The Fox and the Grapes

A hungry fox saw ripe grapes hanging high on a trellis. He jumped again and again, snapping at the air, but the bunches stayed just out of reach.

At last he stopped, smoothed his fur, and walked off as if he had never cared. “I thought those grapes were ripe,” he said. “I see now they are sour.”

About this fable

“The Fox and the Grapes” belongs to Aesop’s fables from ancient Greece, not to the Indian tradition. This version follows the 1912 English translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

In Vernon Jones the fox leaps at grapes growing on a high trellis and then strolls off with an air of dignity. Joseph Jacobs’s 1894 retelling sets the scene in an orchard on a hot summer’s day and spells the lesson out: “It is easy to despise what you cannot get.”

Read the original: V. S. Vernon Jones, Aesop’s Fables (Project Gutenberg #11339, The Fox and the Grapes)

Best for ages 3–5: a tiny fable with a big idea, about pretending you never wanted something you could not have.

What does the fox actually know?

The fox learns that he cannot reach the grapes. He never tastes them, so he learns nothing about their flavour. His last sentence turns a fact about his own difficulty into a claim about the grapes. That is the joke: his confidence grows just when his evidence runs out. Walking away is reasonable if the task is impossible; pretending he has discovered that the grapes are bad is the questionable part.

Give the fox an honest last line

Say the final sentence in a proud voice, then replace it with a sentence that admits disappointment without insulting the grapes. Which version makes the fox sound more honest? Point to what he has actually seen or done.

Talk about it

• Why did the fox say the grapes were sour?
• What else could the fox have tried to reach the grapes?
• Have you ever said you didn’t want something after you couldn’t get it? Why do people do that?

Related stories

• The Lion and the Mouse — another short Aesop fable, about a promise the lion did not believe
• The Ant and the Grasshopper — a hungry grasshopper learns what the busy ants already knew
• The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs — a greedy couple want everything at once and end up with nothing