“I can find my biography in every fable that I read.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aesop’s fabulous grapes, the fox mocks—
Too tart for a smart cur’s decanter!
Moral of such slanderous banter:
By Aesop’s vine is sly eyes outfoxed.

With foxes we must play the fox

—Thomas Fuller

Grapes ripening on the fabled vine—
From Tantalus’ grasp, a reach beyond:
The touch of lips on Narcissus’ pond,
The tart tongue of the cunning canine.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do

—Galileo Galilei

Aloof, from the too-cute-by-half fox—
The fruit of life’s most fabulous crop:
Sparkling with youth in Ancient Greek cups,
Wineskins of Bacchus, bursting and crushed.

The older the grapes, sweeter the wine

—Janice Joplin

Sweet grapes, by a cocky fox maligned—
Grow within the humble reynard’s reach:
All a fabulous moral would teach,
Sly eyes outfoxed by wise Aesop’s vine.

From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own

—Alfred de Vigny