What makes the oak think it is better than the reed?
There are early Greek versions of this fable and a 5th-century Latin version by Avianus. They deal with the contrasting behaviour of the oak, which trusts in its strength to withstand the storm and is blown over, and the reed that 'bends with the wind' and so survives. Most early sources see it as a parable about pride and humility, providing advice on how to survive in turbulent times. This in turn gave rise to various proverbs such as 'Better bend than break' and 'A reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall', the earliest occurrence of which is in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" (II.1387-9). It so happens that there is an overlap here with the old Chinese proverb 'A tree that is unbending is easily broken'. The saying originally occurred in the religious classic, the "Tao Te Ching", with the commentary that 'The hard and strong will fall, the soft and weak will overcome'.
What makes the oak think it is better than the reed in early Greek versions and the 5th-century Latin version by Avianus?
strength to withstand the storm
The Oak and the Reed
Interpretations of the fable began to change after the more nuanced retelling in La Fontaine's Fables, "Le chêne et le roseau" (I.22). Here the oak has compassion on the reed's fragility and offers it protection, to which the reed politely replies that it has its own strategy for survival, "I bend and do not break". This is then put to the test when a storm breaks and brings the oak's "head that was neighbour to the sky" on a level with the roots "that touched the empire of the dead". Written in the autocratic time of Louis XIV of France, this was so successfully achieved that it appeared to teach the value of humility at the same time as suggesting that rulers may not be as powerful as they think themselves. So current did that sly interpretation become that Achille Etna Michallon's later painting of "The Oak and the Reed", now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (1816, see left), could easily be seen as a reference to the recent fall of the Emperor Napoleon I.
What makes the oak think it is better than the reed in Le chêne et le roseau?
roots "that touched the empire of the dead" head that was neighbour to the sky
The Oak and the Reed
No context provided
What makes the oak think it is better than the reed in Pierre Perret's 1990 rap version?
stacked like the Himalayas
The Oak and the Reed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Oak%20and%20the%20Reed
The Oak and the Reed is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 70 in the Perry Index. It appears in many versions: in some it is with many reeds that the oak converses and in a late rewritten version it disputes with a willow.
The Oak and the Reed
There are many versions of Aesop's The Oak and the Reed. In the early Greek versions and the 5th-century Latin version by Avianus, the oak thinks that it is better than the reed because it has the strength to withstand the storm. In version titled Le Chêne et le Roseau, the oak has compassion for the reed, but the reed has its own strategy for survival; This is then put to the test when a storm breaks and brings the oak's "head that was neighbour to the sky" on a level with the roots "that touched the empire of the dead." In Pierre Perret's 1990 rap version, the oak thinks that it is better than the reed because it is stacked like the Himalayas.