The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine

by Jean La Fontaine

  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,