The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine
Page 4
NOTES
1. Annabelle Patterson, Fables of Power: Aesopian Writing and Political History, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991).
2. Aesop Dress’d or A Collection of Fables Writ in Familiar Verse, (London, 1705).
3. Matthew Prior, “To My Lord Buckhurst, Very Young, Playing with a Cat.”
4. Francis Duke, The Best Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965), 222.
5. The translation here is particularly ingenious. The French reads: “Et Cérès, que fit-elle? /—Ce qu’elle fit? Un prompt courroux / L’anima d’abord contre vous!”
THE COMPLETE FABLES
OF JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
FOR MONSEIGNEUR LE DAUPHIN1
I sing those heroes, Aesop’s progeny,
Whose tales, fictitious though indeed they be,
Contain much truth. Herein, endowed with speech—
Even the fish!—will all my creatures teach
With human voice; for animals I choose
To proffer lessons that we all might use.
O scion of a prince the heavens prize
And object of the world’s admiring eyes,
Who makes the haughtiest heads bow low, and who
Will count his days in triumphs wrought anew,
Others will tell you in more ample tone
The worthy deeds your race of kings has sown.
Rather, in this my verse, shall be portrayed
Before you many a lesser escapade.
But must, forsooth, your favor be denied,
I shall be graced, in truth, for having tried.
· BOOK I ·
THE CRICKET AND THE ANT
The cricket, having sung her song
All summer long,
Found—when the winter winds blew free—
Her cupboard bare as bare could be;
Nothing to greet her hungering eye:
No merest crumb of worm or fly.
She went next door to cry her plight
To neighbor ant, hoping she might
Take pity on her, and befriend her,
Eke out a bit of grain to lend her,
And see her through till spring: “What say you?
On insect’s honor, I’ll repay you
Well before fall. With interest, too!”
Our ant—no willing lender she!
Least of her faults!—replied: “I see!
Tell me, my friend, what did you do
While it was warm?” “Well… Night and day
I sang my song for all to hear.”
“You sang, you say? How nice, my dear!
Now go and dance your life away!”
I, 1
THE CROW AND THE FOX
Perched on a treetop, Master Crow
Was clutching in his bill a cheese,
When Master Fox, sniffing the fragrant breeze,
Came by and, more or less, addressed him so:
“Good day to you, Your Ravenhood!
How beautiful you are! How fine! How fair!
Ah! Truly, if your song could but compare
To all the rest, I’m sure you should
Be dubbed the rara avis of the wood!”
The crow, beside himself with joy and pride,
Begins to caw. He opens wide
His gawking beak; lets go the cheese; it
Falls to the ground. The fox is there to seize it,
Saying: “You see? Be edified:
Flatterers thrive on fools’ credulity.
The lesson’s worth a cheese, don’t you agree?”
The crow, shamefaced and flustered, swore—
Too late, however: “Nevermore!”
I, 2
THE FROG WHO WOULD GROW AS BIG AS THE OX
A frog espies an ox
Of elegant dimension.
Herself no bigger than an egg, she gapes and gawks
In envy at his grandeur. Her intention?
To grow as huge as he. And so,
Huffing and puffing, all a-fuss, a-fret,
She asks: “Look, sister, have I done it?” “No!”
“And now?” “Nay, nay!” “There! Have I yet?”
“Not even close!” The paltry mite—galled, goaded—
Swelled up so well that she exploded.
This world of ours is full of foolish creatures too:
Commoners want to build chateaus;
Each princeling wants his royal retinue;
Each count, his squires. And so it goes.1
I, 3
THE TWO MULES
Two mules there were, each with his heavy pack,
Wending their way. One carried on his back
A load of oats and nothing more.
The other, belled and bridled, bore
A sack of money for the tax-collector.
Proud of his noble charge, he swore
Ever to be its staunch protector.
That is, until some miscreants happened on him,
Robbed him, and rained blow after blow upon him.
Then, all at once grown circumspecter:
“Ah me,” he sighed, “nobody said
That with my gold I well might end up dead!
Somebody should have told me so!
That mule behind lopes footloose, fancy-free,
And leaves me to my torment and my woe.”
The latter smiled: “My friend of high degree,
Best not to work for men of wealth.
Had you served but a miller, just like me,
I daresay you would be in better health!”
I, 4
THE WOLF AND THE HOUND
A wolf there was, grown wan and thin;
Little, indeed, but bone and skin,
So staunchly did the watchdogs do their duty.
At length a hound strays by his lair—
Sleek, fat, and passing debonair,
And no less well-endowed of strength than beauty.
Happily would Sire Wolf attack him,
Pummel him, thwack him,
Hack him to bits.
Ah, but to do so meant that he must fight;
And clearly they would not be quits
Before Sire Mastiff—able (quite!)
To hold his own—might lay him low!
And so our wolf draws near, in humblest wise,
Flatters his plump and portly bearing. “Oh?”
Replies the hound. “If you admire my size,
The choice is yours, good sire. If you
Would fatten up like me, do as I do:
Come, leave this dire and deadly wood behind.
What good does it do you and all your kind?
Poor devils, starving wretches, who
Ever must brave the blade for every crumb,
Never to feast their fill! Come, come…
A fairer fate awaits.” “But… But,”
Queries the wolf, “what must I do?” “‘What’?… ‘What’?”
Echoes the hound. “Why, almost nothing, friend:
Chase away beggars, churls with sticks… Attend
The household folk… Do all you can to please
The master… In return for which
Fine table scraps—delicacies
Of every sort—will be your rich
Reward: squab bones, and chicken bones, and such…
What’s more, you’ll know the loving touch
Of master’s fond caress.” The wolf, thereat,
Weeps at the happy thought. But, on their way,
He spies the hound’s bald neck. “What’s that, I pray?”
“This what?” “That!” “This?… Why, nothing!” “‘Nothing?’ That?…”
“Almost, that is… It’s where my collar sits.
The one they use to tie me down. It fits
A trifle snug.” “‘Tie down?’ Then you’re not free?
You can’t go where you choose, run where you will?”
“Not always. But who cares?�
�� “Who? Me!
Keep your fine feasts! I’ll keep my liberty!”
Whereat our wolf went running off. He’s running still.
I, 5
THE HEIFER, THE GOAT, AND THE LAMB IN CONSORT WITH THE LION
In ages past, they say, the sisterhood
Of heifer, goat, and lamb kept company
With lion, the haughty monarch of the wood,
Sharing life’s weal and woe, bad times and good.
One day the goat, discovering that she
Had snared herself a stag, sent presently
For her companions, who arrived straightway.
The lion, counting on his paws, declared:
“Let now the four of us mete out our prey!”
That said, the king of beasts prepared
To hack the stag in quarters. “There!” said he.
“Now then, the first part surely goes to me,
Lion by name, your sovereign. Who,
Indeed, would dare dispute with me my due?
By right the next is mine as well; for might,
As often one observes, makes right.
Valor deserves the third: I’ll take that too.
As for the fourth… Since, forasmuch, it
Must be the last, I’ll kill the first to touch it!”
I, 6
THE BEGGAR’S SACK
Jupiter one day made a proclamation:
“Let every creature that draws breath appear
Before my majesty. For I would hear
If one has any reservation
About his nature. If one has,
He need not fear, but may declare it
Openly, and I shall forthwith repair it.
Come, Ape! Speak first, as it befits. Whereas
You see before you all your brothers,
Consider, pray, your comeliness.
Comparing it to all the others’,
Are you content?” Replies the ape: “Why, yes!
Why ought I not be so? Have I not four
Limbs, like the rest? Who would ask more?
No reason have I to deplore my state.
Unlike my brother Bear, poor reprobate—
Still rather unlicked, sire, I swear!”
Whereupon, “Oh?” replied the bear, as though
About to contradict. But no.
Instead, he praised his features fair
And picked another of the creatures there—
Wise Elephant—to criticize. “He might
Do with less ear to set him right,
And much more tail!” He was, in fact, said he,
A shapeless and immense monstrosity.
Elephant called Madame Whale much too fat.
Madame Ant found the mite naught but a nit,
While she herself, compared to it,
Was a Colossus… Well, with that,
Each having raked the others, Jupiter
Sent them off, pleased. Now, be it said thereon
That our own species was the paragon
Of utter folly, as it were:
Lynx-eyed before our brothers’ faults, but blind
As moles before our own, we are inclined
To pardon all the ways in which we err.
Our Maker made us beggars, now as then,
And gave us each the beggar’s double sack:
One pouch in front, for faults of other men,
And for our own, alas, the one in back.
I, 7
THE SWALLOW AND THE LITTLE BIRDS
A swallow, on her flights, had grown
Quite wordly-wise: surely when one has flown
About and seen so many things,
It’s going to follow that more than a few
Will one remember from those wanderings.
This one, for instance, always knew
When storms—even the merest winds—would blow,
And warned the sailors. Now, it happened that
She saw a farmer planting many a row
Of hemp in season, and, thereat,
“Ah woe!” she mused, and promptly flew to tell
A flock of birdlings of the portent fell:
“You see that hand zigzagging in the air?
Soon will it deal your death, feed your despair!
The seeds men sow today they reap tomorrow.
And though each grain is harmless, they can be,
For such as us, the source of many a sorrow,
Many a dire calamity,
Though more for you, my pets, than me.
Myself, I can fly off, or find
Some nook protected from Man’s kind,
Safe from his lures, safe from his nets,
And from his oh so many threats
To life and limb—and wing! So mind
You well, my pretties! You would not
Conclude your days in cage or pot!
Listen, then, when I tell you: Go
Feed on those seeds before they grow!”
So spoke the swallow. But the birds, each one,
Made fun, found her words hollow. “Ha!” they laughed,
“No need. The earth feeds well.” And when the sun
Nourished the hemp to green, again they chaffed.
And when she cried: “Save yourselves! Pluck each stalk,
Each tender shoot that cursèd plant has sprouted!”
“Babbling old bird! Prophet of doom!” they shouted.
“Fine task you ask of us with all your talk!
Enough of your absurd advice!
Even a thousand birds would scarce suffice
To try and strip the whole field bare!”
The swallow, when the crop had grown quite high,
Heavy with future evil, cast an eye
In its direction, adding: “Since you care
Little for all I’ve had to say till now,
At least beware, I pray, when men,
Putting aside their hoe, their spade, their plough,
Wage war on you with hempen snare. Best, then,
Either you never leave the nest, or move—
Like crane, and duck, and woodcock (and like me!).
But no. You’re small, and it would ill behoove
The feeble likes of you to soar the sea,
The desert, seeking other climes. For you
There’s really nothing else to do
But find some wall, some hole, and hide away!”
The birdlets, bored, chirp in their chitter-chatter:
Like Trojans lectured by Cassandra, they
Who heaped confused invective at her.
Birds, Trojans… Well, the former, like the latter,
Suffered in turn; for many, sore afflicted,
Lay trapped, ensnared, as swallow had predicted.
We heed no stranger’s prophecies of woe,
And sneer at evil till it lays us low.
I, 8
THE CITY RAT AND THE COUNTRY RAT
A certain rat—a city type—
Once asked a country rat
To come and dine on scraps of snipe,
Quite civilly at that.
Upon a rug of Turkish weave,
Outspread, lay the collation.
Just how the pair behaved, I leave
To your imagination.
The meal was all two rats could wish;
But as they took their leisure,
Something—most likely humanish—
Came by to spoil their pleasure.
Outside the door where they were eating:
Noises of frightful kind!
Off flees the city rat, retreating;
Country friend close behind.
Next moment, silence. Rats come back
Once Danger has departed.
Says city dweller: “Let’s attack
That tasty feast we started!”
Says rustic: “No, friend millionaire.
Tomorrow you come visit.
It’s not that I can match your fare—
It’s just not safe here, is it?
“I’m for much simpler meals, no question!
Bye-bye. I’d rather be
Able to eat unworriedly—
And free of indigestion!”
I, 9
THE WOLF AND THE LAMB
The strongest argue best, and always win.
Read on: you’ll find the proof thereof herein.
A certain lamb his thirst was slaking
Next to a crystal stream, when lo!
A hungry wolf drew near, his leisure taking,
Hoping to find a tasty meal or so.
The beast in fearsome tones snarled, snorted:
“How dare you foul my drink! I’ll make you pay!”
“Pardon me, sire,” meekly the lamb retorted,
“But if Your Majesty, I pray—
With due respect—
Would please consider, in effect,
The facts, I’m sure that he would plainly see
I’m twenty paces farther down than he.
I fail to fathom what he’s thinking,
Since in no way can I disturb his drinking.”
“Yes, yes! You do!… And that’s not all!”
Replied the wolf. “I’ll thank you to recall,
Last year you cursed me!” “Me? But how?
I wasn’t even born, sire! Ask my mother!
I’m still a suckling.” “Then it was your brother!”
“Brother? I haven’t any.” “Then, I vow,
It was some other of your scheming kin.
You’re all the same, plotting to do me in—
Sheep, shepherds, hounds! Well, tit for tat!”
Wherewith the beast, in all his fury,
Whisked him into the woods; whereat
He wolfed him down. And that was that—
No judge, no jury.
I, 10
THE MAN AND HIS IMAGE
FOR M. L. D. D. L. R. 1
A man who loved himself, unrivaled, thought
Himself the fairest in the world to be;
Happy in his delusion, he cared naught
For mirrors and their naughty falsity.
And so, to cure him, Fate, in nasty wise,
Contrives to place before his eyes
Those silent counselors that women love:
Mirrors within, on all the walls;
Mirrors without, on merchant stalls;
Mirrors below, mirrors above;