In this lesson, we will study Aesop’s Fable, “The Two Frogs”.
I. THE FABLE
Read the fable below carefully. Read it aloud if you are able to do so. Then read it a second time, slowly, before you go on to the rest of the lesson. The rest of the lesson will make little sense to you unless the story itself is clear in your mind first.
One hot summer, the lake in which two Frogs lived was completely dried up, and they were obliged to set off in search of water elsewhere. Coming to a deep and deliciously cool well, one of the Frogs proposed that they should jump in at once. “Wait a bit.” cried the other; “If that should dry up, how could we get out again?”.
II. LITERAL SENSE
Before we ask what this fable teaches, we must be certain that we see plainly what happens in it. A moral cannot be built on a story that the reader has not understood. So let us go through the fable piece by piece.
First, the creatures. A frog is a small animal that lives in the water and near the water. A frog is born in the water. It breathes through its lungs, but it also takes in air through its skin, and its skin must stay damp for this to happen. If a frog is kept in a dry place for very long, the frog will die. So water is not merely pleasant to a frog, the way a cool drink is pleasant to you on a warm day. Water is necessary to a frog’s life. When you read that these two frogs had to go looking for water, understand that they were looking for the one thing without which they could not live.
Second, the place where the frogs began. The fable says they lived in a lake. A lake is a large body of standing water, wide and open to the sky. Standing water means water that does not run away in a current, as a river does. Now think about what the sun does to such water. Day after day the heat of the sun draws water up off the surface of the lake into the air. When water rises into the air in this way, we say that the water evaporates. If no rain falls, and if no stream runs into the lake to fill it again, the lake grows shallower and shallower. At last there may be nothing left but a floor of cracked mud. The fable says the lake was “completely dried up.” That is what happened to the home of these two frogs. Their home was gone, and they could not stay in it.
Here we should say something about the world in which this fable was first told. Aesop’s fables come from the lands around the Mediterranean Sea. In those lands the summers are long, hot, and dry, and often no rain falls for months together. A small lake or a pond drying up in the summer heat was a common sight there, not a strange one. Aesop’s first hearers did not need this explained to them. They had seen it. So the beginning of the story would have struck them as perfectly ordinary.
Third, the word “obliged.” To be obliged to do something means to be forced to do it, to have no choice in the matter. The fable says the two frogs were obliged to set off in search of water elsewhere. They were not traveling for pleasure. They were not exploring out of curiosity. They went because staying where they were meant dying where they were. Keep this in mind, because it tells you how badly the frogs wanted what they were looking for.
Fourth, the well. Here is the object that a child today may never have seen, and it is the very thing on which the whole fable turns. So let us look at it slowly. A well is not a pond, and it is not a lake. A well is a hole dug straight down into the ground, narrow and deep, until the digging reaches water that lies hidden beneath the earth. Around the top of the hole there is often a low wall of stone, so that no one falls in by accident. The sides of the hole are usually lined with stone as well, so that the loose earth will not crumble inward. Because the hole is narrow and because it is deep, the sunlight hardly reaches the bottom of it. Water that sits out of the sunlight stays cold. That is why the fable calls this well “deep and deliciously cool.” To two frogs that had been traveling over dry ground under a hot sun, that cool water down below would have looked and smelled like the best thing in the world.
Now notice the shape of a well, because the shape is everything here. The walls of a well go straight up and down. They are steep, and they are often slick with damp. A lake has a shore that slopes gently, and a frog may hop out of a lake whenever it pleases. A river has banks. A puddle has an edge you can step across. A well has no shore at all. A creature at the bottom of a deep well is standing at the bottom of a stone shaft with nothing to climb. Getting down into a well is easy, and it takes only a moment. Getting up out of a well again may be impossible.
Fifth, one more word. The fable says that one of the frogs “proposed” that they should jump in at once. To propose something means to put it forward, to suggest it as the thing to be done. So the first frog was not merely thinking about the well quietly. He spoke, and he urged his companion to jump in with him, and he wanted it done immediately.
Sixth, the order of the events. Let us tell them again from the beginning, and let us see how each one follows from the one before it.
The summer was hot. Because the summer was hot, the water of the lake evaporated and the lake dried up completely. Because the lake dried up, the frogs had no water, and because frogs must have water, they were obliged to leave home and search elsewhere. Because they were searching for water, they came at last to a well. Because the well was deep and cool and full of water, the first frog wanted to go in without delay, and he proposed that they jump in at once. And then the second frog stopped him. The second frog cried, “Wait a bit.” Then he gave his reason for waiting. He asked what would happen if that well should also dry up. If the well dried up while they were down inside it, how would they ever climb out?
That is where the fable ends. Notice what we are never told. We are not told whether the frogs jumped in after all. We are not told whether they walked on and found a better water. We are not told whether the well ever dried up. Aesop stops the story at the second frog’s question and leaves the question hanging. Later in this lesson we will consider why he chose to stop just there.
One thing more must be made plain, because a reader can easily mistake it. The second frog is not saying that the well is empty. He is not doubting his own eyes. He can see the water; the water is really there, and it is really cool. He is not thinking about now. He is thinking about a time that has not yet come. The lake where these two frogs lived was full of water once, and then one hot summer it was gone. If a whole lake can vanish in one summer, then a well can go dry too. So the second frog takes what has just happened to him and uses it to think about what might happen next. That is all his question means, and it is a great deal.
III. MORAL LESSON
The principal lesson of this fable is this: before we act, we must think of what will follow from the act, and above all we must ask whether we shall be able to undo the act if it turns out badly.
The good quality at work in the second frog has a name. It is called prudence. Prudence is the virtue that judges rightly what is to be done. Let us take that definition apart word by word, because it contains hard words of its own.
A virtue is a good habit of the soul. And a habit is a settled readiness to act in a certain way, a readiness that is formed in us by doing the same kind of act again and again. If you rise early every morning for a year, rising early becomes easy to you, and that settled ease is a habit. So a virtue is a good and settled readiness in us, built up by repeated good acts, which makes the right action easier to choose. And prudence in particular is the settled readiness to think well about what we are going to do, and then to choose the action that is truly good. Notice what prudence does not do. Prudence does not tell you what to want. Prudence tells you how to go rightly after what you ought to want.
Now let us look at the two frogs with this in hand. Both frogs want the same thing. Both frogs want water. Both frogs are right to want water, because water is necessary to the life of a frog. There is nothing wrong at all with the first frog’s desire. Do not learn from this fable that wanting things is bad. The fault of the first frog does not lie in what he wants. It lies in how he goes after what he wants.
Here we should say plainly how any act is judged. We judge an act by three things. We judge it by what is done. We judge it by why it is done. And we judge it by the circumstances in which it is done, which means the whole situation surrounding the act. Now apply the three to the first frog. What he does is seek water, and that is good. Why he does it is that he needs water to live, and that reason is good also. But he has not looked at the circumstances at all. He has not noticed that this particular water lies at the bottom of a stone shaft with straight sides. He sees that the well is deep, and deepness pleases him, because a deep well holds much water and stays cool. He never asks what deepness will mean to a frog who later wishes to get out.
The second frog does ask. He looks not only at the moment in front of him but at what may come after it. This looking ahead belongs to prudence. A prudent creature considers three things together. He considers what he remembers, which is what has already happened. He considers what he sees now. And he considers what is likely to follow. The second frog does all three of these. He remembers a lake that dried up. He sees a well that is full. He judges that this water too might one day be gone. And then he asks the question that decides the matter: if that happens, how could we get out again?
Notice carefully what kind of choice the second frog is weighing. Some choices can be taken back. If you set out along a path and the path goes the wrong way, you may turn around and walk back, and little is lost but time. But if a frog leaps to the bottom of a deep well, he cannot leap back out. The walls are too high, too steep, and too smooth. This gives us a rule to hold: prudence is most needed exactly where a choice cannot be reversed. The harder it would be to undo an act, the longer we ought to think before we do it. A choice that closes the door behind you deserves more thought than a choice that leaves the door open.
Now let us name the fault that stands opposite. The first frog acts from haste. Haste is acting before we have thought enough. It comes from letting a strong desire carry us straight into action, before reason has had time to speak and judge. Now, our desires and our feelings are not evil in themselves. Thirst is not evil. Hunger is not evil. But desires and feelings are meant to be governed by reason, as a horse is governed by its rider. The horse has the strength, and the rider has the sight and the judgment. When the horse runs where it pleases and the rider says nothing, there is trouble ahead. So it is with us. When desire moves us and reason has not yet spoken, we behave like the first frog. He is hot. He is thirsty. The water below him is cool. And he says, let us jump in at once. Those last two words, “at once,” hold the whole fault.
There is a second fault, and it stands on the other side, and we must name it so that you are not misled. A virtue is a middle way, with a fault on either side of it. One fault is a fault of too much, and the other is a fault of too little. On one side of prudence stands haste, which acts too soon. On the other side stands a fault we may call overcaution, which never acts at all. Imagine a frog who stood at the edge of every water in the world, saying, “But what if this one dries up?” and who therefore entered none of them. That frog would dry out and die while he was still thinking. He would be just as foolish as the frog who leaps blindly. Now notice what the second frog does. He does not say, “Never go in.” He says, “Wait a bit,” and then he asks a question that can be answered. He is not refusing to act. He is refusing to act before thinking. That is the middle way, and the middle way is where virtue lives.
Natural reason alone can see the truth of this fable. Aesop was a pagan. He did not have the faith, and he had never heard the Gospel. Yet he could see, and any thinking man can see, that a creature who acts without looking ahead brings harm upon himself. The Church teaches this same truth and carries it further. She counts prudence among the four chief moral virtues, along with justice, fortitude, and temperance. And she teaches that a man must weigh his actions with the end of his whole life in view, and that end is God Himself. What the second frog does with a well, a Christian must learn to do with every choice he makes. He must ask where this leads, whether he could come back from it, and whether it carries him toward God or away from Him.
IV. AESOP’S CHOICES
Aesop was a teacher, and this little story is the deliberate work of a teacher. Nothing in it is there by accident. Every part was chosen. Let us take the parts one at a time and see why each one is fitting.
Why frogs? Because a frog’s need of water is plain to everyone, and because of the way a frog moves. A frog does not walk down slowly into the water. A frog leaps. And a leap is a single motion that cannot be halted once it has begun. Once a frog is in the air, he is going wherever the leap takes him, and no second thought will bring him back. That is a perfect picture of a hasty choice. A hasty choice is a leap. You cannot call it back halfway. If Aesop had chosen a creature that creeps, or wades, or paddles in slowly, the danger of the well would not be nearly so clear, because such a creature could stop and turn back partway down.
Why a well, and not another lake, or a river? Because a well has exactly the shape that the lesson requires. A well is easy to enter and hard to leave. A river has banks that a creature may climb. A lake has a sloping shore. A puddle has an edge you can step over. Only the well is a trap that looks like a gift. And notice this too: the well is not evil, and nobody dug it in order to catch frogs. It is simply deep. Most of the traps that men fall into in this life are like that well. They are not wicked things lying in wait. They are ordinary things, and sometimes good things, entered without thought.
Why does the story begin with a drought? Because the drying of the lake does two pieces of work at once. First, it makes the frogs’ need real and pressing. If the frogs were sitting comfortably at home, their choice would cost them nothing, and we would learn nothing about how to choose when we are under pressure. Second, the drought hands the second frog the very fact he reasons from. He has just watched a whole lake disappear. That is his evidence. Aesop puts the drying of the lake at the beginning of the story so that the possible drying of the well is believable at the end of it. So the lesson is not merely “be careful.” The lesson is “reason from what you have already seen.”
Why does the fable end with a question and give no answer? Because Aesop wants you to answer it. Suppose he had written that the frogs jumped in, the well dried, and the frogs died. You would remember a sad ending and you would think the story was about bad luck. Suppose instead he had written that the frogs walked on, found a fine deep lake, and lived happily. You would think the story was about being rewarded. By stopping at the question, Aesop leaves the thinking to you. And thinking is the very virtue this fable is about. The shortness of the fable does the same work. There is nothing here to distract you. There is a hot summer, a dry lake, two frogs, a cool well, and one question. So few things cannot easily be forgotten.
Now consider why a story is used at all, instead of a bare rule. Aesop could have written this sentence: “Think before you act, and consider whether your act can be undone.” That sentence is true. It is also a sentence that slides out of the mind almost as soon as it is read.
Here is the reason a story works better. All that we know begins in the senses. We learn first by seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling particular things. From the particular things taken in through the senses, the mind draws out what is true of many things, and at last what is true always. You have never seen haste itself, because haste is not a thing you can look at. You cannot point to it, weigh it, or hold it in your hand. But you can see a frog crouched at the rim of a well, ready to jump. Once that picture is in your imagination, your mind can travel from that one picture to the general truth about all hasty action, including your own.
And this is not a turning away from the visible world toward some finer world elsewhere. It is the opposite. The fable teaches through the things a child can picture, because picturing is the road along which human understanding travels. Man is made to learn in this way. He begins with the frog and the well, and he ends holding a truth about every choice he will ever make.
V. APPLICATION
Now let us bring this fable into your own days, because a lesson you cannot use is a lesson you will not keep.
Consider your words first. Suppose your sister says something that stings you, and an answer rises into your mouth at once, a sharp answer that would sting her back. The hasty act is to say it immediately. That is the leap into the well. Words cannot be pulled back out of the air. Once your sister has heard them, she has heard them, and no apology will make her unhear them. The prudent act is to wait a bit, exactly as the second frog said. Ask yourself what will follow if you say this thing. If the answer is that a quarrel will follow, or that your sister will remember those words for years, then the choice is one you cannot undo, and prudence tells you to think longer before you make it.
Consider next your work and your promises. Suppose a friend asks you to join him in some plan, and at first hearing the plan sounds fine. Perhaps he wants you to spend all your saved money on something he is excited about. Perhaps he wants you to promise to do a thing before your parents know anything about it. The hasty act is to say yes because the plan sounds pleasant, just as the well looked cool and pleasant to a thirsty frog. The prudent act is to ask the second frog’s question. What happens if this goes badly? Can I get out again? If the honest answer is that you could not get out, do not jump in. And notice that prudence does not require you to refuse every plan a friend brings you. It requires you to ask before you agree.
Consider third the things you want and cannot easily have. Suppose you want something very much, and there is a quick way to get it that you know is not quite honest. You could take a small thing that is not yours. You could tell a small lie to escape a chore. Here the fable bites hardest. The lie is the cool water. It looks like relief, and it looks like relief right now. But one lie must usually be held up by a second lie, and the second by a third, and soon you are standing at the bottom of a shaft with straight walls and no way to climb. The prudent act is to look at the shape of the choice before you make it, and to ask whether it will let you back out again. Telling the truth at the start is uncomfortable, but the truth has sloping shores. You can always walk out of the truth.
Now here is why the fable helps you where a bare rule would not. A rule such as “consider the consequences of your actions” is easy to nod at and easy to forget, because there is nothing in it for your mind to hold onto. But a picture stays. You can see the floor of cracked mud where the lake used to be. You can see the low stone wall around the mouth of the well, and the cool dark water far below it. You can see one frog crouched to leap, and the other frog crying out, “Wait a bit.”
That picture will come back to you at the moment you need it, and this is exactly what Aesop intended. Someday you will be about to say the sharp word, or to agree to the foolish plan, or to tell the easy lie. And before any rule comes to you, the frogs will come to you. You will see the well, and you will hear the second frog’s question, and the question will do its work.
Carry the lesson in one sentence: Look before you leap, for some wells have no way out.
The sources, goals, method, outline, and direction of this lesson are the work of Mr. William C. Michael, O.P., Headmaster of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. The written copy has been composed from his materials and instructions with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools, and reviewed and approved by him before publication.
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