Aesop’s fable The Lion and the Mouse

Abstract Aesopic tradition has been highly adaptive ( Lefkowitz 2006 ) as manifested in multicultural versions of fables. The study explores shifts in Aesop’s fable The Lion and the Mouse to highlight shifts in the representation of characters, in agreement with pragmatic tendencies across cultures, as — for instance — in the power distance between the lion and the mouse. It examines two Modern Greek ( 2003 and 2012 ), an English ( 1996 ), a Russian (2012) and a Ukrainian ( 1990 ) version of the fable to trace local perceptions of it. Analysis shows that translators (as storytellers) transform aspects of the fable in pragmatically meaningful ways: they add up to the adaptation process conforming to locally appreciated values. The significance of research lies in that translation is seen as another layer of adaptation which a source fable may undergo intra- and inter-culturally.