Aesop at Play

101. AESOP AT PLAY. An Athenian one day found Aesop at play with a company of little boys, at their childish diversions, and began to jeer and laugh at him for it. The old fellow, who was too much a wag himself to suffer others to ridicule him, took a bow, unstrung, and laid it upon the ground. Then calling the censorious Athenian, “Now, philosopher,” says he, “expound the riddle if you can, and tell us what the unstrained bow implies.”
The man, after racking his brains, and scratching his pate about it a considerable time, to no purpose, at last gave it up, and declared he knew not what to make of it.
“Why,” says Aesop, laughing, “if you keep a bow always bent, it will break presently; but if you let it go slack, it will be the fitter for use when you want it.” [more info]

Aesop at Play

3.14. ÆSOP AT PLAY. An Athenian seeing Æsop in a crowd of boys at play with nuts, stopped and laughed at him for a madman. As soon as the Sage — a laugher at others rather than one to be laughed at — perceived this, he placed an unstrung bow in the middle of the road: “Hark you, wise man,” said he, “unriddle what I have done.” The people gather round. The man torments his invention a long time, but cannot make out the reason of the proposed question. At last he gives up. Upon this, the victorious Philosopher says: “You will soon break the bow, if you always keep it bent; but if you loosen it, it will be fit for use when you want it.”
Thus ought recreation sometimes to be given to the mind, that it may return to you better fitted for thought. [more info]

Aesop Playing

3.12. ESOP PLAYING.
As Esop was with boys at play,
And had his nuts as well as they,
A grave Athenian, passing by,
Cast on the sage a scornful eye,
As on a dotard quite bereaved:
Which, when the moralist perceived,
(Rather himself a wit profess’d
Than the poor subject of a jest)
Into the public way he flung
A bow that he had just unstrung:
“There solve, thou conjurer,” he cries,
“The problem, that before thee lies.”
The people throng; he racks his brain,
Nor can the thing enjoin’d explain.
At last he gives it up—the seer
Thus then in triumph made it clear:
“As the tough bow exerts its spring,
A constant tension breaks the string;
But if ’tis let at seasons loose,
You may depend upon its use.”
Thus recreative sports and play
Are good upon a holiday,
And with more spirit they’ll pursue
The studies which they shall renew. [more info]