A talented play by Guilherme Figueiredo, a Brazilian playwright, “The Fox and the Grapes,” describing the last stage of Aesop’s life.

This is a work of art, not a strict historical document, let’s not forget.

And very interesting, in my opinion.

The basic idea is very close to my definition of freedom and slavery: It is NOT OUTSIDE OF US, but inside! And a free person can be a “slave” by his social status, while he is a truly free person, and, behold, his master is just a SLAVE in the full sense of the term!

A slave and a master are just two slaves at slightly different levels of the hierarchical herd stairs. The master is higher, the slave is lower. A certain social cataclysm occurs and the slave finds himself on a higher level, and the master slides lower – but NOTHING CHANGES from this. It’s just that a slave who has climbed to a slightly higher level becomes an UNBRIDLED slave, and the master becomes a more depressed slave!

But both were and remain eternal SLAVES!

A textbook example in front of everyone is the collapse of the USSR!

So what?

Have former citizens become free people?

They don’t even know WHAT IT IS, and the collapsed evil empire has turned into a patchwork quilt of UNBRIDLED SLAVES!

Once the people rebelled here

And, having become the creator of his destiny,

They has rooted out all the lords,

There are only slaves around now.

Igor Garik

So, the drama!

Xanthos, the “master” of Aesop, having drunk in a circle of acquaintances, declares that he can drink not only wine in large quantities, but also the sea! After sobering up, he is horrified to realize the absurdity of his drunken bragging, but there is nothing to do.: He must prove to the crowd of onlookers that he CAN really drink the sea, otherwise he will lose all his possessions and possibly become a slave himself.

He has known about Aesop’s sharp and inventive mind for a long time and he begins to whine and howl, asking Aesop to come up with some adequate excuse.

And Aesop, whom Xanthus has already deceived more than once, promising to give “free rein” for witty advice, replies:

“Xanthos, go and drink the sea!”

Finally, Xanthus swears to free Aesop from slavery if Aesop still helps him avoid the trap into which he drunkenly drove himself.

And Aesop advises him: “Tell everyone that you are ready to drink the sea, but only the sea, without water of rivers flowing into it.”

Let the Greeks separate the “pure” sea water from the river water and he WILL DRINK the SEA!

Xanthus, happy, gives this answer, and although everyone understands that this is advice coined by Aesop, there is nothing to do: Xanthus is technically right and slipped out of a seemingly hopeless, tightly locked trap.

FREEZE FRAME!

Then I asked myself a question:

What if I were in Aesop’s place, and I had to come up with an excuse for Xanthos, but logically just as perfect?

Is there any other loophole?

Apparently there is, and probably more than one! Because I immediately came up with another answer for Aesop:

Yes, Xanthos CAN drink the sea, but GRADUALLY, he did NOT declare that he would do it immediately, in a moment, in one gulp!

After all, even a glass of wine is drunk gradually.

So Xanthus will drink one sip a day and GRADUALLY DRINK the SEA!

This drink will take a million or a billion years, it doesn’t matter!

BUT HE’LL DRINK!

And those who do not have enough “patience to wait”, let them take the blame on themselves!

I suppose readers, if they want, can come up with other loopholes similar to Aesop’s.

For example, in his style — to agree not to drink underground and rainwater, replenishing rivers and the sea!

Or:

Do not drink volcanic water! (Because all the water on Earth is of volcanic origin!)

Or:

Take it in your mouth and spit it out, and also gradually!

(After all, Americans have a national competition game on July 4th, Independence Day: Devour more “hot dogs” in a set time, which are immediately thrown up in the nearest toilet!

Truly – the height of stupidity and idiocy!

Francois de la Rochefoucauld had foreseen this hundreds of years earlier:

“There are follies that spread like contagious diseases!”)

Successful thinking!

Faciant meliora potentes.

11 I 2026