روز دوم

MODERNIZING A PARABLE

Thurber punctures in an incisive way the platitudes that come from stories handed down through the generations.

These old saws are accepted by everyone. One such tale is about a tortoise who had read in an ancient book that a tortoise had beaten a hare in a race. The sage old tortoise construed this story to mean that he could outrun a hare. With equanimity he hunted for a hare and soon found one. “Do you have the effrontery to challenge me?” asked the incredulous hare. “You are a nonentity,” he scoffed at the tortoise.

A course of fifty feet was set out. The other animals gathered around the site. At the sound of the gun they were off.

When the hare crossed the finish line, the flabbergasted tortoise had gone approximately eight and three-quarter inches.

The moral Thurber draws from this debacle for the tortoise: A new broom may sweep clean, but never trust an old saw.