Texts in conversation

Compare Aesop, Fables The Two Pots and Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 13:2

Classical · Deuterocanon

Summary

Sirach 13 quotes Aesop’s fable of the Two Pots, using its image of a fragile vessel shattered by contact with a stronger one. Both teach to avoid unequal companionship, where the weak are harmed by the powerful.

Passages

Aesop, Fables The Two Pots

Classical

Two Pots, one of brass and the other of clay, stood together on the hearthstone. One day the Brass Pot proposed to the Earthen Pot that they go out into the world together. But the Earthen Pot excused himself, saying that it would be wiser for him to stay in the corner by the fire. “It would take so little to break me,” he said. “You know how fragile I am. The least shock is sure to shatter me!” “Don’t let that keep you at home,” urged the Brass Pot. “I shall take very good care of you. If we should happen to meet anything hard I will step between and save you.” So the Earthen Pot at last consented, and the two set out side by side, jolting along on three stubby legs first to this side, then to that, and bumping into each other at every step. The Earthen Pot could not survive that sort of companionship very long. They had not gone ten paces before the Earthen Pot cracked, and at the next jolt he flew into a thousand pieces. Equals make the best friends.

620–540 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Aesop, Fables

Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 13:2

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

1 He who touches pitch will be defiled.
He who associates with a proud man will become like him. 2 Don’t take up a burden beyond your strength.
Do not associate with someone more powerful and richer than yourself.
What can a clay pot have in common with a kettle?
The kettle will strike, and the pot will be smashed to pieces. 3 The rich man does a wrong and threatens.
The poor is wronged and apologizes. 4 If you are useful, he will exploit you.
If you are in need, he will abandon you. 5 If you own something, he will live with you.
He will drain your resources and will not be sorry. 6 Does he need you?
Then he will deceive you, smile at you, and give you hope.
He will speak kindly to you and say, “What do you need?” 7 He will shame you by his rich food
until he has stripped you of everything two or three times,
and in the end he will laugh at you in contempt.
Afterward he will see you, will abandon you,
and shake his head at you.

195–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach

References

"... There is, on the contrary, evidence that the Jews after Biblical times adopted fables either from Greece or from India. In Sirach 13:20 there is a distinct reference to the fable of the two pots, which is known in classical antiquity only from Avian (9), though it occurs earlier in Indian sources ('Panchatantra,' iii. 13, 14). There is a later reference to the same fable in the rabbinic proverb, 'If a jug falls on a stone, woe to the jug! If a stone falls on the jug, woe to the jug!" (Esther Rabbah). For the later spread of Aesopic and Indian fables among the rabbis of the Talmud, see Aesop ..."

Isidore Singer, ed., The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1912), 5:324.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Compare Aesop, Fables The Two Pots and Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 13:2

Summary

Passages

Aesop, Fables The Two Pots

Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 13:2

References

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