Phaedrus - The Donkey and the Gauls

Now that is the story I can relate to the most so far. I'm just like the donkey here.

There are plenty of people who will dance to party music on my grave while drinking Champaign.

I knew you were going to say something like that. But the worst enemy is the one inside, a part of ourselves that judges, criticizes, gets angry and tortures us.
So, like Don Quixote, we see imaginary enemies on the outside instead of mere windmills.

Don Quixote? That guy really had lost all touch with reality! Not only the well-known scene with the windmills, he had lots and lots of hallucinations. Disturbed perception to the maximum. The book is worth reading.

I'm afraid reality isn't always as easy as the book and problems/enemies/bad situations can be quite real (and will not disappear because of an overdose Risperidone).

I can relate to that story because it also touches the topic "ungratefulness". On the other side: When the donkey is dead, he won't care what happens with his skin. So... I can provide a Wii, a dance mat and some Dance Dance Revolution discs for my own funeral.

If you only knew how many acts of ingratitude I have witnessed; yet all it takes is only one thank you, one smile from one person in ten, that I myself am grateful to be alive...

Interesting. It is a rather saturnian tail if I am not mistaken. Cybele seems to be connected with titan Gaia and godess of harvest Demeter. The donkey seems to be the object that gets consumend on all fronts, devoured by the harvest god, like Saturn devours his childern for example.

Another original esoteric interpretation of yours.
Actually the meaning, addressed to the common people and simple men, is plain: some are born unlucky and haunted by misfortune and suffering, and do not find peace even after death.

I see your point. In my analysis of many works there is a connectiom between harvest and exploitation. I think the treatment of the donkey is extremy harsh, and that not by nature itself but by a person connected to harvest. I find it intersted that the person connected to harvest is a begger, the poverty is used to justify the treatment of the donkey. The begging motive might be connected mercury, if that is true it might be that the begger displays himself as being poorer than he really is to justify his behavior.

In the bible the 12 tribes of jacob, one tribe is instructred to keep the donkey following a vine thats held over its head. This I think is meant to represent the exploitation of other people (that are foreign to the 12 tribes, thus the dehumanizing symbology of the donkey) with alcohol as a tool. In conntext of the whole work it is quite clear, that Jacob is talking with symbols that are ment to represent something very different.

Saturn god of harvest has been linked to the god of the old testament yahwe. Cybele is connected to harvesrlt goddess demeter which is connected to saturn. I do believe the main theme of this theme is brutal exploitation of forgeiners (to saturian types).

The misery the donkey experiences is tied to another person. The donkey didnt have to suffer like this. Another owner might have treated it better.