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Reader Question: "What's the difference between a fable and a parable?
How should the Chinese 寓言 be put into English? Is it a fable, or a
parable?"
My comments:
Both can be correct. However, parable is preferred to
fable when it comes to the Chinese 寓言.
Both a fable and a parable are a narrative, a tale that tells a story
and at the same time convey a hidden meaning. Both are intended for
instruction, elucidating some moral, social or spiritual truth.
Parable comes from Latin 'parabola', meaning comparison. Any time you
have a tale that tells an event, real or fictitious, but at the same time
offers a lesson for people who may encounter comparable events in real
life, you've got a parable.
Fable comes from Latin 'fabula', meaning conversation. Fables are
supernatural happenings. In other words, tales in fables are not real.
Also, fables generally use animals as characters speaking and acting like
human beings.
The parable, on the other hand, usually uses humans as characters. This
is the crucial difference. Most of the Chinese 寓言 stories are parables.
Here's a Chinese parable about the Foolish Man who tried to move
mountains:
Once upon a time there was a foolish man living in a village at the
foot of two big mountains. Every time he made a trip abroad he found the
mountains in his way. Finally, the foolish man grew tired of scaling the
mountains every day and decided to remove them by hand. He was ninety
years old at the time.
So shovel by shovel the foolish man and his family worked on the job.
Each bushel of rock they dug out of the hills they took to bury at the
seas in the Far East. Each round trip takes a year to complete.
There was a wise man living in the same village. Upon seeing the
foolish man at work, the wise man said disdainfully: "I've never known you
to be smart, but I never realize you're stupid to this degree. Do you know
how old you are? You'll be dead before you can alter an ants' nest,
talking about moving mountains, indeed!"
To this the foolish man replied: "I might be dead alright, but the job
will be done. I have sons and grandsons to carry on the work when I am
gone. And they have sons and grandsons to carry on the work when they are
gone. Little by little we are going to get it done."
When the gods governing the two mountains heard about this, they grew
worried that the foolish man would be digging at their territories for
ever without cease. They reported the foolish man to the God of Heaven.
The God of Heaven, touched by the very ceaselessness of the foolish
man, had the mountains relocated in settling the dispute. The foolish man
never found the two mountains in his way again.
The mountains, by the way, are the Taihang and the Wangwu mountains we
know of today.
The moral of this story: Miracles may happen if you know what you're
doing and keep doing it.
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