The prodigal youth and the swallow

English woodcut from Samuel Croxall's The Fables of Aesop , 1814

The Prodigal Youth and the Swallow is a fable by the ancient Greek fable poet Aesop .

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The fable tells how a young man who had wasted all his possessions also sold his coat when he saw the first swallow returning home because it was now spring. But then it froze again, so that the swallow froze to death and the freezing spendthrift angrily cursed the swallow.

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From this fable comes the winged word handed down from Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics : "A swallow does not make spring".

In German this is quoted as “a swallow doesn't make a summer”. The ancient Greek original form was Μία χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ. (Mia chelidōn ear ou poiei.) This phrase has also entered the language of other European peoples:

• Latin : "Una hirundo non facit ver."
• English : "One swallow does not make a summer."
• French "Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps."
• Italian "Una rondine non fa primavera."

literature

• Rainer Nickel (Ed.): Fables. Greek-German ( Tusculum Collection ). Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7608-1744-0 .