The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine

by Jean La Fontaine

peacock’s feathers worn by the jay

  peacock who complained to Juno

  pearl and the cock

  peasant: from the Danube; and the snake, (VI, 13); stuck in the mud; ugliness of, (XI, 7)

  pedant and the schoolboy and the garden owner

  Pegasus and Bellerophon, (VIII, 10)

  Peleus and Thetis, (VI, 20)

  Periander of Corinth, (VIII, 2)

  personification of the stomach, (III, 2)

  Les Petites-Maisons, (V, 4)

  Phaedo (Plato)

  Phaedrus, (IV, 18); “Cervus et Boves,” (IV, 21)

  Philemon and Baucis

  Philip IV, king of Spain, (VIII, 4)

  Philip of Macedon, (VIII, 4), (VIII, 4)

  Philomela and Procne, (III, 15)

  philosopher, Scythian

  Philostratus

  Phoebus, (XII, 28); and Boreas, (VI, 3)

  Phrygia, (II, 20)

  Picrochole and Gargantua, (VII, 9)

  Pierrot, (IV, 2)

  pigeons

  Pilpay, (IX, 7), (XII, 12)

  Piramus and Thisbe

  Pittacos of Mitylene, (VIII, 2)

  plagiarism, (XII, 19)

  plague and the animals

  Plato; Phaedo

  Pliny the Elder: Historia naturalis, (IV, 7)

  ploughman and his sons

  Plutarch

  poison of passion, (XII, 1)

  political tales, (XII, 13)

  Pollux and Castor, (I, 14)

  Polyphemus, (II, 16), (XII, 4)

  Pomona and Flora, (VIII, 10)

  pope who used to be a cabbage planter, (VII, 11)

  Port-Royal Solitaires, (VII, 3)

  power of fables

  pregnant mountain

  prince and the merchant, the aristocrat, and the shepherd

  Prior, Matthew

  Procne and Philomela, (III, 15)

  Procris and Cephalus

  Prometheus, (VII, 7), (XII, 25)

  prose vs. rhyme and meter

  proverbs, (V, 3), (V, 21), (V, 20), (VIII, 9), (VIII, 14), (IX, 16), (IX, 18), (X, 8), (XII, 17)

  Provincia, (IV, 4)

  Psicarpax and Meridarpax, (IV, 6)

  Psyché (La Fontaine), (VI)

  pumpkin and the acorn

  puns, (X, 10), (XII, 4), (XII, 18)

  pup(s): and the ass; and the shepherd

  Pygmalion’s statue, (IX, 6)

  quarrel of dogs and cats and of cats and mice

  Queen Turtle and the two ducks

  Quimpercorentin, (VI, 18)

  rabbit(s): and the cat and the weasel, (VII, 15); vs. hare, (V, 19); shooting of, (X, 14)

  Raminagrobis, (XII, 5)

  rat(s): and the cat; city rat and the country rat; in council assembled; and the crow, the gazelle, and the tortoise; and the elephant; and the fox and the egg; and the frog; league of; and the lion; and the oyster; who withdrew from the world, (VII, 3)

  Rat le Bel, (IV, 6)

  Ratter

  Regnier, Henri, (I, 15–16)

  Les Regrets (Du Bellay), (IX, 1)

  reincarnation, (XII, 12)

  religious wars, (II, 5)

  renard. See fox

  Rhetoric (Aristotle), (XII, 13)

  Rhineland, conquering of, (XII, 1)

  rhinoceros and elephant’s fight

  rhyme and meter vs. prose

  rhyming liberties, (VI, 11), (XII, 9)

  rivulet and the torrent

  Rochechouart de Mortemart, François, marquise de Montespan de, (VII, 3)

  Roderigo and Signora Honesta

  Rodilard, (II, 2)

  Rousseau, Jean Jacques, (I, 3)

  Rumor

  Rustaut, (V, 17)

  Sage, (VII)

  Sages of Greece, (VIII, 2)

  Sainte Ligue, (II, 5)

  Salomon, Jean, (VIII, 12)

  Satan

  Satire (Horace), (VII, 4)

  satyr: definition of, (V, 7); and the passerby

  Scamander, (VII, 12)

  schoolboy and the pedant and the garden owner

  schoolmaster and the child

  screech owl: and the eagle; and the mice

  sculptor and Jupiter’s statue

  Scythian philosopher

  sea and the shepherd

  secrets of women, (VIII, 6)

  servants and the old woman

  Seven Sages of Greece, (VIII, 2)

  Sévigne, de, (IV, 1), (VII, 10)

  Shakespeare, William

  shall vs. will, (VII, 11)

  Shapiro, Norman, translations by

  she-bear and the lioness

  sheep: and the hog and the goat; of Panurge, (II, 10)

  she-goat: Amaltheia, (XII, 4); and kid and the wolf

  Shepard, Ernest H.

  shepherd: and his flock; and his king; and his shepherdess; and the lion; and the merchant, the aristocrat, and the prince; and the pups; and the sea; who plays the flute and the fishes

  shooting rabbits, (X, 14)

  shrew, (V, 18); and the man who married her

  sick lion and the fox

  sick stag

  Sidney, Sir Philip

  Signora Honesta and Roderigo

  Sillery, Gabrielle-Françoise de, (VIII, 13)

  Simonides saved by the gods, (I, 14)

  Sixtus V, pope, (X, 13)

  snake: and the file, (V, 16); head and tail of; and the man; and the peasant, (VI, 13)

  Sobieski, Jan, king of Poland, (IX, 20)

  Socrates, (XI, 7)

  Solitaires of Port-Royal, (VII, 3)

  Solon of Athens, (VIII, 2)

  song of Nicolas and Jeanne, (III, 1)

  son of Japhet, (XII, 25)

  son of Jupiter, and the gods who wished to instruct him

  sons: and the old man; of the ploughman

  Sotenville, de, (XII, 26)

  Soufi, shah of Persia, (VII, 9)

  sparrows and the cat

  Spenser, Edmund

  spider: and the gout; and the

  swallow

  spinster, (V, 6)

  stag: and the cows; and the horse who sought revenge; who sees himself in the water; who was sick

  sticks and the camel

  stomach: and the limbs; personification of, (III, 2)

  stork: and the fox; and the wolf

  Styx vs. Acheron, (VI, 19)

  Sultan Leopard and Grand Vizier Fox

  sun: and the frogs; and the north wind; and the wind

  Surat, India, (VII, 11)

  swallow: and the little birds; and the nightingale, (III, 15); and the spider

  swan and the cook

  Tabarin, (VIII, 12)

  tail and head of the snake

  tanner vs. currier, (VI, 11)

  taper candle

  Tartuffe (Molière), (IX, 14)

  Telamon and Cloris

  Tenniel, John

  Tereus, king of Thrace, (III, 15)

  Tethys, (V, 6)

  Thales of Miletos, (VIII, 2)

  Themis, (II, 3)

  Theon

  The Thesmophoriazusae (Aristophanes), (I, 21)

  Thetis and Peleus, (VI, 20)

  thief and the husband and his wife

  thieves and the ass

  Thirty Years’ War, (VIII, 4)

  Thisbe and Piramus

  three Fates, (V, 6)

  three young men and the old man

  thunderbolts and Jupiter

  Tircis, (X, 10); and Amaranth; and Corydon, (IV, 2)

  torrent and the rivulet

  tortoise: and the crow, the gazelle, and the rat; and the hare

  tragedy, muse of, (I, 14)

  traveler and Jupiter

  treasure and the two men

  treasure-hoarder and the ape

  Treaties of Nijmegen, (XI)

  tribute by the animals to Alexander

  Trojan Horse, (II, 1)

  true story, (III, 7), (VII, 10)

  trustee without faith

  tu
rkey cocks: in Europe, (XII, 18); and the fox; stupidity of, (XII, 18)

  Turkish justice, (I, 21)

  turtle and the two ducks

  two adventurers and the wondrous writ

  two asses and the lion and the ape

  two bulls and a frog

  two cocks

  two companions and the bear

  two dogs and the dead ass

  two ducks and the turtle

  two friends

  two goats

  two men and the treasure

  two mistresses and the middle-aged man

  two mules

  two parrots and the king and his son

  two pigeons

  two rats and the fox and the egg

  two servants and the old woman

  two sparrows and the cat

  Ukraine, (IX, 20)

  Ulysses: and Ajax, (XI, 3), (XII, 24); and Circe

  Valéry, Paul

  value of knowledge

  Vaugirard, (IV, 7)

  Vendôme, duc de, (XII, 25)

  Venus’s sacred dove, (VII, 7)

  Versailles labyrinth

  vine and the deer

  Virgil: Aeneid; Georgics, (XII, 20)

  voice of God, (VIII, 26)

  Vulteius Mena, (XII, 11)

  vultures and the pigeons

  wagoner stuck in the mud

  war(s): goddess of, (XII, 10); and the lion; between rats and weasels, (IV, 6); of religion, (II, 5)

  weasel: and the cat and the little rabbit, (VII, 15); in the larder

  widow; of Constantinople, (XII, 23)

  wife: and her husband and the thief; who drowned

  wild sow and the eagle and the cat

  will explained by Aesop

  will vs. shall, (VII, 11)

  wind and the sun

  wisdom sold by the madman

  wise man and the fool

  wishes

  woe, (XII, 25)

  wolf: and the ewes; and the fox; and the fox and the horse; and the horse; and the hound; and the hunter; and the lamb; and the lion and the fox; and the mother and the child; pleading against the fox before the ape; and the scrawny dog; and the she-goat and the kid; and the shepherds; and the stork; turned shepherd

  woman/women:, (VIII, 6), and secrets; metamorphosed from a cat; and the two servants

  wondrous writ and the two adventurers

  wooden idol

  woodsman: and death; and the

  forest; and mercury

  word gender, (XII, 1)

  wordplay, (X, 13)

  wretched man and death

  Xanthos, (VII, 12)

  young men and the old man

  young mouse and the old cat

  young turkey cocks and the fox

  young widow

  Zeuxis and Apelles, (XII, 25)

  JEAN DE LA FONTAINE (1621–95) was a famous and much-loved French poet whose animal fables, at once light-hearted and profound, reveal his knowledge of animals and, especially, of Man’s animal behavior. In a sequence of twelve books, he not only reinterpreted the classical fables of Aesop and others, but also composed many of his own. His sly foxes and scheming cats, his vain birds and greedy wolves, along with variously foibled human characters, were dressed in an elegant French verse that paints with characteristic charm and wit the fauna of the French society of his time and of humanity in general. His fables were so popular that there was constant demand for more, and La Fontaine obliged, dramatizing the beasts among us in a collection of some 250 in all. In 1683 he was elected to the Académie Française.

  NORMAN R. SHAPIRO, honored as one of the leading contemporary translators of French, holds the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University and, as Fulbright scholar, the Diplôme de Langue et Lettres Françaises from the Université d’Aix-Marseille. He is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan University, where he teaches courses in French theater, poetry, Black Francophone literature, and literary translation. His many published volumes span the centuries, medieval to modern, and the genres: poetry, novel, and theater. Among them are Four Farces by Georges Feydeau; The Comedy of Eros: Medieval French Guides to the Art of Love; Selected Poems from Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’; One Hundred and One Poems of Paul Verlaine, recipient of the MLA Scaglione Award; Kamouraska, by Quebec novelist Anne Hébert; Jean Raspail’s controversial novel The Camp of the Saints; Négritude: Black Poetry from Africa and the Caribbean; Creole Echoes: The Francophone Poetry of 19th-Century Louisiana; and two plays by New Orleans author Victor Séjour, the verse drama The Jew of Seville and The Fortune-teller. A specialist in French fable literature, he has published Fables from Old French: Aesop’s Beasts and Bumpkins and The Fabulists French: Verse Fables of Nine Centuries. His previous translations of La Fontaine are included in Fifty Fables of La Fontaine, Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine, and Once Again, La Fontaine, as well as in La Fontaine’s Bawdy: Of Libertines, Louts, and Lechers, a collection of the poet’s ribald verse. Shapiro is a member of the Academy of American Poets.

  DAVID SCHORR is a printmaker, painter, illustrator, and book designer. He is Professor of Art at Wesleyan University and is represented by Mary Ryan Gallery, New York City. His portraits of writers have appeared for years in The New Republic, and among the books he has illustrated are several of Norman Shapiro’s translations. His work can be seen at davidschorr.com.

  JOHN HOLLANDER is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University and Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut. His widely acclaimed body of work includes twenty-two books of poetry, several works of criticism, anthologies, books for children, and operatic and lyric works. His most recent volume of poetry is Picture Window (2003). He is also the editor of Poems Bewitched and Haunted (2005).

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