The Spider and the Bee Episode

-Swift

Brilliantly conceived and skillfully presented, the episode of the spider and the Bee in "The Battle of the Books" is a glorious piece of literature with a perennial charm. Swift seems to have been inspired by Bacon's "Nonum Organum". This episode helps Swift to launch a stinging and scintillating satire on the moderns.

A Spider dwelt in the highest corner of a window in the Royal Library. Swift presents its hob webs as a mansion. One day the spider's mansion suddenly shook and the spider was shocked. A bee, by chance, had entered the window and sat on the outer walls of the mansion. The Citadel sank under its weight. The spider felt that the Doom's Day had come. Soon the bee freed itself from the web. Meanwhile the spider had removed from its shock. It saw the bee. Anger replaced fear. It began to hurl abusive words at the bee. With obdurate pride it claimed superiority over the bee.

The spider argued that the bee was a homeless wanderer and an indiscriminate plunderer of nature and that the bee's only possession was its wing and drone-pipe. The spider.boasted that it had the architectural skill to build its own house with its own hands from the material derived from the own body.

The bee said that its wings (flight) and voice (music) were God's gifts for noble ends. What is collected from flowers enriched it without harming them. The bee argues that though there were labour and method in the spider's work, the materials of the construction were flimsy. The spider had only filth and poison in its breast. But the bee ranged freely in gardens and after long search and wise discrimination brought home honey and wax. Thus the bee felt that it was superior to the spider. Then it flew away.

Hearing the words of the spider and the bee, Aesop sums up the arguments. The spider represents the moderns and the bee represents the ancients. Like the spider, the moderns have only mechanical skill. Their productions are flimsy and dirty. There is neither breadth of treatment nor durability in their works. But, like the bee, the ancients have no pretensions. Just as the bee has wings and sweet voice, the ancients have creative imagination and creative use of language. Wide range, infinite search and discrimination are the characteristics of the bee and the ancients. Just as the bee brings home honey and wax, he ancients provide mankind with delight and light. (enjoyment and enlightenment).

Aesop's interpretation can be regarded as Swift's stand. As Herbert David says, "This fable and the interpretation of it are Swift's real contribution to the debate between the Ancients and the Moderns". This episode is a smaller and subtler allegory with in a large allegory. The web stands for modern books. Honey and Wax stands for the productions of the ancients. While the larger allegory (the whole book) establishes the superiority of the bee (representing the ancients) will prove the path for progress and thus it enhances the larger allegory. So, this episode need not be regarded as a digression.

As in fables, in this episode the characters are from the animal word (the bee and the spider). Some message will be conveyed through fables. Through this episode the superiority of the ancients over the moderns is established and the pretensions of the moderns are exposed.