The North Wind and the Sun is one ofAesop's Fables (Perry Index 46). It is type 298 (Wind and Sun) in theAarne–Thompson folktale classification.[1] The moral it teaches about the superiority ofpersuasion over force has made the story widely known. It has also become a chosen text for phonetic transcriptions.
The story concerns a competition between theNorth wind and theSun to decide which is the stronger. The challenge was to make a passing traveler remove his cloak. However hard the wind blew, the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter to keep warm, but when the Sun shone, the traveler was overcome with heat and soon took his cloak off.
The fable was well known inAncient Greece;Athenaeus records thatHieronymus of Rhodes, in hisHistorical Notes, quoted an epigram ofSophocles againstEuripides that parodied the story ofHelios andBoreas.[2][a]
The Latin version of the fable first appeared centuries later inAvianus, asDe Vento et Sole (Of the Wind and the Sun, Fable 4);[3] early versions in English andJohann Gottfried Herder's poetic version in German (Wind und Sonne) named it similarly. It was only in mid-Victorian times that the title "The North Wind and the Sun" began to be used. In fact, the Avianus poem refers to the characters asBoreas andPhoebus, the divinities of the north wind and the Sun, and it was under the titlePhébus et Borée that it appeared inLa Fontaine'sFables (VI.3).
Gilles Corrozet, who had compiled a fable collection in French verse earlier than La Fontaine, twice featured the contest between the sun and the wind in hisemblem books. InHecatomgraphie (1540), the first of these, the story is told in a quatrain, accompanied by a woodcut in which a man holds close a fur cloak under the wintry blast while on the other side he strips naked beneath the sun's rays. It is titled with the moral "More by gentleness than strength" (Plus par doulceur que par force).[4] The same illustration was used to accompany another poem in Corrozet's laterEmblemes (1543), which counsels taking enjoyment and being careful as necessity demands, wisely adapting oneself to circumstances in the same way as one dresses differently for winter than for summer.[5]
Victorian versions of the fable give the moral as "Persuasion is better than force",[6] but it had been put in different ways at other times. In the Barlow edition of 1667,Aphra Behn taught theStoic lesson that there should be moderation in everything: "In every passion moderation choose, For all extremes do bad effects produce".[7] In the 18th century, Herder came to the theological conclusion that, while superior force leaves us cold, the warmth of Christ's love dispels it,[8] and Walter Crane's limerick version of 1887 gives a psychological interpretation, "True strength is not bluster". But forGuy Wetmore Carryl in his humorous rewriting of the fable, "The Impetuous Breeze and the Diplomatic Sun", tact is the lesson to be learned. There the competition is between the man and the wind; the sun only demonstrates the right way of achieving one's end.[9]
While most examples draw a moral lesson, La Fontaine's "Mildness more than violence achieves" (Fables VI.3) hints at the political application that was present also in Avianus' conclusion: "They cannot win who start with threats". There is evidence that this reading has had an explicit influence on the diplomacy of modern times: in South Korea'sSunshine Policy, for instance, or Japanese relations with themilitary regime in Myanmar.[10]
Jean Restout made a painting of La Fontaine's fable for theHôtel de Soubise in 1738. This showed a traveller on horseback among mountains under a stormy sky.[11] In his print of the same subject,Jean-Baptiste Oudry reversed the perspective to show the god riding a cloud chariot with the horseback traveller merely a small figure below.[12] This too was the perspective ofGustave Moreau's 1879 watercolour in the series he painted of the fables.[13] In modern times, the fable has been made into a 3-minute animated film for children by theNational Film Board of Canada (1972).[14] It also figured as part of a 1987 set of Greek stamps.[15]
The fable was the third of five inAnthony Plog's "Aesop's Fables" for narrator, piano and horn (1989/93);[16] it is also one of the five pieces inBob Chilcott's "Aesop's Fables" for piano and choir (2008).[17] And, under the title "The Wind and the Sun", the English composer Philip Godfrey (b. 1964) has made a setting for children's choir and piano.[18]
La Fontaine'sPhébus et Borée was choreographed in 2006 byKarine Ponties as part of Annie Sellem's composite ballet production of La Fontaine'sFables as a 25-minute performance for a male and female dancer.[19] Its creator has commented on the fable's theme that 'it demonstrates people's vulnerability to cosmic forces and the inner links there are between natural events and our life as humans.'[20] But for the Scottish artist Jane Topping (b. 1972), who referenced "The North Wind and the Sun" in her 2009 installation, the fable is to be interpreted in the context of subliminal persuasion via images.[21]
The fable is made famous by its use inphonetic descriptions oflanguages as an illustration of spoken language. In theHandbook of theInternational Phonetic Association and theJournal of the International Phonetic Association, a translation of the fable into each language described is transcribed into theInternational Phonetic Alphabet. It is recommended by the IPA for the purpose of eliciting all phonemic contrasts that occur in English when conducting tests by foreign users or of regional usage.[22] For example, the description ofAmerican English in theHandbook of the International Phonetic Association includes the following as a sample text:[23]
The fable has also been proposed as aparallel text incomparative linguistics as it provides more natural language than theLord's Prayer. In addition, impromptu tellings can indicate differences within languages such asdialects or national varieties.[24] The example above, for instance, hasshined whereBritish English usage isshone.[25] The previous IPA handbook transcribedshone for the Southern British and Scottish versions, butbegan to shine for the American English version.[26] For an illustration ofNew Zealand English, the fable was replaced by "The Southerly Wind and the Sun" to make it geographically appropriate.[27]
It has been criticized for its limitations in descriptive and acoustic research on varieties of English, and alternative passages likeThe Boy Who Cried Wolf have been suggested as replacements.[28]
It was the Sun, and not a boy, whose heat stripped me naked;as for you, Euripides, when you were kissing someone else's wifethe North Wind screwedyou. You are unwise, you who sowin another's field, to accuse Eros of being a snatch-thief.
