The Boasting Traveller
- 2 minute read
- Ages 7-11
- Aesop's Fables
A man came home after years of travelling and could not stop talking about it.
Every conversation turned into a list of the places he had been and the remarkable things he had done in each of them. His neighbours got used to it, in the way people do, and stopped listening quite early on.
Rhodes
One evening in the marketplace he was telling a group about the island of Rhodes.
"You would not believe what I did there," he said. "There was a jumping contest. Every athlete on the island entered it. And I beat all of them — I made a jump that day that no man there had ever seen, and no man has made since."
Somebody asked how far.
He told them, and it was a very long way indeed.
"You can ask anyone in Rhodes," he said. "Every single person there saw it. There are hundreds of witnesses. Go and ask them."
The group thought about this.
Here is Rhodes
Then an old man who had been listening from a bench stood up and walked into the middle of them.
He scraped a line in the dust with his heel, and then walked a few paces and scraped a second one, and stood back.
"There is no need to go to Rhodes," he said. "Here is Rhodes. Jump."
Moral of the story
Anyone can describe what they did somewhere else. If a thing is true, you can usually do it here, now, in front of people.
Questions and answers
- What did the traveller boast about?
A jumping contest on the island of Rhodes, where he claimed to have beaten every athlete with a record-breaking jump.
- How did he try to prove his claim?
He said hundreds of people in Rhodes had seen it and told the group to go and ask them.
- Why was that not real proof?
Rhodes was far away. Nobody in the marketplace could check, which is exactly why he chose it.
- What did the old man do?
He scratched two lines in the dust and told the traveller to make the jump right there.
- Why is 'Here is Rhodes, jump' such a good answer?
It removes every excuse at once. If the man could really jump that far, the location does not matter.
Word meanings
- boasting
- Talking with too much pride about yourself.
- athlete
- A person trained in sport.
- witnesses
- People who saw something happen.
- marketplace
- An open area where goods are bought and sold.
Questions about The Boasting Traveller
What is the moral of The Boasting Traveller?
The moral is that claims should be testable. Someone who can only prove themselves somewhere you cannot go is probably not telling the truth.
Where does the phrase 'Here is Rhodes, jump here' come from?
From this fable. It is still quoted in Latin as 'Hic Rhodus, hic salta', meaning prove your claim right here and now.
Did the traveller jump?
The fable does not say, which is the joke. Everyone in the marketplace already knew the answer the moment the lines were drawn.
How does this apply today?
It is a clean way into talking about claims people make online that cannot be checked, and about asking for evidence politely.