The Dog in the Manger
Encyclopedia
The story and metaphor
of The Dog in the Manger derives from an old Greek fable
which has been transmitted in several different versions. Interpreted variously over the centuries, it is used now of those who spitefully
prevent others from having something that they themselves have no use for. Although the story was ascribed to Aesop's Fables
in the 15th century, there is no ancient source that does so.
: in "Remarks addressed to an illiterate book-fancier" and in his play "Timon the Misanthrope". One other contemporary poetic source is a paederastic epigram by Straton of Sardis
in the Greek Anthology
.
At roughly the same time an alternative version of the fable is alluded to in Saying 102 of the apocrypha
l Gospel of Thomas
that involves oxen rather than a horse. Jesus said, "Woe to the Pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of oxen, for neither does he eat nor does he let the oxen eat". Assuming that this gospel is not an original document, the saying seems to be an adaptation of criticism of the Pharisees
in the canonical
Gospel of Matthew
(23.13): Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces; you do not enter yourselves, nor will you let others enter.
and is not attributed to him until Steinhöwel
's Esopus (c.1476). There it appears as illustrating a moral proposition: 'People frequently begrudge something to others that they themselves cannot enjoy. Even though it does them no good, they won't let others have it. Listen to a fable about such an event. There was a wicked dog lying in a manger full of hay. When the cattle came and wanted to eat, the dog barred their way, baring his teeth. The cattle said to the dog, "You are being very unfair by begrudging us something we need which is useless to you. Dogs don't eat hay, but you will not let us near it." The fable shows that it is not easy to avoid envy; with some effort you can try to escape its effects, but it never goes away entirely.'
An English reference is found a century earlier in John Gower
's Confessio Amantis
(c.1390):
Although a horse figures in some allusions by later writers, the ox is the preferred beast in Renaissance
emblem book
s. It appears as such in a Latin poem by Hieronymus Osius
(1564), in the Latin prose version of Arnold Freitag (1579) and in the English poem by Geoffrey Whitney
(1586).
All these authors follow Steinhöwel in interpreting the fable as an example of envy, but later on the dog's behaviour is seen as malicious, a reading made very clear in Roger L'Estrange
's pithy version: 'A churlish envious Cur was gotten into a manger, and there lay growling and snarling to keep the Provender. The Dog eat none himself, and yet rather ventur’d the starving his own Carcase than he would suffer any Thing to be the better for’t. THE MORAL. Envy pretends to no other Happiness than what it derives from the Misery of other People, and will rather eat nothing itself than not to starve those that would.' Samuel Croxall
echoes L'Estrange's observation in Fables of Aesop and Others (1722). 'The stronger the passion is, the greater torment he endures; and subjects himself to a continual real pain, by only wishing ill to others.' It is with this understanding that the idiom of 'a dog in a manger' is most often used today.
In the 1687 Francis Barlow
edition of the fables, Aphra Behn
similarly sums up the sexual politics of the idiom: 'Thus aged lovers with young beautys live,/ Keepe off the joys they want the power to give.' It was of exactly such a situation involving a eunuch and his slaveboys that Straton had complained in the Greek anthology. More innocently, two of the Bronte sisters fit the idiom to occasions of heterosexual jealousy. In Emily Bronte
's Wuthering Heights
it arises during an argument in Chapter 10 between Catherine Linton and Isabella Linton over Isabella's love for Heathcliff. In Charlotte Bronte
's Villette
it is used in the quarrel between Mme Beck and Lucy over Paul Emmanuel (Chapter 38).
Lope de Vega
adapted a Spanish version of the story to his play El Perro del Hortelano (The Gardener's Dog, 1618), which deals with the emotional complications of class conflict. The haughty countess Diana rejects her many aristocratic suitors and falls in love instead with her handsome young secretary, Teodoro, who is the lover of her maid. Unwilling to let the couple marry, she is also unwilling to marry him herself. The play was originally adapted for Russian TV as Sobaka na sene in 1977 and released in the USA as "The Dog in the Manger". The same title was applied to the Spanish film made of the play, released in 1996.
De Vega's title relates to the parallel European idiom current in Dutch, Danish, German, French, Portugese and Italian as well. It refers to a variant story in which a gardener sets his dog to guard his cabbages (or lettuces). After his death the dog continues to forbid people access to the beds, giving rise to the simile 'He's like the gardener's dog that eats no cabbage and won't let others either' or, for short, 'playing the gardener's dog' (faire le chien du jardinier).
used it as the basis for his one-act comic opera of 1855, Le chien du jardinier. It was also taken up in the USA by the successful writer of farces, Charles Hale Hoyt
, in one of the last of his productions. A horse rather than the more common ox figures on the 1899 poster for this. The play was later to be made into a short comedy film in 1917 by the Selig Polyscope Company
.
In England artistic preference was for the anecdotal and the sentimental during the 19th century, especially among genre artists, and they found the fable and its applications ideal for their purposes. Two of these set the example, later followed by Gustave Doré
in France, of adapting the title to human examples of the behaviour indicated by the fable. In 1826, the print-maker, Thomas Lord Busby (active 1804-37), showed a dyspeptic man eyeing a huge dinner while hungry beggars and an importunate dog look on. Thomas Webster
also exhibited a picture with the title "The Dog in the Manger" at the Society of British Artists
in 1830. Of this a reviewer remarked that 'The strong sentiment of disgust and anger which is excited, while contemplating the selfishness of the spoiled and currish urchin in Mr Webster’s clever little work, is sufficient proof of his success' (London Literary Gazette
, March 27, 1830, p. 211).
Naturally, the theme recommended itself to animal painters as well and we find it in the work of several regional artists. The most successful of these was Walter Hunt (1861–1941), whose "Dog in the Manger" was bought by the Chantrey Bequest in 1885 and is now in Tate Britain
. Other treatments include ones by the Scottish artist Edwin Douglas (1848–1914) and by the Sussex painter Henry W.Bodle (1915). The latter shows two calves looking apprehensively at a puppy curled asleep in their hay basket. An outdoor scene of a dog and calves peering at each other by Claude Cardon (fl.1890-1915) has been alternatively titled "Curiosity" and "The Dog in the Manger".
Twentieth century American illustrations include a print by E. E. Cummings
, now in the University of Texas collection (67.75.18). There is also a watercolour of the fable by Gerson Goldhaber that illustrates his wife Judith's Sonnets from Aesop.
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
of The Dog in the Manger derives from an old Greek fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
which has been transmitted in several different versions. Interpreted variously over the centuries, it is used now of those who spitefully
Spite (sentiment)
To spite is to intentionally annoy, hurt, or upset. Spiteful words or actions are delivered in such a way that it is clear that the person is delivering them just to annoy, hurt, or upset. When the intent to annoy, hurt, or upset is shown subtly, behavior is considered catty.The Underground Man,...
prevent others from having something that they themselves have no use for. Although the story was ascribed to Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
in the 15th century, there is no ancient source that does so.
Greek origin
The short form of the fable as cited by Laura Gibbs is: There was a dog lying in a manger who did not eat the grain but who nevertheless prevented the horse from being able to eat anything either. It is twice used by the 2nd century Greek writer LucianLucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
: in "Remarks addressed to an illiterate book-fancier" and in his play "Timon the Misanthrope". One other contemporary poetic source is a paederastic epigram by Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis
Straton of Sardis was a Greek poet and anthologist from the Lydian city of Sardis. He is thought to have lived during the time of Hadrian, based on Straton authorship of a poem about the doctor Artemidorus Capito, a contemporary of Hadrian...
in the Greek Anthology
Greek Anthology
The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature...
.
At roughly the same time an alternative version of the fable is alluded to in Saying 102 of the apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
that involves oxen rather than a horse. Jesus said, "Woe to the Pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the manger of oxen, for neither does he eat nor does he let the oxen eat". Assuming that this gospel is not an original document, the saying seems to be an adaptation of criticism of the Pharisees
Woes of the Pharisees
The Woes of the Pharisees is a list of criticisms by Jesus against Scribes and Pharisees and Lawyers that is present in the Gospel of Luke and Gospel of Matthew...
in the canonical
Canonical
Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the greek word κανών kanon, "rule" or "measuring stick" , and is used in various meanings....
Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
(23.13): Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces; you do not enter yourselves, nor will you let others enter.
Later use in Europe
The fable does not appear in any of the traditional collections of Aesop's FablesAesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
and is not attributed to him until Steinhöwel
Heinrich Steinhowel
Heinrich Steinhöwel was a Swabian author, humanist, and translator who was much inspired by the Italian Renaissance...
's Esopus (c.1476). There it appears as illustrating a moral proposition: 'People frequently begrudge something to others that they themselves cannot enjoy. Even though it does them no good, they won't let others have it. Listen to a fable about such an event. There was a wicked dog lying in a manger full of hay. When the cattle came and wanted to eat, the dog barred their way, baring his teeth. The cattle said to the dog, "You are being very unfair by begrudging us something we need which is useless to you. Dogs don't eat hay, but you will not let us near it." The fable shows that it is not easy to avoid envy; with some effort you can try to escape its effects, but it never goes away entirely.'
An English reference is found a century earlier in John Gower
John Gower
John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which...
's Confessio Amantis
Confessio Amantis
Confessio Amantis is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. According to its prologue, it was composed at the request of Richard II...
(c.1390):
-
-
-
- Though it be not the hound's habit
- To eat chaff, yet will he warn off
- An ox that commeth to the barn
- Thereof to take up any food. (Book II, 1.84)
-
-
Although a horse figures in some allusions by later writers, the ox is the preferred beast in Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....
s. It appears as such in a Latin poem by Hieronymus Osius
Hieronymus Osius
Hieronymus Osius was a German Neo-Latin poet and academic about whom there are few biographical details. He was born about 1530 in Schlotheim and murdered in 1575 in Graz. After studying first at the university of Erfurt, he gained his Masters degree from Wittenberg university in 1552 and later...
(1564), in the Latin prose version of Arnold Freitag (1579) and in the English poem by Geoffrey Whitney
Geoffrey Whitney
Geoffrey Whitney was an English poet, now best known for the influence on Elizabethan writing of the Choice of Emblemes that he compiled.-Life:...
(1586).
All these authors follow Steinhöwel in interpreting the fable as an example of envy, but later on the dog's behaviour is seen as malicious, a reading made very clear in Roger L'Estrange
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer and author, and staunch defender of royalist claims. L'Estrange was involved in political controversy throughout his life...
's pithy version: 'A churlish envious Cur was gotten into a manger, and there lay growling and snarling to keep the Provender. The Dog eat none himself, and yet rather ventur’d the starving his own Carcase than he would suffer any Thing to be the better for’t. THE MORAL. Envy pretends to no other Happiness than what it derives from the Misery of other People, and will rather eat nothing itself than not to starve those that would.' Samuel Croxall
Samuel Croxall
Samuel Croxall was an Anglican churchman, writer and translator, particularly noted for his edition of Aesop's Fables.-Early career:...
echoes L'Estrange's observation in Fables of Aesop and Others (1722). 'The stronger the passion is, the greater torment he endures; and subjects himself to a continual real pain, by only wishing ill to others.' It is with this understanding that the idiom of 'a dog in a manger' is most often used today.
The sexual reading
One of Lucian's allusions to the fable gives it a metaphorically sexual slant: 'You used to say that they acted absurdly in that they loved you to excess, yet did not dare to enjoy you when they might, and instead of giving free rein to their passion when it lay in their power to do so, they kept watch and ward, looking fixedly at the seal and the bolt; for they thought it enjoyment enough, not that they were able to enjoy you themselves, but that they were shutting out everyone else from a share in the enjoyment, like the dog in the manger that neither ate the barley herself nor permitted the hungry horse to eat it.' (Timon the Misanthrope)In the 1687 Francis Barlow
Francis Barlow
Francis Barlow may refer to:*Francis Barlow , British painter, etcher, and illustrator*Francis C. Barlow , US lawyer, politician, and general-See also:*Frank Barlow...
edition of the fables, Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
similarly sums up the sexual politics of the idiom: 'Thus aged lovers with young beautys live,/ Keepe off the joys they want the power to give.' It was of exactly such a situation involving a eunuch and his slaveboys that Straton had complained in the Greek anthology. More innocently, two of the Bronte sisters fit the idiom to occasions of heterosexual jealousy. In Emily Bronte
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
it arises during an argument in Chapter 10 between Catherine Linton and Isabella Linton over Isabella's love for Heathcliff. In Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
's Villette
Villette
-Places:Villette or La Villette is the name or part of the name of several places in Europe:-France:*Villette, in the Meurthe-et-Moselle département*Villette, in the Yvelines département*Villette-d'Anthon, in the Isère département...
it is used in the quarrel between Mme Beck and Lucy over Paul Emmanuel (Chapter 38).
Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega
Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...
adapted a Spanish version of the story to his play El Perro del Hortelano (The Gardener's Dog, 1618), which deals with the emotional complications of class conflict. The haughty countess Diana rejects her many aristocratic suitors and falls in love instead with her handsome young secretary, Teodoro, who is the lover of her maid. Unwilling to let the couple marry, she is also unwilling to marry him herself. The play was originally adapted for Russian TV as Sobaka na sene in 1977 and released in the USA as "The Dog in the Manger". The same title was applied to the Spanish film made of the play, released in 1996.
De Vega's title relates to the parallel European idiom current in Dutch, Danish, German, French, Portugese and Italian as well. It refers to a variant story in which a gardener sets his dog to guard his cabbages (or lettuces). After his death the dog continues to forbid people access to the beds, giving rise to the simile 'He's like the gardener's dog that eats no cabbage and won't let others either' or, for short, 'playing the gardener's dog' (faire le chien du jardinier).
Artistic use
Popular artistic allusions to the fable, or the idiom arising from it, were especially common during the 19th century. Where Lope de Vega had adapted the theme to a problem play in the 17th century, the French composer Albert GrisarAlbert Grisar
Albert Grisar was a Belgian composer.Grisar studied in Antwerp, in Paris , and, in the mid-1840s, in Naples with Saverio Mercadante. He was a successful comic opera composer, first winning success in Brussels in 1833 and in Paris later in the decade...
used it as the basis for his one-act comic opera of 1855, Le chien du jardinier. It was also taken up in the USA by the successful writer of farces, Charles Hale Hoyt
Charles Hale Hoyt
Charles Hale Hoyt was an American dramatist.-Biography:Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He had a difficult childhood, as his mother died when he was nine years old. He graduated at the Boston Latin School and, after being engaged in the cattle business in Colorado for a time, took up...
, in one of the last of his productions. A horse rather than the more common ox figures on the 1899 poster for this. The play was later to be made into a short comedy film in 1917 by the Selig Polyscope Company
Selig Polyscope Company
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago, Illinois. Selig Polyscope is noted for establishing Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles...
.
In England artistic preference was for the anecdotal and the sentimental during the 19th century, especially among genre artists, and they found the fable and its applications ideal for their purposes. Two of these set the example, later followed by Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...
in France, of adapting the title to human examples of the behaviour indicated by the fable. In 1826, the print-maker, Thomas Lord Busby (active 1804-37), showed a dyspeptic man eyeing a huge dinner while hungry beggars and an importunate dog look on. Thomas Webster
Thomas Webster (painter)
Thomas Webster , was an English genre painter, who lived for many years at the artists' colony in Cranbrook.-Life:Webster was born in Ranelagh Street, Pimlico, London...
also exhibited a picture with the title "The Dog in the Manger" at the Society of British Artists
Royal Society of British Artists
The Royal Society of British Artists is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy.-History:...
in 1830. Of this a reviewer remarked that 'The strong sentiment of disgust and anger which is excited, while contemplating the selfishness of the spoiled and currish urchin in Mr Webster’s clever little work, is sufficient proof of his success' (London Literary Gazette
Literary Gazette
The Literary Gazette was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Literary Gazette". It was founded by the publisher Henry Colburn,...
, March 27, 1830, p. 211).
Naturally, the theme recommended itself to animal painters as well and we find it in the work of several regional artists. The most successful of these was Walter Hunt (1861–1941), whose "Dog in the Manger" was bought by the Chantrey Bequest in 1885 and is now in Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
. Other treatments include ones by the Scottish artist Edwin Douglas (1848–1914) and by the Sussex painter Henry W.Bodle (1915). The latter shows two calves looking apprehensively at a puppy curled asleep in their hay basket. An outdoor scene of a dog and calves peering at each other by Claude Cardon (fl.1890-1915) has been alternatively titled "Curiosity" and "The Dog in the Manger".
Twentieth century American illustrations include a print by E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
, now in the University of Texas collection (67.75.18). There is also a watercolour of the fable by Gerson Goldhaber that illustrates his wife Judith's Sonnets from Aesop.