The Fox and the Grapes is one of Aesop's Fables,[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-1) numbered 15 in the Perry Index.[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-2) The narration is concise and subsequent retellings have often been equally so. The story concerns a fox that tries to eat grapes from a vine but cannot reach them. Rather than admit defeat, he states they are undesirable. The expression "sour grapes" originated from this fable.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-sour_grapes-3) ## The fable \ [edit\] The fable of The Fox and the Grapes is one of the few which feature only a single animal protagonist. There are several Greek versions as well as one in Latin by Phaedrus "Phaedrus (fabulist)") (IV.3) which is terse and to the point: > Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-4) In her version of La Fontaine's Fables, Marianne Moore underlines his ironic comment on the situation in a final pun, "Better, I think, than an embittered whine".[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-5) Although the fable describes purely subjective behaviour, the English idiom "sour grapes", which derives from the story, is now often used also of envious disparagement of something to others. Similar expressions exist in other languages of Europe and Asia,[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-6)[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-7) sometimes introducing different fruit. During the 12th century, Peter Abelard says a version in which the fox is after cherries has become proverbial;[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-8) it is also so recorded in that century by the troubador Aimeric de Peguilhan.[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-9) In the Scandinavian version the fox makes its comment about rowanberries, since grapes are not common in northern latitudes.[\[10\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-10) In Russian, not one but two expressions derive from Ivan Krylov's translation of La Fontaine. While "Green are the grapes" (Зелен виноград) has become the response to disparagement,[\[11\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-11) Krylov's earlier exposition, "Eye may see but tooth not taste" (Хоть видит око, да зуб неймет), is now proverbial.[\[12\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-12) ## La Fontaine's _Le Renard et les Raisins_ \ [edit\]  Pierre Julien's sculpture of La Fontaine with attendant fox The French fable of La Fontaine (III.11) is almost as concise and pointed as the early versions of Babrius and Phaedrus and certainly contributed to the story's popularity. A century after its publication, this was the tale with which the sculptor Pierre Julien chose to associate its creator in his statue of La Fontaine (commissioned in 1782), now in the Louvre. The poet is represented in a famous episode of his life, when he was seen one morning by the Duchess of Bouillon seated against a tree trunk meditating. When she passed the same spot that evening he was still there in exactly the same position. Julien has portrayed him in an ample cloak, with a gnarled tree on which a vine with grapes is climbing. On his knee is the manuscript of the poem; at his feet, a fox is seated on his hat with its paw on a leather- bound volume, looking up at him. Gustave Doré's illustration of the fable for the 1870 edition[\[13\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-13) pictures a young man in a garden who is looking towards the steps to a mansion in the distance on which several young women are congregated. An older man is holding up his thumb and forefinger, indicating that they are only little girls. The meaning of this transposition to the human situation hinges on the double meaning of 'unripe' ( _vert_) in French, which could also be used of a sexually immature female. From this emerges the story's subtext, of which a literal translation reads: > The gallant would gladly have made a meal of them > > But as he was unable to succeed, says he: > > 'They are unripe and only fit for green boys.' There is the same sexual ambiguity in the Greek of Babrius. The phrase there is "όμφακες εισίν" (_omphakes eisin_), the word _omphax_[\[14\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-14) having both the literal meaning of an unripe grape and the metaphorical usage of a girl not yet ripe for marriage. ## Cognitive dissonance \ [edit\] Rather than admit his failure to reach the grapes, the fox rationalises that they are not really desirable. One commentator argues that the story illustrates the state of cognitive dissonance. The fox is taken as attempting to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously, desire and its frustration. In that case, the disdain expressed by the fox at the conclusion to the fable serves as a psychological defence mechanism by reducing the dissonance through criticism. Jon Elster calls this pattern of mental behaviour "adaptive preference formation".[\[15\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#cite_note-Elster123-15)