The Hare and the Tortoise

Where the Tale Comes From

“The Hare and the Tortoise” is one of the most universally recognised fables in world literature. In the Western tradition it is attributed to Aesop, the Greek storyteller of the sixth century before the common era, and it carries the catalog number Perry 226 in the standard scholarly index of the Aesopic corpus. The principal classical source is the Greek poet Babrius, whose verse retelling of Aesop in choliambic metre (around the second century of the common era) preserves the fable as χελώνη καὶ λαγωός — the tortoise and the hare. From there it travelled into Latin through the medieval Romulus prose-collections and the verse-Aesop of Walter of England, into the first printed English edition by William Caxton in 1484, and into the most famous modern form in Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables Book VI, fable 10 (1668), where it acquired the gnomic French line that French children memorise to this day: Rien ne sert de courir; il faut partir à point — “there is no point in running; one must start in time.”

The story belongs to a very old international family of “race between unlikely opponents” tales — what the folklorists Aarne, Thompson, and Uther catalogue as type ATU 275. Versions of the same plot are told across the world: in Native American tradition the tortoise (or the crayfish) outruns the coyote; in West African tradition the tortoise outwits the hare in Yoruba and Akan storytelling; in the great cycle of Chinese zodiac legends the small clever rat reaches the finish-line of the divine race ahead of the much faster ox. The Indian tradition, while it does not have a direct Pañcatantra hare-and-tortoise, has many cousins of this teaching — the patient ascetic who outlasts the brilliant warrior in the Mahābhārata, the Buddhist Jātaka tales of the slow steady disciple who reaches awakening before the brilliant distracted one. Wherever the story appears, the lesson is the same: steady effort beats brilliant carelessness.

We tell here the classical Greek form, in the shape Babrius set it down nearly two thousand years ago, with the final moral given in the words of all three great languages of fable.

The Hare Who Loved to Boast

There was once a forest. It was a green and golden forest, full of tall trees and long shafts of afternoon sun, and in this forest lived every kind of creature you can imagine — squirrels in the high branches, deer in the deep glades, foxes in their earth-dens, parrots and peacocks and small bright butterflies in the warm air. The forest had its proud creatures and its quiet creatures, its swift creatures and its patient creatures, and on the whole it lived together in good order.

The proudest creature in the whole forest was a young hare. He was a fine-looking animal — his coat a clean bright golden-brown, his ears tall and elegant, his back legs powerful as a coiled spring. And he could run. Oh, he could run. He could outrun the fox. He could outrun the deer. He could, in fact, outrun every creature in the forest, and he knew it.

The trouble with the hare was not his speed. His speed was a real and beautiful thing, a gift from the forest. The trouble with the hare was that he never let anyone forget about it. Every morning, when the forest creatures gathered at the river to drink, the hare would come bounding up in great show-off leaps, and he would say things like, “Did you see that, friend deer? Did you see how I cleared the stream in one bound? You couldn’t do that, could you?” And the deer, who was a polite creature, would smile a tired smile and go back to drinking. The hare would turn to the fox: “Friend fox, you may be cunning, but I am the swiftest. There is no one in the whole forest who can match me.” And the fox, who was indeed cunning, would say, “Indeed, friend hare, indeed,” and look at the hare with eyes that suggested the fox was already thinking three thoughts ahead.

Now in the same forest, on the soft moss beside the river, there lived an old tortoise. The tortoise was the very opposite of the hare. His shell was a deep mossy green, scratched and weathered by long years; his small legs were short and bent; his pace was slow as the seasons. The tortoise was wise — quietly wise, the kind of wise that does not need to announce itself — and he was patient as the river-stone. He had heard the hare boast every morning for many years and had never once spoken back.

But every creature, even the wisest, has a limit.

One morning the hare came bounding up to the river in his usual style, and he saw the tortoise drinking slowly at the water’s edge, and he could not help himself. “Look at you,” the hare said, half-laughing, “look at you, plodding along like a moss-covered stone. Why, in the time it takes you to cross from one side of this clearing to the other, I could circle the whole forest twice. Honestly, friend tortoise, with legs like that, what is the point of going anywhere at all?”

The tortoise lifted his old head out of the water. He looked at the hare with calm dark eyes. He took a long, considered breath.

“Friend hare,” said the tortoise quietly, “I should like to propose a race.”

The Race is Set

For one full second the whole forest fell silent. The squirrels stopped chattering. The peacocks stopped preening. Even the small bright butterflies seemed to pause in mid-air to listen.

And then the laughter began. It started with the hare, who let out one long disbelieving guffaw, then doubled over and slapped his thigh. It spread to the parrots, who shrieked with mirth in the high branches. The fox, sly and amused, shook his head from side to side. Even the polite deer turned away to hide a smile.

“A race?” gasped the hare between laughs. “You? You want to race me?”

“I do,” said the tortoise, with the same level patience.

“Oh, friend tortoise,” the hare said, wiping his eyes, “you must be joking. This is the funniest thing I have heard in all my life. Yes — yes, of course we shall race. By all means. I would not miss it for the world. I’ll wait for you at the finish-line. I’ll wait there for a week, if I have to, while you crawl up to the line one last inch at a time.”

“That suits me,” said the tortoise. “Shall we ask the wise old fox to mark the course?”

The fox, seeing in this the most entertaining day he had spent in years, agreed at once. He marked the start at the foot of the great banyan tree where the river bent. He marked the finish four miles away, beyond the long meadow, beneath the spreading mango tree at the southern edge of the forest. The course passed through woodland, through open grassland, past a small clear pond where the water-birds gathered, and finally up the gentle slope to the mango tree. Word spread through the forest that the race would take place at sunrise the next morning, and every creature for miles came out to see it.

That night, the hare slept the sleep of the certain. Why should he not? He had already won, in his own mind, before the race began. The tortoise, in his quiet burrow on the river-bank, slept the sleep of those who know that the race is not always to the swift. He dreamed nothing in particular. He woke before the sun.

At the Starting Line

By dawn the forest had assembled. The squirrels had taken every branch. The deer were arranged in a polite half-circle in the meadow. The peacocks had positioned themselves where their tails would show to best advantage. The fox stood at the line with a strip of red cloth in his paw, ready to drop it as the signal.

The hare arrived in a great flash of golden brown, leapt three times in the air to loosen his back legs, and crouched at the line with every muscle tight as a drum-skin. The tortoise arrived a few minutes later, walked slowly up to the line, considered it carefully, and placed his front feet behind it as the rules required.

“Are you both ready?” the fox asked.

“Ready,” said the hare. He could not keep a smug little smile from playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Ready,” said the tortoise. His face showed nothing at all.

The fox raised the red cloth high. The forest held its breath. The fox let the cloth fall.

The hare exploded forward in a great blur of golden brown. In four bounds he was across the meadow. In ten he was a small dot at the edge of the trees. By the time the tortoise had taken his first careful step over the starting line, the hare was already out of sight.

The tortoise did not look up. He did not look around. He set his small old legs in motion — left, right, left, right — and he walked.

Beneath the Mango Tree

The hare, two miles into the race, paused on the crest of a small rise and looked back. The forest stretched out behind him in long green waves. There was no sign of the tortoise anywhere — not on the trail, not in the meadow, not even at the river-bend. The hare laughed out loud at his own foolishness for being even slightly worried.

“Honestly,” he said to the empty trail, “what was I rushing for? At this pace, that old shell will be lucky to reach the finish-line before sunset tomorrow. I have time. I have all the time in the world.”

The morning was warm. The hare’s stomach reminded him that he had been too excited to eat breakfast. He dropped down to nibble on a patch of clover, then on some bright dandelions, then on a few sweet wild strawberries he found at the foot of an oak. The food was good. The day was long. The trail ahead was empty.

He came at last to a great old mango tree halfway along the course. Its branches hung heavy with golden ripe mangoes, and the ground beneath was soft with moss and fallen leaves. The hare sat down to rest. He ate two mangoes. The juice ran down his whiskers. The shade was deep and cool. The cicadas in the grass were singing the slow song of high noon, and the small breeze that ran through the mango leaves was the gentlest, most pleasing sound he had ever heard.

“I shall close my eyes for just a moment,” the hare said to himself, “just for the smallest of small naps. I have hours and hours of lead. The tortoise will not be along this way for another four or five hours at the earliest.”

He lay down on the soft moss. He folded his paws across his chest. His long ears settled back. His breathing slowed. The mango tree above him was full of bees murmuring in the blossoms; the cicadas in the grass kept up their long warm song; the breeze moved gently through the leaves. The hare’s eyes closed. And the hare, who had never in his life been wrong about his own speed, fell into the deepest, softest, most contented sleep of his entire life.

The Tortoise Walks On

While the hare slept, the tortoise walked. He did not run. He could not run, and even if he could have, he would not have. He walked.

Left, right, left, right. The tortoise’s small bent legs carried him forward in their slow patient rhythm, mile after mile, hour after hour. He did not stop to eat, because the tortoise had eaten before the start. He did not stop to rest, because the tortoise rested while walking. He did not stop to look around, because the tortoise had nothing he needed to see. He walked.

He passed the small clear pond where the water-birds were gathered. The water-birds called out to him as he passed: “Friend tortoise, you are far behind! The hare passed here hours ago.” The tortoise nodded, polite as ever, and walked on. Left, right, left, right.

He came to the great old mango tree at the middle of the course. He saw the hare lying asleep on the moss, his paws folded across his chest, his long ears settled back, his whiskers twitching gently with the rhythm of his breath. The tortoise paused. He looked at the sleeping hare. He thought of waking him. He thought of saying something polite. And then the tortoise, who was wiser than the hare in the deepest of all wise things, did not wake him. He simply nodded once at the sleeping hare, in courteous acknowledgement, and he walked on. Left, right, left, right.

The afternoon came on. The shadows lengthened. The tortoise walked. He passed through the second meadow. He passed beneath the line of pine trees. He came at last to the gentle slope that led up to the mango tree of the finish-line. The forest creatures, who had been watching from a distance, began to gather along the side of the course as the tortoise drew near.

“Friend tortoise!” called the squirrels. “Friend tortoise, you are nearly there!”

The tortoise did not look up. He did not speed up. He walked. Left, right, left, right.

The Cheer that Wakes the Hare

Far back at the great old mango tree of the middle, the hare was still sleeping. His dreams were of long meadows and warm sun and clover-flowers; he was running, in his dreams, faster than any hare had ever run, and he was smiling in his sleep at his own astonishing speed.

And then, distantly, he heard a sound.

It was a long rolling cheer, the cheer of a great many creatures all together, the kind of cheer that goes up at the end of a thing rather than the beginning. The hare’s ears twitched in his sleep. The cheer came again, louder this time. The hare’s eyes opened.

For a moment he did not understand where he was. He saw the green canopy of the mango tree above him. He saw the soft moss beneath him. He saw the long shadows of late afternoon stretching across the trail.

Late afternoon.

The hare leapt to his feet so fast that his head spun. He looked at the angle of the sun. He looked at the empty trail behind him. He looked at the empty trail ahead of him. He understood, all at once, with a terrible cold understanding, what had happened.

He ran. He ran as he had never run in his life. Every muscle of his great back legs was on fire; his lungs heaved like bellows; his ears were flat back against his head with the wind of his passing. He ate up the second meadow in great desperate bounds. He flew past the pond of water-birds, who called out to him in surprise. He charged up the gentle slope towards the mango tree of the finish-line, and as he came over the top of the slope he saw it.

He saw the entire forest gathered in a great laughing cheering crowd. He saw the wise old fox standing by the finish-line, holding the red cloth of victory aloft. He saw, in the very middle of the crowd, lifted gently in the gentle hands of the squirrels and the deer, the dignified mossy-green form of the tortoise — across the finish-line, his old face calm as ever, victorious.

The hare slowed. The hare stopped. The hare hung his head, and the long tall elegant ears that had been so proud all his life drooped down as low as they would go.

The forest, for a moment, was quiet.

And then the tortoise spoke. He spoke to the hare with no triumph in his voice and no scorn. He spoke as one creature speaks to another, when the lesson does not need to be hammered home.

“Friend hare,” said the tortoise gently, “the race is not always to the swift. Speed is a great gift. But speed without steadiness is not enough. I walked while you slept, and the walking was enough.”

The hare did not say anything. He could not say anything. There was nothing to say. He stood at the foot of the slope with his ears down and his proud heart very small, and he listened. And the wise old fox lowered the red cloth, and the squirrels and the deer set the tortoise down, and the forest gathered around its quiet new hero with the kind of warm gentle celebration that fits a steady soul.

The Moral of the Tale

Babrius, in his classical Greek verse-form (Fable 24), gives the moral as:

πολλοὺς διανοίᾳ φύσις ἐλαττοῖ πόνῳ.

“Nature often surpasses through diligent effort what it lacks in speed.”

La Fontaine, two thousand years later, gave the fable its most famous European motto in his French verse (Fables VI.10):

Rien ne sert de courir; il faut partir à point.

“There is no point in running; one must start in time.”

And William Caxton’s first printed English Aesop of 1484 gave the lesson its most universal child-friendly form, the form by which most English-speakers know it today:

Slow and steady wins the race.

Three languages, three centuries apart, three slightly different angles on the same truth. The Greek says it as a piece of natural philosophy: hard work and constancy can overcome even the gifts of speed. The French says it as a piece of practical wisdom: it is not the running that wins races, but the proper start and the steady continuation. The English says it as a piece of plain folk-wisdom: slow and steady will outlast the brilliant and careless. All three say the same thing. The race is not always to the swift; the race is to the one who keeps walking when the swift one has stopped.

Why This Story Has Lasted

“The Hare and the Tortoise” has lasted, across more than two and a half thousand years and across every continent on which human beings tell stories, because it gives a child a perfectly clear picture of a perfectly true thing. We have all met the hare. We have all, sometimes, been the hare. We have all begun a piece of work full of energy and brilliance and confident speed, only to grow bored partway through, only to put it down for a moment, only to wake up too late and find that someone steadier and quieter has finished it ahead of us.

And we have all met the tortoise. We have all, in our better moments, been the tortoise. We have all done a piece of work that we were not the most brilliant person at — a long study, a difficult skill, a slow recovery, a hard book — and we have done it not by being faster than anyone else but by simply not stopping. The tortoise is not the cleverest character in the fable; he is not even the swiftest version of himself. He is simply a creature who keeps walking, because that is what he does. And in the end the simple act of not stopping carries him further than all the brilliance in the forest.

Above all the story is a story about pride. The hare loses not because he is slow — he is the swiftest creature alive — but because he is proud. His pride blinds him to the value of patience; his pride leads him to nap; his pride costs him the race. The tortoise wins not because he is fast — he is the slowest creature on the course — but because he is humble. He has nothing to prove, no one to impress, no boast to defend. He simply walks. The fable is, in its quiet way, one of the most beautifully democratic stories in all the world’s literature: it tells the slow child, the slow learner, the slow worker, the slow grower, that there is a path forward for them too, and that the path runs not through brilliance but through steadiness. It is a story for everyone who has ever felt that they are not fast enough. The fable says, gently, that it does not matter. Keep walking. Left, right, left, right. The finish-line waits.