The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine
Page 13
Eyeing it for his frying pan.
“Not much,” he thought, “but every little bit…”
Then, just as he was putting it
Into his sack, somehow the fish pipes up:
“Good sir, before you take me home to sup,
Look at me, pray! Think what you’re doing.
Really, I’m hardly worth the chewing!
Please, spare me; let me grow. You’ll catch me later
And sell me to some tax administrator.
Whereas, merely to make some paltry dish,
You’ll need a hundred more like me.”
The fisherman replies: “Pish tush, poor fish!
Preach all you want. I guarantee,
Tonight you’re landing in the skillet.
You’re small, but still you’re big enough to fill it!”
A fish in hand is worth two in the sea:
The one you hold is caught; the others, free.1
V, 3
THE HARE AND HIS EARS
The lion was, in ages past, attacked
By some horned animal. The aftermath
Was such that, in his kingly wrath,
He thought it well that he enact
An edict whereby every beast who sported
Horns of whatever kind must be deported.
In fact, goat, ram, deer, hind, and bull—
Most disinclined to stay, though sorrowful
That they must fly—each fled his lair.
Fearful and most distressed, a hare,
Seeing the shadow of his ears, feared they
Be taken by some court inquisitor
For horns; and thus decided that, before
They were, indeed, best he be on his way.
“Friend cricket, I must leave,” says he. “Bye bye.
I worry lest they misperceive, and see
My ears as two long horns! Why, I
Could have small ostrich-ears; still should I be
Afraid!” The cricket answers: “Me oh my!
You take me for a fool? Those? Horns?
God made you ears, and ears is what
They are!” The timid hare retorted: “But
They’ll call them horns! Even two unicorns’!
Say what I please, I know their tricks:
They’ll lock me up with all the lunatics!”1
V, 4
THE FOX WHO LOST HIS TAIL
A certain fox, grown old, but nonetheless
Proficient in the ways of foxliness—
Still terror of the henhouse and the hutch,
And smacking of your fox from miles away!—
One day lay trapped. And yet his luck was such
That he escaped; although, to his dismay,
Not quite: that is, he left his tail behind!
And so, thus altered—nay, abbreviated,
Curtailed (if I may say)—humiliated,
He straightway set about to find
How best he might persuade his fox confreres
Likewise to rid themselves of theirs.
Next day, in council, boldly he opined:
“Who needs those heavy things we trail in back?
What good are they, except to track
Through mire and muck! I say we hack them off.”
“Do tell!” one of their troop was quick to scoff.
“A fine idea… But first, please turn about.”
He does… No use to talk, as all the while
With hoot and howl, guffaw and shout,
They drown him out!
Wherefore, for all our fox’s guile,
Yet, truth to tell, the tail is still in style.
V, 5
THE OLD WOMAN AND THE TWO SERVANTS
Once, an old woman had two maids, the kind
That spin; and spin they did: cloth so well done
That the three spinning sister-Fates1 combined
Were vulgar drudges in comparison.
Each day she had no care more pressing, none,
Than to distribute to the pair
Their tasks: as Phoebus, rising through the air—
He of the golden locks—quit Tethys’2 sea,
Lo! In a frenzy of activity
Spindles dart to and fro, wheels turn,
Unceasing… Why? Because, as I have mentioned,
When dawn commenced its chariot-drawn sojourn,
A certain cock, wretched and vile-intentioned,
Would crow his call. The hag, as vile,
Would don a grease-bespattered shift, meanwhile
Lighting her lamp, and run, fast as she could,
Straight to the bed where our two spinsters3 would
Gladly have slept the day away. The first
Squinted an eye, the other stretched an arm.
Both vowed between clenched teeth that harm
Would come to that damned cock, that fowl accursed!
Thus, with the scorn that so befit it,
Seizing the morning-crier’s throat, they slit it.
Said murder, though, failed to improve their lot:
No sooner had the couple got
To sleep again than, quick, our harridan,
Elf-like, afraid to miss the dawn, began
To run about, here, there, and everywhere!
Thus, often, do we pay for our desire
To raise ourselves out of some fell affair,
Only to sink still deeper in the mire!
The proof? Our pair, and she who thus harassed them:
For hag it was, not cock, who cast them
Out of the frying pan, into the fire!
V, 6
THE SATYR AND THE PASSERBY
In a desert cave, a satyr1
And his godforsaken troop—
Many an offspring, mater, pater—
Were about to sup their soup,
Sprawling on the mosses there.
Ah! Could you have seen the sight!
Ground uncovered, bodies bare…
Oh, but what an appetite!
Whereupon a passerby,
Freezing from the rain, soaked through,
Wanders in, no doubt to dry,
Uninvited; still, our crew
Offer him some gruel. The guest
Needs no second invitation;
Blows upon his hands, hard-pressed
To restore their circulation;
Then blows on his soup—but very
Gently; and that host of his,
At this conduct most contrary,
Asks him what the reason is.
“First I blow to warm my hands,
Then to cool my food.” “I see!”
And the woodland beast commands:
“Then please leave, immediately!
“Ye gods! I’ll not share my shelter
With some creature misbegot;
One whose mouth will, helter-skelter,
Now blow cold and now blow hot.”
V, 7
THE HORSE AND THE WOLF
That season, when the Southwind blows the grass
To green once more; when zephyrs’ breath
Awakens Nature from her frigid death;
When creatures venture forth from hole, crevasse,
And den, quitting their wintry regimen
To seek again their fortune; then
A wolf there was—to make my story short—
Who, putting winter’s chill, perforce, behind,
Spying a horse set out to graze, opined
(Imagine with what glee!): “Ah, what fine sport!”
And, yearning for its flesh between his jaws:
“Ah me,” he mused, “why can’t you be
A sheep? I’d have you, one, two, three!
Instead, I’ll have to use my wit, because
No easy prey is this. Beasts such as these
Seldom submit. Well, wit it is!” And thus,
With measured gait and tone obsequious:
“Good day! A student of Hippocrates
<
br /> To serve you, sire,” he said, “and cure
Your every ill with plant and herb,
Gratis, with Hippocratic skill superb.
For I suspect, my noble steed, that you’re
Suffering something; else why, free, unreined,
Do you graze here?” (So did his science teach him!)
No more, indeed, need wolf beseech him:
“True,” said the horse, “I’ll tell you.” And he deigned
Reveal he had a tumor on his hoof.
Our sham physician sighed a soul-felt “Ouf!”
Saying: “There’s no more tender spot. I’ll heal it,
Surgically; for surgeon have I been,
Serving the royal stables, monsieur’s kin.
Come, valliant stallion, let me feel it.”
Licking his chops, he coveted his meal: it
Wouldn’t be long… But, much to his chagrin,
Our horse, with well-placed hoof, lashed out so well, he
Promptly reduced the lupine jaws to jelly.
“It serves me right,” the wolf, supine and humbled,
In a dejected murmur, mumbled.
“Professionally speaking, best persist
In what we know. For all your life you plied
The butcher’s trade. Why, now, decide
To try and play the herbalist?”
V, 8
THE PLOUGHMAN AND HIS SONS
Work hard, hard as you can: then shall you
Learn that in work one finds the surest value.
A wealthy ploughman, sensing death
Approach, sent for his children so that he
Might counsel them in privacy,
Telling them, with his dying breath:
“Beware never to sell this land that we
Inherited from forebears past. For, in it,
Buried, a hidden treasure lies. I know
Not where; but if you dig, and delve, and hoe,
Turning the earth and ploughing deep within it,
Certain you are to find it, come the autumn.”
The father died… The sons ploughed top to bottom,
Here, there—never an idle minute—
Hoed, tilled… So well that, for their toil,
They sowed and reaped a bounty from the soil.
And buried treasure? Not a bit. That is,
No gold. But from the old man’s deathbed wit—
That fatherly advice of his—
They learned that work’s the treasure. Cherish it.
V, 9
THE MOUNTAIN IN LABOR
A pregnant mountain, just about
To enter labor, bellows out,
And raises such a monstrous roar
That all who run to watch surmise
She’ll bear a city more than Paris’ size.
A mouse is what she bore.
When I conceive this fiction,
Empty of fact but full of sense,
It seems to me a true depiction
Of authors’ vain grandiloquence.
They promise: “Ah, my lyre will sing
Of Titans’ combat with the Thunder’s king.”
Fine words! And yet, what often comes to pass?
Just gas.
V, 10
DAME FORTUNE AND THE CHILD
Beside a well a schoolboy lay asleep
(Those of his tender years being much inclined
To sleep on anything they find!),
A well with water darkly deep;
Quite deep enough, indeed, to cause
A man of common sense much pause
Lest he fall several fathoms. Luckily,
Fate—or Dame Fortune, if you will—
Happening by, espied the boy; and she,
Nudging him gingerly until
He woke, chided him thus, in manner mild:
“You see? I’ve saved your life, my child.
Please, next time be more careful. Had
You fallen in, you foolish lad,
They would have said the fault was mine,
And cursed my cruelly whimsical design.
Truly, I ask you, in all honesty,
Can such foolhardiness be laid to me?”
She left. Myself, I much approve
Of everything Dame Fortune said:
Man cannot make the slightest move
But that the consequence falls on her head.
When folly leads in pathways perilous,
It’s Fate we find at fault. ’Twas ever thus.
V, 11
THE DOCTORS
A patient in the sickest of conditions
Was visited by each of his physicians:
Hopeless and Hopeful, doctors twain. The second
Thought he could save him, though the first one reckoned
Nature would claim her due; his regimen
Prevailed, and that was that. Whereat, amen!…
Yet, even though their patient died, each boasted.
Said Hopeless: “Dead! I told you so! You see?”
And Hopeful, no less satisfied, riposted:
“He’d still be living if they’d heeded me!”
V, 12
THE HEN WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS
Longing for more, we lose what good we’ve got.
Witness the fabled hen1 who, so we’re told,
Each morning laid an egg of gold.
Not satisfied, her master lost the lot:
Sure that her innards housed a treasure,
He killed her, cut her up, only to find
That she was quite the same, measure for measure,
As hens that laid the common kind.
This lesson, greedy folk, is opportune:
Today, how many a pauper do we see,
Who owes his sudden poverty
To his desire to grow too rich, too soon!
V, 13
THE ASS WITH A LOAD OF HOLY RELICS
A jackass carrying a reliquary
Assumed the people’s veneration
Was meant for him, in adulation
Of qualities extraordinary,
Until, at length, to disabuse him, someone said:
“Sir Ass, I fear you misconstrue.
Best be advised to rid your head
Of witless vanity, or be misled!
They merely give the god his due.
They’re honoring the idol, dolt, not you!”
A judge can be a lout and little more:
His robes—not he—are what we bow before.
V, 14
THE DEER AND THE VINE
A deer pursued by hounds had found some high,
Thick vines—the kind we find betimes
Growing in certain other climes—
And, hiding in them, saved his skin thereby.
The hunters think their dogs have failed to track
Their prey, and promptly call them off. The deer,
Now out of danger from the murderous pack—
Lacking in proper gratitude, alack!—
Bites at his savior… Chomps… The huntsmen hear,
Turn round, come back, and flush him out. Soon will
He die, there, where he stands. “Alas,” sighs he,
“I earn my doom! Ungrateful souls, see me
And learn.” With that, in for the kill,
The hounds, with fang and claw, gouge, gore him.
Deaf to his tears, the hunters quite ignore him.
Such is the fate of those whose desecration
Sullies the refuge that was their salvation.
V, 15
THE SNAKE AND THE FILE
They tell about a snake who made his nest
Next to a clocksmith’s1 shop—not quite the best
Of company the clocksmith might have kept!—
And who crept in one day in search of food;
Found nothing, not a crumb; nothing except
A metal file, on which he promptly chewed.
“Poor fool, what do you think you�
�re doing?”
Calmly the file inquired. “Poor silly snake!
I’m hard, you’re soft. What makes you think you’ll make
Even a dent with all your chewing?
You’ll break your teeth and never even harm me:
None but the teeth of Time alarm me.”
This fable is for you, my fine messieurs
Of little talent, who, with biting slur
Attack at every turn. Your brash harangues—
Your critic-fangs—
Do nothing to the works you spurn. In vain
You gnash and gnaw. For it will come to pass
That, unlike yours, those works will long remain:
Solid as diamond, tough as steel and brass.
V, 16
THE HARE AND THE PARTRIDGE
Never should we make fun of those
Less fortunate than we. Who knows
How long our own felicity
Will last? Indeed, wise Aesop shows a few
Examples in his fables—one or two;
And I as well, no less than he,
Do likewise in these verses. Mine, like his,
Prove how perverse such conduct is.
The hare and partridge had been living, very
Peaceably, side by side, when lo! a pack
Of hounds appears! The hare, fearing attack,
Flees to his fortress, there to bury
Himself in safety. Hounds are left, high, dry!
Even Briffaut the Glutton!… By and by,
Alas, the hare betrays himself, exuding
Scents that the heat sends rising from his lair.
Miraut the Sharp-eyed, snifflng, and concluding
That there below must lurk the hare,
Pokes at his hole. As for Rustaut the Wise,1
He disagrees: “There’s no more hare down there!”
So long do they philosophize,
That, in his burrow, trapped, the poor beast dies.
“Well now, where were those paws, those speedy feet
That flew so fast?” the partridge, quick to mock,
Guffaws. Secure is she, so firm and fleet
Of wing!… Ah, but she quite forgot the hawk,
He of the deadly claws! No more she’ll scoff,
As down he swoops, and sweeps her off!
V, 17
THE EAGLE AND THE OWL
Two enemies, the screech owl and the eagle,