Though he sees the eye, the tooth is numb, or the fable "Fox and Grapes"

Ivan Andreevich Krylov processed fables already written in antiquity. However, he did it extremely masterfully, with a fraction of the sarcasm inherent in fables. The same happened with his famous translation of the fable “The Fox and the Grapes” (1808), which is closely connected with the original Lafontaine, which has the same name. Let the fable be short, but it contains a true meaning, and the phrase “Though he sees the eye, but the tooth is numb” has become a real catchy expression.

The content of the work

Once, a hungry Fox (Krylov himself chose the synonym “Kuma”) climbed into someone else's garden, and there large and succulent clusters of grapes hung. A fox wouldn’t be a fox if she didn’t want to try a ripe fruit right away and wanted to get a berry so much that not only her eyes, but even her teeth “flared up” (In this case, Ivan Andreevich uses an interesting verb that appears in the context as a sign of longing). Whatever the berries were “yachting”, they hung as if in spite high: the fox would come to them this way and that, but at least he sees an eye and a tooth goes numb.

Kumushka fought for an hour, jumped, but was left with nothing. The fox went away from the garden and decided that the grapes were probably not so ripe. He looks good, but green, you can’t even see ripe berries. And if, nevertheless, she managed to try, then she would have sore mouth (viscosity in the mouth).

Moral fables

As in any other work of this type, there is morality, and it is not contained in the proverb “even sees the eye, but the tooth is numb”, but in the very last lines that tell about the fox’s wrong conclusion. It means that when we try to achieve something, achieve our goal, we do not always get out of the situation as winners, and after that we complain and are not angry at ourselves, not at our own stupidity, laziness and bankruptcy, but at circumstances or some or other factors. Indeed, Krylov just noticed that everyone has self-pity, and after unsuccessful attempts, we begin to justify ourselves, saying that we didn’t feel pain, instead of continuing to fight, changing tactics. The moral of the fable can be reflected in another proverb: "Look in yourself, not in the village."

Thanks to the simple language that the author writes, the reader clearly understands the meaning of this work. We can say that the fable is built on some kind of opposition, that is, at first the fox admired the fruits, and then began to look for minuses in them, to justify their failure.

Proverb meaning

Accurate morality, an interesting plot, and artistic expressiveness are not all that the fable is rich in. “Though the eye sees, the tooth is numb” - the expression is not only a proverb, but also the second name of the entire work.

It means what seems close, reachable, but it is difficult and sometimes even impossible to get. Such an expression is equivalent to designating a goal, a dream.

I.A. Krylov proved that a work does not have to occupy several volumes in order to reflect the essence of a human character. The proverb “Though he sees the eye, but the tooth is numb” and the moral of the fable convey the essence of human psychology.