In pockets of the courtly swains, and on
His ladies’ girdle-chains. And, thereupon,
What does our proud Narcissus do? He goes
Hiding in deep recesses, where he knows
He will be safe from mirrors’ woes, secure.
But in those refuges, fed by a pure
And limpid source, there runs a stream. He looks;
Sees his reflection in the brook’s
Clear waters; flies into a rage; is sure
That what he sees is an illusion merely;
Tries to avert his eyes, eschew it;
Flee from the beauteous stream… Scarce can he do it:
To tear himself away will cost him dearly.
You see, I think, what my tale is about:
Our soul—as you have guessed, no doubt—
Is that vain churl, utterly smitten
With but himself. The mirrors represent
Men’s follies, where our own are evident.
And the clear stream? The Maxims you have written.
I, 11
THE DRAGON WITH MANY HEADS AND THE DRAGON WITH MANY TAILS
An envoy from the Turkish court’s
Most sublime potentate—or so reports
History’s tale—announced one day before
The minions of the Emperor
That he esteemed his master’s troops to be
More powerful by far than theirs. Wherefore
A German, taking issue, presently
Begins to speak: “Our prince,” says he,
“Has vassals of such power, that they
Can each alone raise up an army vast.”
The Turk, a man of sense, steadfast
In his belief, retorts: “Sire, so they say.
I know what force can be amassed
By each of your Electors. But pray hear
A strange adventure mine, one that I pledge
To be the truth, doubtful though it appear…
Once, while I sat safely behind a hedge,
I saw a hundred-headed Hydra1 pass
Before it, on the other side.
My blood froze. One might well be horrified
By less, I warrant! But no wide crevasse
Is there, sufficient to permit
Those heads abhorrent to reach where I sit.
I muse on the adventure when, alas,
Another dragon, with a single head,
Appears: one head but many a tail instead.
And, as in dread I sit, I see come through
The hedge, head, body, and those tails! So, too,
Do I deem and esteem the powers,
Sire, of your Emperor and ours.”
I, 12
THE THIEVES AND THE ASS
They tell about two thieves who fought
Over a stolen ass: one thought
It ought be kept; the other, sold. Fists flew,
Blows fell. And while our heroes sought
To prove their point with derring-do,
Another brigand came upon
The scene, and seized Master Aliboron.1
So too with military handiwork.
Some petty province is the prize;
And while the warring princes agonize—
Hungarian, Transylvanian, Turk
(Not just a thieving two, but three: there is
No limit to such merchandise!)—
A fourth steps in; resolves the fight: the ass is his!
I, 13
SIMONIDES SAVED BY THE GODS
One cannot praise too much three kinds of being:
The gods, one’s mistress, and our kings.
So said Malherbe.1 As for myself, agreeing,
I laud this maxim’s reckonings.
Praise turns one’s head, chucks it under the chin
With tickling words; woman extolled
Often lets man her amorous favors win.
As for the way the gods repay, behold!
Simonides2 once undertook
To praise a certain wrestler. But by hook
Or crook, little he found, to his dismay,
Worth mentioning; and all that he could say
About his genealogy was: “Ah!
His father was a fine bourgeois!”
Indeed, a subject not overly fertile
In panegyric mode. And so the poet,
Reaching the end, but careful not to show it—
Spreading as thinly as he could his myrtle—
Launches into a lengthy disquisition
Praising Castor and Pollux,3 heroes twain
Who, with their exploits, time and time again,
Exemplified athletic competition,
Citing specific combats, dates, and places.
At length, the glory of the twins embraces
A good two-thirds of his encomium.
The athlete has engaged to pay
One talent. But, rather than give that sum,
“Nay, nay!” he tells Simonides. “I pray
You take one-third and go request
Castor and Pollux to provide the rest.
Yet would I have the honor to invite
You, sire, to come and sup with me this night.
The company is of the best—
My friends, my family. I pray you might
Join in our glee.” Simonides agrees,
Fearing, perhaps, to lose, besides his due,
His talents laudatory too.
He goes… They feast… And whilst the revelries
Continued merrily and unabated,
A varlet, breathless, entered; said there waited
Two men to see him at the gate, posthaste.
He jumps up, runs out… Loath to waste
A single bite, the cohort carries on…
The two men were the twin gods whom his ode
Had praised. They tell him: “Quick! Begone!
In but a trice this fine abode
Will fall to dust, come toppling down!” Whereon,
Indeed, it came to pass; one column, first;
And then the ceiling, unsupported, tumbled
Forthwith upon the feast; shattered and crumbled
Plates, platters, goblets—servants too! The worst,
However, was that, to avenge our bard,
A loose beam suddenly comes crashing
Down on our wrestler, straightway smashing
His legs, and all the guests—or most—ill-starred.
Fame spread the word abroad. Much troubled,
The populace, quickly construing
A miracle, a feat of heavenly doing,
And much in awe thereof, now doubled
The fee paid to our poet, god-protected;
Each mother’s son—everyone and his brother!—
Rushing to have his verses thus confected
In honor of some ancestor or other!
But back now to my tale… As I was saying,
No praise is too dear for the paying,
Especially for men like gods
And gods themselves. Even Melpomene4
Purveys her talent; and the public nods
Approval as she lauds, applauds,
High though the price! So too ought we
Demand as much as one pays her!
Yes, once Olympus and Parnassus5 were
Brothers and friends, and lived in harmony.
I, 14
DEATH AND THE WRETCHED MAN & DEATH AND THE WOODSMAN
Each day a poor wretch called on Death to come
Save him from his cruel, wearisome
Condition: “Death,” he would repeat, “how sweet you
Seem! And how fair! Ah, I entreat you,
Come and deliver me from my fell fate!”
Obliging, Death appeared, and thought
She would be welcome, since so much besought.
She knocked… Opened his door… Stepped in… But wait!
Shocked, the wretch shouts: “Horrors! Get rid of her!
&nbs
p; Death, fearsome creature! Gruesome, sinister!…
I want no part of you! Be off!”
It was Maecenas1—something of a philosophe
And fine monsieur—who, somewhere, said:
“Let me be dropsied, crippled, weak, bereft
Of arm, of limb, with nothing left
But breath! Let me be anything, but dead!
However helpless, feeble, spent,
Let me but live, and I shall live content.”
This subject was treated differently by Aesop, as the following fable will show. Myself, I felt constrained to compose the preceding in order to give the subject, thereby, a more general application. But it was called to my attention that I might have done better to follow my model: that my version lost one of the most attractive features of Aesop’s tale. Thus did I return to his. Never are we able to surpass the Ancients: they leave us only the glory of following them closely. I do, however, include my fable with his; not because mine deserves that honor, but because of the lines from Maecenas that I repeat in it, so well expressed and appropriate to the subject that I thought it best not to omit them.
Bowed down beneath the weight of years, no less
Than by the burden of his heavy pack
Of sheaves—boughs, branches—bending low his back,
A woodsman, groaning, moaning his distress,
Goes trudging homeward toward his grime-smoked hut.
Weary, at length, of his travails and woe,
Dropping his load, he muses: What
Pleasure has he known here below?
Is there another who has suffered so,
Here on this mortal sphere? Sometimes, no crumb!
Nor any rest from all his laboring!
Wife, children, taxes, debts, toil for the king,
Soldiers to billet… Ah, the martyrdom!
And so he calls on Death to come,
Help him. She does, without delay. But when
She asks what he would have her do,
“Madame,” says he, “I merely called on you
To pray you help me lift my load again.”
Death cures our troubles by and by.
Why hurry? Best we wait till then.
“Better to suffer than to die.”
To which all mankind says amen.
I, 15 & 16
THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN AND HIS TWO MISTRESSES
A man of middling age, one day,
Decides the time has come,
Now growing grizzled—nay, grown gray!—
To end his bachelordom.
Wealthy he is, and prosperous.
And thus
The pick (or so to speak) is his: in sum,
Women galore would be his bride. They yearn
To earn his favor. He, in turn,
Knows that, in love, the choice is slow;
Knows he must ponder every con and pro
Before deciding… Now, of those who burn
To win his heart, two widows stand
Above the rest; one, fresh and green, the other… Well,
More ripe; but, wonderful to tell,
Able, with art, to mend what nature’s hand
Has cruelly rent asunder… Widows, they,
Who fawned and frolicked, and—one used to say—
“Coifed” him betimes. (A word not often said
Today, but one that meant “to groom the head.”)
The older one, for her part, pulled the few
Dark hairs that, here and there, still grew
About his scalp, so that monsieur
Might look to be a bit more fit for her.
Likewise, the younger, thereunto,
Plucked all the white as well. Duly appalled,
Monsieur, at length—no longer gray—was bald.
“My dears,” said he, “though high the cost,
Truly, more have I gained than lost.
Marriage is not for me, I fear. A wife
Would want me not to live my life,
But hers. And though, of late, my pate is bare,
Thank you, my loves. The lesson’s worth my hair.”
I, 17
THE FOX AND THE STORK
One day Renard, the fox—goodfellow he!—
Extends his hospitality
To Goodwife Stork, inviting her to dinner.
Scant is the fare (no spendthrift sinner
This fox of ours!): only a thinnish gruel—
Thinner than thin—served in a shallow dish.
Long as she is of bill, dear though her wish
To sup, the stork gives up, gulled by his cruel
And crafty hoax. Renard, thereat,
Laps, guzzles, gulps it down with ease. But later
The joke’s on him: she gives him tit for tat,
Inviting him in turn. Our witful traitor,
Quick to accept, replies: “Merci beaucoup!
Away, madame, with false pretense—
No need for tra-la-la with friends like you.”
And so, come eve, fast to her residence
He flies; arrives; flatters her gracious air;
Spies the repast; sniffles its scents;
Ogles the chunks of meat, minced fine, spread there
Before his hungering eyes; delights
In one of those uncommon appetites
Common to foxes!… Ah, but lo!
Stork serves them in a long vase, narrow-necked.
Her thin, sharp beak fits snugly in. But oh!
Our hero’s snout is, as you might suspect,
Quite the wrong shape and size! So, eating crow,
Like fox outwitted by the chicken coop,
Shamefaced, abject, ears all a-droop,
Tail tucked betwixt his legs, home will he go,
Outdone, unfed… outfoxed! Indeed,
Tricksters, you could be next: hear, and take heed!
I, 18
THE CHILD AND THE SCHOOLMASTER
I tell the present fable to portray
The arrant folly of a babbling sot
Whose wont it was to twaddle time away…
Well then, my tale. One day a child at play
Chanced to fall in the Seine. But it was not,
Praise Heaven! his fate to sink: a willow limb—
At God’s behest!—hung low and succored him.
Seizing the branch, the poor tot clutched it fast…
As there he clung among the boughs, there passed
A pedant sort, schoolmaster by vocation.
“Help!” yelps the child. “I’m dead!” The magister,
Deciding that a proper remonstration
Is what the urchin needs, stops then and there
And, with his most censorious, priggish air,
Proceeds to censure him. “You little minx!
See where your foolish mischief leads? Methinks,
My imp, you’ll learn your lesson!… Ha! Go try
To care for scamps and knaves like these! My eye!
God help their parents! What a cross have they
To bear, day out, day in! Alackaday!…”
At length he pulls the youngster out. But, ah!
Not before many a “Bah!” et cetera…
Several the laughingstocks of mine
Depicted here; more than you think: the scold,
The pedant, and the chatterbox. Untold
Their numbers! God has blessed their line.
Tongue-waggers, one and all! My prattling prater,
Rescue me first; give me your lecture later!
I, 19
THE COCK AND THE PEARL
A cock turned up a pearl, and went
Straight to the jeweller. “Yes, I should
Be pleased,” he cackled, discontent.
“But it’s a fact: unhappily,
A simple grain of millet would
Be of much greater good to me.”
A fool inherited a book—
A fine old manuscript1—and stood
Complai
ning to a bookman: “Look,
It’s precious… Yes, I quite agree.
But just the merest ducat could
Be of much greater good to me.”
I, 20
THE HORNETS AND THE HONEYBEES
“We know the workman by his work.”1 Quite so.
One day some honeycombs were found,
Abandoned. Hornets soon came round,
Claimed they were theirs. Bees challenged them: “No, no!”
Whereat a litigation was begun.
A wasp was chosen to decide between
The litigants. Easier said than done!
Witnesses testified that they had seen,
Buzzing about the combs, some wingèd creatures,
Longish, tan-hued. “Like bees, I mean…”
Aha!… But wait! Such are the features
Common to hornets too. The judge, perplexed,
With no idea at all what to do next,
Proceeds to call another trial; invites
The ants to come and lend their lights
In the affair. Useless endeavor!
Clearly the matter still remains… unclear.
“Humbug!” protests a bee, more clever,
Patently, than the rest. “Look here,
Six months of chatter, and I fear
We’re no whit closer than we were! I never
Saw such a twit!2 Our judge will natter on
And on, forevermore, with all
His legal tra-la-la and folderol.
Meanwhile the honey spoils. Upon
My word, let’s set to work, hornets and us:
We’ll see whose toil produces sweet results.”
Hornets demur: theirs, no such skill. And thus
His Honor cogitates, consults;
Sees their unwillingness as proof that they
Speak false; decrees the bees have won the day.
Good God! If only every case could be
Concluded with such speed, so easily!
Or if we followed, in our litigation,
Methods known to the Turkish nation3—
Simple, direct! Then, I suspect, we might
Duly dispense with Lex and Jus:
Good common sense would rule aright.
Instead we suffer law’s abuse—
Expensive too!—till, in the end, so well
Do judges wear us down that, for their use,
They suck the oyster and leave us the shell.4
I, 21
THE OAK AND THE REED
The oak one day spoke to the reed: “I swear,
You have good cause to fret at Nature. Why,
The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine Page 5