Nor shall I lie midst ceilings, walls, inlaid
With wealth. But will my slumber be less deep?
Less calm my rest? Less pleasure-blessed my sleep?
Nay. I will keep my vow, to nature made:
Carefree, my life; and, with my final breath,
Free of remorse as well when I face death.
XI, 4
THE LION, THE APE, AND THE TWO ASSES
Wishing to learn morality,
The better to be governing,
Lion bade Ape be brought to him, that he,
Master of Arts, give lessons. “O great king,
If every prince would truly reign
Wisely,” said Ape, “he must prefer
The well-being of his whole domain
To love of self—a quality, seigneur,
Commonly spoken of, and whence have sprung
All the worst faults one finds among
Our kind. And, if you seek to disinter
That vain emotion, sire, I fear you may
Find it is not the work of but a day.
To quell it is no easy task, and Your
Majesty most august must first abjure
All folly and all conduct base, unjust.”
“So be it,” said the king. “I trust
You can give me examples to ensure
That I do as I ought.” “All species,” said
The magister, “—and I put ours ahead
Of all the rest—every profession,
Deems and esteems itself the best expression
Of all wit and intelligence. Ill-bred
And vile are all the others! Indiscretion
Is all their sorry lot. And so it goes.
But love of self makes us praise all of those
Who share our ilk; for, in so doing, we
Raise ourselves to the very apogee.
Thus it will be construed from everything
I say, that here below ability
And seeming talent are mere posturing—
Grimace, cabal, the art of valuing
Oneself: a skill that those, in truth, possess
And use the more who know, forsooth, the less.
To prove my point… The other day I walked
Behind a pair of asses. As they talked
And talked, each one in turn outdoing
The other in the praises that came spewing
Forth from their lips for those of ass persuasion,
I followed and took the occasion
To listen, and I heard one say: ‘Monsieur,
How stupid is that “perfect” beast called Man!
How mindless of him to confer
Opprobrium upon our name! How can
He so besmirch, belittle us by saying
That some dull-witted twit “is but
An ass!” Oh, boundless insult! What?
How dare he call our laugh, our talk, “mere braying”!
No! Man, alas, it is who brays his sorry
Speeches, and we, masters of oratory!
And yet, he thinks he is our better! Bah!
Enough of Man! We understand
Each other, and can one much more demand?
As for your heavenly song, whose sweet éclat
Is fairer than the nightingale’s, I swear
You rival—and surpass!—the great Lambert!’1
The other ass concurs and heaps like praise
Upon his brother. Thus, in many ways,
Does the pair scratch each other where
They itch; but, not content to leave it there,
They take their message to the city gates,
Where each one lauds and celebrates
His fellows, and himself thereby. I see
Many today among the powers that be—
Of human, not of asses’ states—
Raised up to excellence by Destiny,
Who, if they dared, would trade their fate for one
More glorious still, second to none!
Pardon me if I say too much. No doubt
Your Majesty will not be one to flout
A confidence. Now have I duly done
As he requested; of the ample
Folly that love of self engenders, I
Think I have given him a good example.
As for the conduct base I spoke of, my
Sample must wait: that is a longer story.”
So spoke the Ape. We know not if, in fact,
He dared discuss that other category.
No fool, our magister had too much tact:
Too delicate it was, and why take chances?
Who can say how a lion might react
To talk like that, under the circumstances?
XI, 5
THE WOLF AND THE FOX
Why, when it comes to artifice and wile,
Does Aesop, that great fable bard,
My master, hold the fox in such regard?
Is not the wolf as full of guile
When faced with peril, or when he
Plies his attack against an enemy?
Fuller, in fact! I think I could
Argue the matter, in all likelihood,
If I so chose. But, for the moment, I
Shall tell a tale with which to justify
That high regard for Sire Renard… One night,
As, in the moonlight, he was passing by
A well, he looked and saw, down deep, the bright,
Round fullness of the moon’s reflection,
And thought the orb, upon inspection,
To be a cheese. With bucket after bucket
(For two there were) he tried to drain
Said well, hoping thereby, in time, to pluck it.
No luck… Famished, he takes the buckets twain,
Sits in the one suspended high, descends—
Soon disabused, dismayed!—and spends
Many an anxious moment, chastened now,
And wondering what to do! For, how
To rise, unless another hungry one,
Fooled too, decides to do what he has done!…
Two days go by, and no one comes… Two nights
As well, taking Time’s customary bites
Out of the silver-browed celestial sphere.
Renard grows desperate. Then, at last,
The wolf, a-thirst, comes ambling past.
“Compère,” cries fox, “see what I have down here:
This luscious cheese that Pan himself has pressed
From Io’s very milk!1 Why, were
Jupiter out of sorts, this dish would stir
His appetite, I vow! I’ve saved the rest
For you! Now, see that bucket? Come, get in it.
I put it there with you in mind.”
The wolf, too readily inclined
To be undone, complies. In but a minute
Down does he come; up goes the fox; no doubt
Leaving the wolf to ponder his way out.
But let’s not mock him: Man, no less,
Is easily led by the ear;
Only too willing, we, to acquiesce
To what we wish—or even dread!—to hear.
XI, 6
THE PEASANT FROM THE DANUBE
Judge not a man by his appearance; long
Have we been told that it is very wrong
To do so. I myself was able
To illustrate that message in the fable
About a baby mouse.1 What’s more,
I could cite Aesop’s face and Socrates’2
To prove my point. Now could I add to these
A certain peasant from the Danube’s shore,
One whom the good Marcus Aurelius3
Most faithfully describes to us.
We know the first two well enough; as for
The latter’s ugliness, here is,
In brief, a portrait of those looks of his.
A chin bristling with whiskers, thick and tough;
His body, hairy, most fit to depi
ct
A bear; but bear, in truth, unkempt, unlicked,
Uncouth; glance cast askance; brows ragged, rough,
Hiding his eyes; a twisted nose; his lips,
Too full and fat; a goatskin round his hips
Bound with reeds from the river. In this guise
He had been sent to Rome to represent
The Danube towns—for Rome, impenitent,
Would spread her greedy grasp and colonize
Hither and yon. And so this envoy, sent
Thereto, comes to the Senate. Once among
Its august members, thus does he address them:
“Romans, I pray the gods may guide my tongue,
Lest anything I say distress them.
Without their intercession there is naught
But evil and injustice in Man’s thought
And spirit; he who fails to worship them
Will violate their laws and, much remiss,
Will cause untold destruction and condemn
His people. Witness us, as proof of this,
Punished by Rome’s sheer avarice
And greed! It is by our own faults far more
Than by her exploits and her feats of war
That she has laid us low. O Romans! Fear,
Fear lest, one day, the gods spread here,
Among your walls, our tears, our misery,
Avenging us in manner just, severe,
By giving us the weapons, angrily
To make of you the slaves that now are we.
And why are we your slaves, pray tell?
Can one show me what virtues dwell
Within you, that have given you the right
To rule the universe, when others, quite
As worthy—hundreds!—rule it not? Why come
Disturb our peace with your imperium?
We tilled our happy fields; our hands
Were as much fit for art’s demands
As for the soil. Tell me, what have you taught
The German hosts? Skillful and brave are they.
Had they been avaricious, violence-fraught
Like you, they might have won the day,
But would have wielded power more humanly
Than now your praetors do, who master us
With might unthinkable and onerous,
Offending thus your altars’ majesty.
For know you that the gods are not
Unmindful. No. They watch, they see
The horrors that your evil has begot:
Your scorn for their divinity, your greed,
Your violence to their temples… Every deed
Wrought in your furious lust for power! For those
Who come from Rome naught will suffice:
Give what we give, do what we do, who knows
How dear will be the final price!
Return your praetors! No more will
We labor for them, no more till
Our lands for them! We quit our towns, we flee
Into the mountains, leave our wives,
With none but frightful bears for company.
So dire, so brutish are our lives
That no more young would we bring forth to be
Victims of Rome’s oppression. As for those
Already born, would that their days were done!
And, with their days, their baleful woes.
You see the crime your praetors, every one,
Make us commit, to wish our children dead!
Return them; vice and slothful life are all
They teach us. Soon the Germans too will fall
Under their sway, humbled, and led
Enslaved in rapine’s plunderous thrall.
Such is all that in Rome I see. Can she
No regal boon confer? In vain we seek
A refuge from her laws; their ministry
Is endless. And, no doubt, I speak
Too long as well, for your displeasure… I
Have said my say. Now surely must I die
To pay for my temerity.” So saying,
Prostrate the savage lay, finished his mission.
Each one, awed by his eloquent petition
And by his heartfelt words, stood paying
Him much respect. They made him a patrician.
(Such was the vengeance that his speech had earned!)
Indeed, the praetors were returned.
But others took their place. The Senate bade
His words be written, an example made
For orators who might pronounce them hence.
But Rome did not long brook such eloquence.
XI, 7
THE OLD MAN AND THE THREE YOUNG MEN
An old man (eighty years or more)
Was in his orchard, planting. Three young men—
Three village swains—were heard to say: “What for,
For heaven’s sake?… Him? Plant?… Now then,
Build, maybe… But to plant? At his age? Why?
He must be daft!” Then, to the elder: “Friend,
For all your toil, what fruits do you pretend
To come and gather by and by?
Enjoy the patriarch’s repose. Why fuss
And fret for times you’ll never know?
Dream of those wild oats sown long years ago,
Not of the future. That belongs to us.”
“To you?” the old man answered. “Oh?
Not so… The ashen-fingered Fates make sport
Of everyone—me, you—quite equally.
The time allotted all of us is short.
Can one of us be sure that he
Will be the last to view the firmament
In azured splendor?… No, each moment spent
Might be our last; and yours no less than mine.
What’s more, one day this tree I plant, this vine,
Will cool my progeny. Its shade will be
My gift to them. Would you deprive
The wise man of the joy, whilst yet alive,
To see the boon he grants posterity?
I take that pleasure now; tomorrow too,
Perhaps; and even longer. As for you,
Who knows how many a dawn I’ll live to see
Rising above your graves?…” His words came true:
Gone, soon, all three, as he had reckoned!
Off to America, the first one, drowned;
In Mars’ employ, felled on the battleground,
Seeking his country’s accolade, the second;
The third, climbing a tree to graft a limb,
Fallen and killed… The old man, so they tell,
Shed many a mournful tear for him,
And for the other two as well.
He lived to see their tombstones consecrated,
And graven with the story I’ve related.1
XI, 8
THE MICE AND THE SCREECH OWL
Never tell someone: “Friend, you’ll never
Believe the tale I’m going to tell!” Whatever
Wonders you would regale him with, the fact
Remains that someone else may not react
With as much awe as you. However,
Let me here make exception. For, what now
I am about to tell you will, I vow,
Seem like a miracle. What’s more, although
It might appear to be a fiction, it’s
The utter truth. Not long ago
A tree was being hacked to bits;
A pine, old and decayed, whose time-worn bark
Concealed a screech owl’s lodging: dismal, dark
Refuge of Atropos’s1 favorite creature.
Its hollow trunk, beside said somber screecher,
Played host to other beasts as well: a horde
Of mice especially—round, fat,
And… footless! Quite so! There they sat,
Amid the food the owl kept stored
To fatten up his captives! Yes,
It was the bird who, chewing of
f their paws,
Held them there, plump and powerless!
That owl could reason, to be sure. Because
The mice he’d caught before, and brought
To his abode, would all escape, he thought:
“Best I unpaw them, keep them here, and mete
Them out, at meals, each day, at will. To eat
Them all at once would be unhealthy, and
Impossible to boot!” One must construe
The faculty of thinking here: he planned,
Clearly, no less than we might do,
Amassing grains and such to feed his prey.
So, let Cartesians have their say;
A mere machine, this creature?2 No. If you
Can see no reason here, I know not what
To call it then! I pray you look
At all the subtle steps it took:
“These folk flee when I catch them; but,
Though I would eat them, one and all, it’s not
Easy to gulp so many on the spot!
Besides, it’s best to keep a few for later;
Which means I’ll have to feed them, and take care
Lest they go trotting off.” So, then and there,
Concludes our ratiocinator:
“How? Well, by biting off their paws!” No doubt,
Worthy of Aristotle, this: thought out
With art surpassing Man the Meditator!
This is not a fiction;3 the event, though wondrous and almost unbelievable, did, indeed, take place. Perhaps I have pushed this owl’s foresight a bit too far; I do not claim animals to have as well-developed a capacity to reason as did this one; but such exaggerations are permitted in poetry, especially in the style of which I make use in mine.
XI, 9
EPILOGUE
Thus has my Muse, by pristine waters, sung
Those creatures who, beneath the firmament,
Would translate to the gods’ own tongue
Their myriad voices, nature-lent.
And I, mere go-between among
So many a being diverse, would make each one
An actor in my tales; for none
Is there in all the Universe but that
Has language of its own. And far
More eloquent in their own habitat
Are they, perforce, than when they are
Characters in my work. If I have erred
By painting them less faithfully in word
And deed; if I present a model flawed,
At least have I opened a path untrod
For others to perfect. O you
Favorites of the Sisters Nine, I bid
You lay your own finishing touch thereto,
To preach the lessons that, myself, I did
Not teach. Wrap them in fictions, as did I.
Nor will you lack for subjects, by the bye:
The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine Page 29