Quirijn van Brekelenkam, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
AN OLD WOMAN having lost the use of her eyes, called in a Physician to heal them, and made this bargain with him in the presence of witnesses: that if he should cure her blindness, he should receive from her a sum of money; but if her infirmity remained, she should give him nothing. This agreement being made, the Physician, time after time, applied his salve to her eyes, and on every visit took something away, stealing all her property little by little. And when he had got all she had, he healed her and demanded the promised payment. The Old Woman, when she recovered her sight and saw none of her goods in her house, would give him nothing. The Physician insisted on his claim, and. as she still refused, summoned her before the Judge. The Old Woman, standing up in the Court, argued: "This man here speaks the truth in what he says; for I did promise to give him a sum of money if I should recover my sight: but if I continued blind, I was to give him nothing. Now he declares that I am healed. I on the contrary affirm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house various chattels and valuable goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blindness, I am not able to see a single thing in it."
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Aesop's Fables are a collection of fables (i.e., very short stories with a moral). These were credited to the slave Aesop, an ancient storyteller who lived in Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. There are many translations and versions of these stories. This one came from the book Three Hundred Aesop Tales translated by Rev. George Fyler Townsend in 1871.
The story starts with a bargain between the doctor and the old woman. The woman agrees to pay if the doctor agrees to heal her. I remember trying to make such a bargain with an actual doctor once as a joke. His face foretold the truth which is no one can promise another a cure. Perhaps the very fact that he agreed to such a bargain depicts his nefarious nature. Further, he was even willing to bring this claim to court.
The old woman cleverly bases her response on whether or not she is blind, for blindness (or lack of blindness) is not something that could be proven at all. She doesn't argue that the doctor stole from her, she argues she can't see. Why? An old woman is unlikely to prevail against someone of a higher class. The court might wonder why such a nobleman would steal from a poor old woman. But by arguing she's blind because her house is empty, she puts the solution to this puzzle in the hands of the judge. He can then see clearly what is going on. Hence, when we are disadvantaged by our class, race, age, sex, education, wealth or experience, the wise crone shows us how to prevail. She did so by becoming fully aware of her status and then using it to her own advantage.
I found two morals: 1) He who plays a trick must be prepared to take a joke. 2) There are few good offices done for other people, which the benefactor does not hope to be the better for himself.
Perhaps an even better moral has to do with the willingness of the medical establishment to take everything from those who are sick and vulnerable. Sadly, it's something that happens to way too many people today.
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