercises used in ancient Greece. The first exercise is to write a fable, which is harder that it looks. I really sort of like what I came up with, so I thought I'd share it with you all. You may be getting a few of these cop-out homework-as-blog-entries this semester, since blogging time has been severely eclipsed by homework time. Oh, and sorry about the lack of a creative title.

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The Squirrel and the Cat

In a small park in a quiet town, there lived a squirrel and a cat. During the heat of the summer, the park was often visited by people from the town going on picnics, who would stop to feed the cat with the scraps left over from their feast. The cat soon warmed to the park goers and became a particular favorite of the children who frequented the playground. But the squirrel did not stop to enjoy the company and generosity of the people in the park. Instead, he spent the summer rushing around from tree to tree busily gathering more food for the approaching winter.

When the summer ended, the squirrel had worked so hard that he had collected enough food to last not only for this winter, but for many winters to come. The cat, on the other hand, had no such stores to fall back on. As the winter waxed on, the squirrel was happy and content with his store of nuts, while the cat rummaged through garbage cans for food, and very often went hungry.

But, one bitter cold day in January, some children came to play in the park, and they took pity on the cat, taking him home to live with them in comfort. Meanwhile, the squirrel survived the winter on his supply of nuts, but when the spring came, he discovered that the surplus he worked so hard to gather had rotted during the winter, leaving him to spend the next summer as he had all the previous ones. So, though it is good to work hard, it is still better to have friends.

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In other news, I passed my pre-requisite test for Math 302 on Friday! Certainly not with flying colors, but enough that I feel good about taking the class. Also, I've started reading Richmond Lattimore's translation of the Gospels for my New Testament class. I think I have to agree with Dr. Griggs in saying that he does a beautiful job with the language: understandable yet poetic and as close to the original syntax as possible.

Apt 15 Quote of the Day-ish: "I'm not Marisa." - Marisa (Figure that one out. :P)