Book 10

1. The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg

You, Iris, it were an easy task to praise;
But you refuse the incense of my lays.
In this you are unlike all other mortals,
Who welcome all the praise that seeks their portals;
Not one who is not soothed by sound so sweet.
For me to blame this humour were not meet,
By gods and mortals shared in common,
And, in the main, by lovely woman.
That drink, so vaunted by the rhyming trade,
That cheers the god who deals the thunder-blow,
And often intoxicates the gods below,—
The nectar, Iris, is of praises made.
You taste it not. But, in its place,
Wit, science, even trifles grace
Your bill of fare; but, for that matter,
The world will not believe the latter.
Well, leave the world in unbelief.
Still science, trifles, fancies light as air,
I hold, should mingle in a bill of fare,
Each giving each its due relief;
As, where the gifts of Flora fall,
On different flowers we see
Alight the busy bee,
Educing sweet from all.
Thus much premised, don't think it strange,
Or anything beyond my muse's range,
If even my fables should infold,
Among their nameless trumpery,
The traits of a philosophy
Far-famed as subtle, charming, bold.
They call it new—the men of wit;
Perhaps you have not heard of it?[2]
My verse will tell you what it means:
They say that beasts are mere machines;[3]
That, in their doings, everything
Is done by virtue of a spring—
No sense, no soul, nor notion;
But matter merely,—set in motion,
Just such the watch in kind,
Which jogs on, to purpose blind.
Now ope, and read within its breast—
The place of soul is by its wheels possessed.
One moves a second, that a third,
Till finally its sound is heard.
And now the beast, our sages say,
Is moved precisely in this way
An object strikes it in a certain place:
The spot thus struck, without a moment's space,
To neighbouring parts the news conveys;
Thus sense receives it through the chain,
And takes impression.—How? Explain.—
Not I. They say, by sheer necessity,
From will as well as passion free,
The animal is found the thrall
Of movements which the vulgar call
Joy, sadness, pleasure, pain, and love—
The cause extrinsic and above.—
Believe it not. What's this I hold?
Why, sooth, it is a watch of gold—
Its life, the mere unbending of a spring.
And we?—are quite a different thing.
Hear how Descartes—Descartes, whom all applaud,
Whom pagans would have made a god,
Who holds, in fact, the middle place
"Between ours and the celestial race,
About as does the plodding ass
From man to oyster as you pass—
Hear how this author states the case
"Of all the tribes to being brought
By our Creator out of nothing,
I only have the gift of thought."
Now, Iris, you will recollect
We were by older science taught
That when brutes think, they don't reflect.
Descartes proceeds beyond the wall,
And says they do not think at all.
This you believe with ease;
And so could I, if I should please.
Still, in the forest, when, from morn
Till midday, sounds of dog and horn
Have terrified the stag forlorn;
When he has doubled forth and back,
And laboured to confound his track,
Till tired and spent with efforts vain—
An ancient stag, of antlers ten;—
He puts a younger in his place,
All fresh, to weary out the chase.—
What thoughts for one that merely grazes!
The doublings, turnings, windings, mazes,
The substituting fresher bait,
Were worthy of a man of state—
And worthy of a better fate!
To yield to rascal dogs his breath
Is all the honour of his death.
And when the partridge danger spies,
Before her brood have strength to rise,
She wisely counterfeits a wound,
And drags her wing on the ground—
Thus, from her home, beside some ancient log,
Safe drawing off the sportsman and his dog;
And while the latter seems to seize her,
The victim of an easy chase—
"Your teeth are not for such as me, sir,"
She cries,
And flies,
And laughs the former in his face.

Far north, it's said, the people live
In customs nearly primitive;
That is to say, are bound
In ignorance profound:
I mean the people human;
For animals are dwelling there
With skill such buildings to prepare
As could on earth but few men.
Firm laid across the torrent's course,
Their work withstands its mighty force,
So damming it from shore to shore,
That, gliding smoothly over,
In even sheets the waters pour.
Their work, as it proceeds, they grade and bevel,
Or bring it up to plumb or level;
First lay their logs, and then with mortar smear,
As if directed by an engineer.
Each labours for the public good;
The old command, the youthful brood
Cut down, and shape, and place the wood.
Compared with theirs, even Plato's model state
Were but the work of some apprentice pate.
Such are the beaver folks, who know
Enough to house themselves from snow,
And bridge, though they can swim, the pools.
Meanwhile, our kinsmen are such fools,
In spite of their example,
They dwell in huts less ample,
And cross the streams by swimming,
However cold and brimming!
Now that the skilful beaver,
Is but a body void of spirit,
From whomsoever I might hear it,
I would believe it never.

But I go farther in the case.
Pray listen while I tell
A thing which lately fell
From one of truly royal race.[4]
A prince beloved by Victory,
The North's defender here shall be
My voucher and your guaranty;
Whose mighty name alone
Commands the sultan's throne,
The king whom Poland calls her own.
This king declares (kings cannot lie, we hear)
That, on his own frontier,
Some animals there are;
Engaged in ceaseless war;
From age to age the quarrel runs,
Transmitted down from sires to sons;
(These beasts, he says, are to the fox akin;)
And with more skill no war has been,
By highest military powers,
Conducted in this age of ours
Guards, piquets, scouts, and spies,
And ambuscade that hidden lies,
The foe to capture by surprise,
And many a shrewd appliance
Of that pernicious, cursed science,
The daughter of the Stygian wave,
And mother harsh of heroes brave,
Those military creatures have.
To chant their feats a bard we lack,
Till Death shall give us Homer back.
And should he such a wonder do,
And, while his hand was in, release
Old Epicurus' rival[5] too,
What would the latter say to facts like these?
Why, as I have said, that nature does such things
In animals by means of springs;
That Memory is but corporeal;
And that to do the things arrayed
So proudly in my story all,
The animal but needs her aid.
At each return, the object, so to speak,
Proceeds directly to her store
With keenest optics—there to seek
The image it had traced before,
Which found, proceeds forthwith to act
Just as at first it did, in fact,
By neither thought nor reason backed.
Not so with us, beasts perpendicular;
With us kind Heaven is more particular.
Self-ruled by independent mind,
We're not the sport of objects blind,
Nor even to instinct are consigned.
I walk; I talk; I feel the sway
Of power within
This nice machine,
It cannot but obey.
This power, although with matter linked,
Is comprehended as distinct.
Indeed It's comprehended better
In truth and essence than is matter.
Over all our arts it is supreme.
But how does matter understand
Or hear its sovereign lord's command?
Here does a difficulty seem:
I see the tool obey the hand;
But then the hand who guides it;
Who guides the stars in order fit?
Perhaps each mighty world,
Since from its Maker hurled,
Some angel may have kept in custody.
However that may be,
A spirit dwells in such as we;
It moves our limbs; we feel its mandates now;
We see and know it rules, but know not how:
Nor shall we know, indeed,
Till in the breast of God we read.
And, speaking in all verity,
Descartes is just as ignorant as we;
In things beyond a mortal's ken,
He knows no more than other men.
But, Iris, I confess to this,
That in the beasts of which I speak
Such spirit it were vain to seek,
For man its only temple is.
Yet beasts must have a place
Beneath our godlike race,
Which no mere plant requires
Although the plant respires.

But what shall one reply
To what I next shall certify?
Two rats in foraging fell on an egg,—
For gentry such as they
A genteel dinner every way;
They needed not to find an ox's leg.
Brimful of joy and appetite,
They were about to sack the box,
So tight without the aid of locks,
When suddenly there came in sight
A personage—Sir Pullet Fox.
Sure, luck was never more untoward
Since Fortune was a vixen froward!
How should they save their egg—and bacon?
Their plunder couldn't then be bagged;
Should it in forward paws be taken,
Or rolled along, or dragged?
Each method seemed impossible,
And each was then of danger full.
Necessity, ingenious mother,
Brought forth what helped them from their pother.
As still there was a chance to save their prey,—
The spunger yet some hundred yards away,—
One seized the egg, and turned on his back,
And then, in spite of many a thump and thwack,
That would have torn, perhaps, a coat of mail,
The other dragged him by the tail.
Who dares the inference to blink,
That beasts possess wherewith to think?

Were I commissioned to bestow
This power on creatures here below,
The beasts should have as much of mind
As infants of the human kind.
Think not the latter, from their birth?
It hence appears there are on earth
That have the simple power of thought
Where reason has no knowledge wrought.
And on this wise an equal power I had yield
To all the various tenants of the field;
Not reason such as in ourselves we find,
But something more than any mainspring blind.
A speck of matter I would subtilise
Almost beyond the reach of mental eyes;—
An atom's essence, one might say,
An extract of a solar ray,
More quick and pungent than a flame of fire,—
For if of flame the wood is sire,
Cannot the flame, itself refined,
Give some idea of the mind?
Comes not the purest gold
From lead, as we are told?
To feel and choose, my work should soar—
Unthinking judgment—nothing more.
No monkey of my manufacture
Should argue from his sense or fact, sure:
But my allotment to mankind
Should be of very different mind.
We men should share in double measure,
Or rather have a twofold treasure;
The one the soul, the same in all
That bear the name of animal—
The sages, dunces, great and small,
That tenant this our teeming ball;—
The other still another soul,
Which should to mortals here belong
In common with the angel throng;
Which, made an independent whole,
Could pierce the skies to worlds of light,
Within a point have room to be,—
Its life a morn, sans noon or night.
Exempt from all destructive change—
A thing as real as it is strange.
In infancy this child of day
Should glimmer but a feeble ray.
Its earthly organs stronger grown,
The beam of reason, brightly thrown,
Should pierce the darkness, thick and gross,
That holds the other prisoned close.

[1] Madame de la Sabliere.—See the following note.

[2] Perhaps you have not heard of it?—Madame de la Sabliere was one of the most learned women of the age in which she lived, and knew more of the philosophy of Descartes, in which she was a believer, than our poet; but she dreaded the reputation of a "blue-stocking," and for this reason La Fontaine addresses her as if she might be ignorant of the Cartesian theory.—Translator. Moliere's Femme Savante, the object of which was to ridicule the French "blue-stockings," had been only recently produced on the stage (1672), hence Madame de la Sabliere's fears, and La Fontaine's delicate forbearance.

[3] Beasts are mere machines.—At this time the discussion as to the mind in animals was very rife in the salons of Paris. Madame de Sevigne often alludes to it in her Letters. La Fontaine further contends against the "mere machine" theory in Fable 9, Book 11.

[4] One of truly royal race.—John Sobieski.—Translator. At the time this was written, Sobieski's great victory over the Turks at Choczim (1673) was resounding throughout Europe, and had made him King of Poland (1674). Sobieski had previously been a frequent visitor at the house of Madame de la Sabliere, where La Fontaine had often met him. Sobieski is again alluded to as a guest of Madame de la Sabliere, in Fable XV., Book 12.

[5] Old Epicurus' rival.—Descartes.—Translator.

2. The Man and the Adder [6]

So ever is it with the great,
With whom the whim does always run,
That Heaven all creatures does create
For their behoof beneath the sun—
Count they four feet, or two, or none.
If one should dare the fact dispute,
He's straight set down a stupid brute.
Now, grant it so,—such lords among,
What should be done, or said, or sung?
At distance speak, or hold your tongue.

[6] Bidpai.

3. The Tortoise and the Two Ducks [7]

Imprudence, vanity, and babble,
And idle curiosity,
An ever-undivided rabble,
Have all the same paternity.

[7] Bidpai.

4. The Fishes and the Cormorant [8]

[8] Bidpai.

5. The Burier And His Comrade [9]

From this it may be stated,
That knaves with ease are cheated.

[9] Abstemius.

6. The Wolf and the Shepherds [10]

"I'm hated," said he,
"As joint enemy,
By hunters, dogs, and clowns.
They swear I shall die,
And their hue and cry
The very thunder drowns.

"My brethren have fled,
With price on the head,
From England's merry land.
King Edgar came out,
And put them to rout,[11]
With many a deadly band.

"And there's not a squire
But blows up the fire
By hostile proclamation;
Nor a human brat,
Dares cry, but that
Its mother mocks my nation.

"And all for what?
For a sheep with the rot,
Or scabby, mangy ass,
Or some snarling cur,
With less meat than fur,
On which I have broken fast!

"Well, henceforth I'll strive
That nothing alive
Shall die to quench my thirst;
No lambkin shall fall,
Nor puppy, at all,
To glut my maw accurst.
With grass I'll appease,
Or browse on the trees,
Or die of famine first.

"What of carcass warm?
Is it worth the storm
Of universal hate?"
As he spoke these words,
The lords of the herds,
All seated at their bait,
He saw; and observed
The meat which was served
Was nothing but roasted lamb!
"O! O!" said the beast,
"Repent of my feast—
All butcher as I am—
On these vermin mean,
Whose guardians even
Eat at a rate quadruple!—
Themselves and their dogs,
As greedy as hogs,
And I, a wolf, to scruple!"

"Look out for your wool
I'll not be a fool,
The very pet I'll eat;
The lamb the best-looking,
Without any cooking,
I'll strangle from the teat;
And swallow the dam,
As well as the lamb,
And stop her foolish bleat.
Old Hornie, too,—rot him,—
The sire that begot him
Shall be among my meat!"

Well-reasoning beast!
Were we sent to feast
On creatures wild and tame?
And shall we reduce
The beasts to the use
Of vegetable game?

Shall animals not
Have flesh-hook or pot,
As in the age of gold?
And we claim the right,
In the pride of our might,
Themselves to have and hold?
O shepherds, that keep
Your folds full of sheep,
The wolf was only wrong,
Because, so to speak,
His jaws were too weak
To break your palings strong.

[10] Founded on one of Philibert Hegemon's Fables.

[11] King Edgar put them to rout.—The English king Edgar (reigned 959-75) took great pains in hunting and pursuing wolves; "and," says Hume, "when he found that all that escaped him had taken shelter in the mountains and forests of Wales, he changed the tribute of money imposed on the Welsh princes by Athelstan, his predecessor, into an annual tribute of three hundred heads of wolves; which produced such diligence in hunting them, that the animal has been no more seen in this island."—Hume's England, vol. 1, p. 99, Bell's edit., 1854.

7. The Spider and the Swallow [12]

Two tables has our Maker set
For all that in this world are met.
To seats around the first
The skilful, vigilant, and strong are beckoned:
Their hunger and their thirst
The rest must quell with leavings at the second.

[12] Abstemius.

[13] Pallas.—An allusion to the birth of Pallas, or Minerva—grown and armed—from the brain of Jove.

[14] Mortal foe.—Arachne (whence the spider (aranea) has its name) was a woman of Colopho who challenged Pallas to a trial of skill in needlework, and, being defeated, hanged herself. She was changed into a spider: vide Ovid, Metam., Book 6, etc.

[15] Progne.—The sister of Philomela, turned into a swallow, as mentioned in note to Fable XV., Book 3.

8. The Partridge and the Cocks [16]

[16] Aesop.

9. The Dog Whose Ears Were Cropped

The less of hold for teeth of foe,
The better will the battle go.
When, in a certain place, one fears
The chance of being hurt or beat,
He fortifies it from defeat.
Besides the shortness of his ears,
See Growler armed against his likes
With gorget full of ugly spikes.
A wolf would find it quite a puzzle
To get a hold about his muzzle.

10. The Shepherd and the King [17]

A king observed a flock, wide spread
On the plains, most admirably fed,
Overpaying largely, as returned the years,
Their shepherd's care, by harvests for his shears.
Such pleasure in this man the monarch took,—
"You meritest," said he, "to wield a crook
Over higher flock than this; and my esteem
Over men now makes you judge supreme."
Behold our shepherd, scales in hand,
Although a hermit and a wolf or two,
Besides his flock and dogs, were all he knew!
Well stocked with sense, all else on demand
Would come of course, and did, we understand.
His neighbour hermit came to him to say,
"Am I awake? Is this no dream, I pray?
You favourite! you great! Beware of kings,
Their favours are but slippery things,
Dear-bought; to mount the heights to which they call
Is but to court a more illustrious fall.
You little know to what this lure beguiles.
My friend, I say, Beware!" The other smiles.
The hermit adds, "See how
The court has marred your wisdom even now!
That purblind traveller I seem to see,
Who, having lost his whip, by strange mistake,
Took for a better one a snake;
But, while he thanked his stars, brimful of glee,
Outcried a passenger, "God shield your breast!
Why, man, for life, throw down that treacherous pest,
That snake!"—"It is my whip."—"A snake, I say:
What selfish end could prompt my warning, pray?
Think you to keep your prize?"—"And why not?
My whip was worn; I have found another new:
This counsel grave from envy springs in you."—
The stubborn wight would not believe a jot,
Till warm and lithe the serpent grew,
And, striking with his venom, slew
The man almost on the spot.
And as to you, I dare predict
That something worse will soon afflict."
"Indeed? What worse than death, prophetic hermit?"
"Perhaps, the compound heartache I may term it."
And never was there truer prophecy.
Full many a courtier pest, by many a lie
Contrived, and many a cruel slander,
To make the king suspect the judge awry
In both ability and candour.
Cabals were raised, and dark conspiracies,
Of men that felt aggrieved by his decrees.
"With wealth of ours he has a palace built,"
Said they. The king, astonished at his guilt,
His ill-got riches asked to see.
He found but mediocrity,
Bespeaking strictest honesty.
So much for his magnificence.
Anon, his plunder was a hoard immense
Of precious stones that filled an iron box
All fast secured by half a score of locks.
Himself the coffer oped, and sad surprise
Befell those manufacturers of lies.
The opened lid disclosed no other matters
Than, first, a shepherd's suit in tatters,
And then a cap and jacket, pipe and crook,
And scrip, mayhap with pebbles from the brook.
"O treasure sweet," said he, "that never drew
The viper brood of envy's lies on you!
I take you back, and leave this palace splendid,
As some roused sleeper does a dream that's ended.
Forgive me, sire, this exclamation.
In mounting up, my fall I had foreseen,
Yet loved the height too well; for who has been,
Of mortal race, devoid of all ambition?"

[17] Bidpai (The Hermit). Also in Lokman.

11. The Fishes and the Shepherd Who Played The Flute [18]

O you shepherds, whose sheep men are,
To trust in reason never dare.
The arts of eloquence sublime
Are not within your calling;
Your fish were caught, from oldest time,
By dint of nets and hauling.

[18] Aesop.

12. The Two Parrots, the King, And His Son [19]

"Let both, then, cease to mourn;
And you, back to your cage return."
"Sire king," replied the bird,
"Think you that, after such a deed,
I ought to trust your word?
You speak of Fate; by such a heathen creed
Hope you that I shall be enticed to bleed?
But whether Fate or Providence divine
Gives law to things below,
It's writ on high, that on this waving pine,
Or where wild forests grow,
My days I finish, safely, far
From that which ought your love to mar,
And turn it all to hate.
Revenge, I know, "s a kingly morsel,
And ever has been part and parcel
Of this your godlike state.
You would forget the cause of grief;
Suppose I grant you my belief,—
It's better still to make it true,
By keeping out of sight of you.
Sire king, my friend, no longer wait
For friendship to be healed;....
But absence is the cure of hate,
As It's from love the shield."

[19] Bidpai. In Knatchbull's English edition the fable is titled "The King and the Bird, or the emblem of revengeful persons who are unworthy of trust." It is also in the Lokman collection.

[20] The talking bird, etc.—"Stygia natabat jam frigida cymba."—VIRG.—Translator.

13. The Lioness and the Bear

Such language, since the mortal fall,
Has fallen from the lips of all.
You human wretches, give your heed;
For your complaints there's little need.
Let him who thinks his own the hardest case,
Some widowed, childless Hecuba behold,
Herself to toil and shame of slavery sold,
And he will own the wealth of heavenly grace.

14. The Two Adventurers and the Talisman [21]

Blind Fortune follows daring blind.
Often executes the wisest man,
Before yet the wisdom of his mind
Is tasked his means or end to scan.

[21] Bidpai; also in Lokman.

[22] Sixtus.—Pope Sixtus 5, who simulated decrepitude to get elected to the Papal chair, and when elected threw off all disguise and ruled despotically.

15. The Rabbits [23]

While watching man in all his phases,
And seeing that, in many cases,
He acts just like the brute creation,—
I have thought the lord of all these races
Of no less failings showed the traces
Than do his lieges in relation;
And that, in making it, Dame Nature
Has put a spice in every creature
From off the self-same spirit-stuff—
Not from the immaterial,
But what we call ethereal,
Refined from matter rough.
An illustration please to hear.
Just on the still frontier
Of either day or night,—
Or when the lord of light
Reclines his radiant head
On his watery bed,
Or when he dons the gear,
To drive a new career,—
While yet with doubtful sway
The hour is ruled "between night and day,—
Some border forest-tree I climb;
And, acting Jove, from height sublime
My fatal bolt at will directing,
I kill some rabbit unsuspecting.
The rest that frolicked on the heath,
Or browsed the thyme with dainty teeth,
With open eye and watchful ear,
Behold, all scampering from beneath,
Instinct with mortal fear.
All, frightened simply by the sound,
Hie to their city underground.
But soon the danger is forgot,
And just as soon the fear lives not:
The rabbits, gayer than before,
I see beneath my hand once more!

Are not mankind well pictured here?
By storms asunder driven,
They scarcely reach their haven,
And cast their anchor, before
They tempt the same dread shocks
Of tempests, waves, and rocks.
True rabbits, back they frisk
To meet the self-same risk!

I add another common case.
When dogs pass through a place
Beyond their customary bounds,
And meet with others, curs or hounds,
Imagine what a holiday!
The native dogs, whose interests centre
In one great organ, termed the venter,
The strangers rush at, bite, and bay;
With cynic pertness tease and worry,
And chase them off their territory.
So, too, do men. Wealth, grandeur, glory,
To men of office or profession,
Of every sort, in every nation,
As tempting are, and sweet,
As is to dogs the refuse meat.
With us, it is a general fact,
One sees the latest-come attacked,
And plundered to the skin.
Coquettes and authors we may view,
As samples of the sin;
For woe to belle or writer new!
The fewer eaters round the cake,
The fewer players for the stake,
The surer each one's self to take.
A hundred facts my truth might test;
But shortest works are always best.
In this I but pursue the chart
Laid down by masters of the art;
And, on the best of themes, I hold,
The truth should never all be told.
Hence, here my sermon ought to close.
O you, to whom my fable owes
Whatever it has of solid worth,—
Who, great by modesty as well as birth,
Have ever counted praise a pain,—
Whose leave I could so ill obtain
That here your name, receiving homage,
Should save from every sort of damage
My slender works—which name, well known
To nations, and to ancient Time,
All France delights to own;
Herself more rich in names sublime
Than any other earthly clime;—
Permit me here the world to teach
That you have given my simple rhyme
The text from which it dares to preach.

[23] This fable in the original editions has no other title save—"An Address," etc. Later editors titled it "Les Lapins." [24] Rochefoucauld.—See Fable 11, Book 1, also dedicated to the duke, and the note thereto.

16. The Merchant, the Noble, the Shepherd, and the King's Son [25]

We learn from this adventure's course,
There needs but little skill to get a living.
Thanks to the gifts of Nature's giving,
Our hands are much the readiest resource.

[25] Bidpai, and Lokman.

[26] Belisarius.—Belisarius was a great general, who, having commanded the armies of the emperor, and lost the favour of his master, fell to such a point of destitution that he asked alms on the highways.—La Fontaine. The touching story of the fall of Belisarius, of which painters and poets have made so much, is entirely false, as may be seen by consulting Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 43.—Translator.