An Aesopic ars moriendi: The fable of the hares and the frogs in the late middle ages

In the fifteenth century, a new interpretive strand emerges for Aesop's fable of the hares and frogs. This fable, part of the post-classical corpus of Aesopian fables, is found in high and late medieval collections, both Latin and vernacular. Initially, the fable was understood as a type of ars vivendi, offering advice for its listeners, in particular on how to control fear. Listening to the hares' experience, the audience was guided to a realization that fear is a condition shared by many creatures and one that should not lead to suicide. In the fifteenth century, this fable is read as a lesson on how to die, a reading that, I argue, can be seen in connection with the explosion of the new genre of the ars moriendi. Against the fable's earlier literary history, I show how interpretation of this fable effectively went from an ars vivendi to an ars moriendi.