The story of Thales falling into a well while gazing at the stars was originally recorded in
Plato's
Theaetetus (4th century BCE). Other ancient tellings sometimes vary the person or the rescuer but regularly retain the rescuer's scoffing remark that it would be better to keep one's mind on the earth. The Roman poet
Ennius summed up the lesson to be learned from the story in the line ("No one regards what is before his feet when searching out the regions of the sky") and was twice quoted by
Cicero to this effect.
Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) reports the story as follows in his commentary on the
Nicomachean Ethics:
When Thales was leaving his house to look at the stars he fell into a ditch; while he was bewailing the fact an old woman remarked to him: "You, O Thales, cannot see what is at your feet and you expect to see what is in the heavens?" The anecdote was repeated as an amusing story in the English jest book
Merry Tales and Quick Answers (1530). In this the philosopher Meanwhile,
Andrea Alciato was mounting a more serious attack on astrology in his
Book of Emblems, the first of many editions of which appeared in 1531. In that first edition there was an illustration of the astrologer, head in air, about to trip over a block on the ground. The accompanying Latin poem referred to the story of
Icarus and later editions used instead an illustration of his fall from the sky. However, the emblem is titled "Against Astrologers" and the poem concludes with the warning 'Let the astrologer beware of predicting anything. For the imposter will fall headlong, so long as he flies above the stars.' The English emblem compiler
Geoffrey Whitney followed Alciato's lead in including the story and an equally fierce attack in his
Choice of Emblemes (1586). At much the same time,
John Lyly's play,
Gallathea (first performed in 1588) features a sub-plot involving a phony alchemist and a sham astronomer who, in gazing up at the stars, falls backward into a pond. The
Neo-Latin poet
Gabriele Faerno also included the story of the stumbling astrologer in his collection
Centum Fabulae (1554), but concluded with the more philosophical point, 'How can you understand the world without knowing yourself first?' As with several others, it was from this source that
Jean de la Fontaine included the plot among his
Fables (II.13). His poem is remarkable in confining the story to a mere four-line allusion before launching into a 45-line denunciation of astrology (with a side-swipe at alchemy too). But the battle against superstition had been won by the time that Charles Denis included a mere digest of La Fontaine's poem in his
Select Fables (1754). His conclusion is that speculation about the future is idle; how many folk, he asks,
Samuel Croxall is even more curt in his
Fables of Aesop (1732). The moral of the tale, he concludes, is "mind your own business". ==References==