To Monseigneur The Duke De Bourgogne [1]
Dear prince, a special favourite of the skies,
Pray let my incense from your altars rise.
With these her gifts, if rather late my muse,
My age and labours must her fault excuse.
My spirit wanes, while yours beams on the sight
At every moment with augmented light:
It does not go – it runs, – it seems to fly;
And he from whom it draws its traits so high,
In war a hero,[2] burns to do the same.
No lack of his that, with victorious force,
His giant strides mark not his glory's course:
Some god retains: our sovereign I might name;
Himself no less than conqueror divine,
Whom one short month made master of the Rhine.
It needed then on the foe to dash;
Perhaps, today, such generalship were rash.
But hush, – they say the Loves and Smiles
Abhor a speech spun out in miles;
And of such deities your court
Is constantly composed, in short.
Not but that other gods, as meet,
There hold the highest seat:
For, free and lawless as the rest may seem,
Good Sense and Reason bear a sway supreme.
Consult these last about the case
Of certain men of Grecian race,
Who, most unwise and indiscreet,
Imbibed such draughts of poison sweet,
As changed their form, and brutified.
Ten years the heroes at Ulysses' side
Had been the sport of wind and tide.
At last those powers of water
The sea-worn wanderers bore
To that enchanted shore
Where Circe reigned, Apollo's daughter.
She pressed on their thirsty lips
Delicious drink, but full of bane:
Their reason, at the first light sips,
Laid down the sceptre of its reign.
Then took their forms and features
The lineaments of various creatures.
To bears and lions some did pass,
Or elephants of ponderous mass;
While not a few, I believe,
In smaller forms were seen, –
In such, for instance, as the mole.
Of all, the sage Ulysses sole
Had wit to shun that treacherous bowl.
With wisdom and heroic mien,
And fine address, he caused the queen
To swallow, on her wizard throne,
A poison somewhat like her own.
A goddess, she to speak her wishes dared,
And hence, at once, her love declared.
Ulysses, truly too judicious
To lose a moment so propitious,
Besought that Circe would restore
His Greeks the shapes that first they wore.
Replied the nymph, "But will they take them back?
Go make the proffer to the motley pack."
Ulysses ran, both glad and sure:
"That poisonous cup," cried he "has yet its cure;
And here I bring what ends your shame and pain.
Will you, dear friends, be men again?
Pray speak, for speech is now restored."
"No," said the lion, – and he roared, –
"My head is not so void of brains!
Renounce shall I my royal gains?
I have claws and teeth to tear my foes to bits,
And, more than that, I am king.
Am I such gifts away to fling,
To be but one of Ithaca's mere cits?
In rank and file perhaps I might bear arms.
In such a change I see no charms." –
Ulysses passes to the bear:
"How changed, my friend, from what you were!
How sightly once! how ugly now!"
"Humph! truly how?"
Growled Bruin in his way –
"How else than as a bear should be, I pray?
Who taught your stilted highness to prefer
One form to every other, sir?
Does yours possess peculiar powers
The merits to decide, of ours?
With all respect, I shall appeal my case
To some sweet beauty of the bearish race.
Please pass it by, if you dislike my face.
I live content, and free from care;
And, well remembering what we were,
I say it, plain and flat,
I'll change to no such state as that."
Next to the wolf the princely Greek
With flattering hope began to speak:
"Comrade, I blush, I must confess,
To hear a gentle shepherdess
Complaining to the echoing rocks
Of that outrageous appetite
Which drives you, night by night,
To prey on her flocks.
You had been proud to guard her fold
In your more honest life of old.
Pray quit this wolfship, now you can,
And leave the woods an honest man."
"But is there one?" the wolf replied:
"Such man, I own, I never spied.
You treat me as a ravenous beast,
But what are you? To say the least,
You would yourself have eat the sheep,
Which, eat by me, the village weep.
Now, truly, on your faith confess,
Should I, as man, love flesh the less?
Why, man, not seldom, kills his very brother;
What, then, are you but wolves to one another?
Now, everything with care to scan,
And rogue with rogue to rate,
I had better be a wolf than man,
And need not change my state."
Thus all did wise Ulysses try,
And got from all the same reply,
As well from great as small.
Wild liberty was dear to all;
To follow lawless appetite
They counted their supreme delight.
All banished from their thought and care
The glorious praise of actions fair.
Where passion led, they thought their course was free;
Self-bound, their chains they could not see.
Prince, I had wished for you a theme to choose,
Where I might mingle pleasantry with use;
And I should meet with your approving voice,
No doubt, if I could make such choice.
At last, Ulysses' crew
Were offered to my view.
And there are like them not a few,
Who may for penalty await
Your censure and your hate.[3]
[1] Duke de Bourgogne. – Louis Duke de Bourgogne (Burgundy),
grandson of Louis XIV. He was the son of Louis de Bourbon, the Dauphin, to whom La Fontaine
had dedicated the first collection of his Fables. (See note, Dedication of Book 1. ) He was
born in 1682, and at the time of this dedication was about twelve years of age, and the
pupil of Fenelon.
[2] In war a hero. – Louis, the Dauphin, father of the prince addressed. The
Dauphin was then in command of the army in Germany.
[3] This fable was first printed in the Mercure Galant, December, 1690, where it
had a few additional lines, which the author cut out on republication in his XIIth
Book.
To Monseigneur The Duke De Bourgogne.
Contemporary with a sparrow tame
There lived a cat; from tenderest age,
Of both, the basket and the cage
Had household gods the same.
The bird's sharp beak full often provoked the cat,
Who played in turn, but with a gentle pat,
His wee friend sparing with a merry laugh,
Not punishing his faults by half.
In short, he scrupled much the harm,
Should he with points his ferule arm.
The sparrow, less discreet than he,
With dagger beak made very free.
Sir Cat, a person wise and staid,
Excused the warmth with which he played:
For It's full half of friendship's art
To take no joke in serious part.
Familiar since they saw the light,
Mere habit kept their friendship good;
Fair play had never turned to fight,
Till, of their neighbourhood,
Another sparrow came to greet
Old Ratto grave and saucy Pete.
Between the birds a quarrel rose,
And Ratto took his side.
"A pretty stranger, with such blows
To beat our friend!" he cried.
"A neighbour's sparrow eating ours!
Not so, by all the feline powers."
And quick the stranger he devours.
"Now, truly," says Sir Cat,
I know how sparrows taste by that.
Exquisite, tender, delicate!"
This thought soon sealed the other's fate. –
But hence what moral can I bring?
For, lacking that important thing,
A fable lacks its finishing:
I seem to see of one some trace,
But still its shadow mocks my chase.
Yours, prince, it will not thus abuse:
For you such sports, and not my muse.
In wit, she and her sisters eight
Would fail to match you with a mate.
[4] The story of this fable seems to come from a fable by Furetiere, titled
"The Dog and the Cat." Antony Furetiere was more famous as a lexicographer, and through his
angry contention with the French Academy on the subject of his Dictionary, than as a poet.
He lived between 1620 and 1688.
A man amassed. The thing, we know,
Does often to a frenzy grow.
No thought had he but of his minted gold –
Stuff void of worth when unemployed, I hold.
Now, that this treasure might the safer be,
Our miser's dwelling had the sea
As guard on every side from every thief.
With pleasure, very small in my belief,
But very great in his, he there
On his hoard bestowed his care.
No respite came of everlasting
Recounting, calculating, casting;
For some mistake would always come
To mar and spoil the total sum.
A monkey there, of goodly size, –
And than his lord, I think, more wise, –
Some doubloons from the window threw,
And rendered thus the count untrue.
The padlocked room permitted
Its owner, when he quitted,
To leave his money on the table.
One day, bethought this monkey wise
To make the whole a sacrifice
To Neptune on his throne unstable.
I could not well award the prize
Between the monkey's and the miser's pleasure
Derived from that devoted treasure.
With some, Don Bertrand, would the honour gain,
For reasons it were tedious to explain.
One day, then, left alone,
That animal, to mischief prone,
Coin after coin detached,
A gold jacobus snatched,
Or Portuguese doubloon,
Or silver ducatoon,
Or noble, of the English rose,
And flung with all his might
Those discs, which often excite
The strongest wishes mortal ever knows.
Had he not heard, at last,
The turning of his master's key,
The money all had passed
The same short road to sea;
And not a single coin but had been pitched
Into the gulf by many a wreck enriched.
Now, God preserve full many a financier
Whose use of wealth may find its likeness here!
[5] The story is traced to the episode in Tristan L'Hermite's romance titled
"Le Page disgracie," treating of "The Monkey and Master Robert." L'Hermite lived
1601-1655.
Since goats have browsed, by freedom fired,
To follow fortune they've aspired.
To pasturage they're wont to roam
Where men are least disposed to come.
If any pathless place there be,
Or cliff, or pendent precipice,
It's there they cut their capers free:
There's nothing can stop these dames, I wis.
Two goats, thus self-emancipated, –
The white that on their feet they wore
Looked back to noble blood of yore, –
Once quit the lowly meadows, sated,
And sought the hills, as it would seem:
In search of luck, by luck they met
Each other at a mountain stream.
As bridge a narrow plank was set,
On which, if truth must be confessed,
Two weasels scarce could go abreast.
And then the torrent, foaming white,
As down it tumbled from the height,
Might well those Amazons affright.
But maugre such a fearful rapid,
Both took the bridge, the goats intrepid!
I seem to see our Louis Grand[7]
And Philip 4. advance
To the Isle of Conference,[8]
That lies "between Spain and France,
Each sturdy for his glorious land.
Thus each of our adventurers goes,
Till foot to foot, and nose to nose,
Somewhere about the midst they meet,
And neither will an inch retreat.
For why? they both enjoyed the glory
Of ancestors in ancient story.
The one, a goat of peerless rank,
Which, browsing on Sicilian bank,
The Cyclop gave to Galataea;[9]
The other famous Amalthaea,[10]
The goat that suckled Jupiter,
As some historians aver.
For want of giving back, in troth,
A common fall involved them both. –
A common accident, no doubt,
On Fortune's changeful route.[11]
[6] This and several others of the fables in the XIIth Book are taken from
the "Themes" of the Duke de Bourgogne, afterwards published in Robert's "Fables Inedites."
These "Themes," were the joint composition of Fenelon, his pupil the infant Duke de
Bourgogne, and La Fontaine, and were first used in the education of the Duke. Fenelon
suggested the story, the pupil put it into prose, and La Fontaine versified it. La Fontaine
is eulogistic of the young Duke's "wit" in putting these "Themes" into prose in Fable 9,
Book 12.
[7] Louis Grand. – Louis XIV. See note to Epilogue of Book 11.
[8] The Isle of Conference. – The Pheasants' Isle in the river Bidassoa, which
separates France and Spain. It is called the Isle of Conference on account of several of the
Conferences, leading to Treaties, etc., between the two countries, having been held
there.
[9] The Cyclop gave to Galataea. – Polyphemus and Galataea: vide
Theocritus, Idyl 11.
[10] Amalthaea. – Another story is that Amalthaea was not a goat, but a nymph
of Crete, who fed the infant Jupiter with goat's milk.
[11] In the original the last lines differ from those in the version of La Fontaine's
"Oeuvres Posthumes," published in 1696, the year after the poet's death. Indeed, variations
of text are common to most of the fables of the XIIth Book, on making the same comparison,
viz., of the first edition, 1694, and the edition in the "Oeuvres Posthumes."
To Monseigneur, The Duke De Bourgogne; Who Had Requested Of M. De La
Fontaine A Fable Which Should Be Called "The Cat And The Mouse."
To please a youthful prince, whom Fame
A temple in my writings vows,
What fable answers to the name,
"The Cat and Mouse?"
Shall I in verse the fair present,
With softest look but hard intent,
Who serves the hearts her charms entice
As does the cat its captive mice?
Or make my subject Fortune's sport?
She treats the friends that make her court,
And follow closest her advice,
As treats the cat the silly mice.
Shall I for theme a king select
Who sole, of all her favourites,
Commands the goddess's respect?
For whom she from her wheel alights.
Who, never stayed by foes a trice,
Whenever they block his way,
Can with the strongest play
As does the cat with mice!
Insensibly, while casting thus about,
Quite anxious for my subject's sake,
A theme I meet, and, if I don't mistake,
Shall spoil it, too, by spinning out.
The prince will treat my muse, for that,
As mice are treated by the cat.
A young and inexperienced mouse
Had faith to try a veteran cat,[12] –
Raminagrobis, death to rat,
And scourge of vermin through the house, –
Appealing to his clemency
With reasons sound and fair.
"Pray let me live; a mouse like me
It were not much to spare.
Am I, in such a family,
A burden? Would my largest wish
Our wealthy host impoverish?
A grain of wheat will make my meal;
A nut will fat me like a seal.
I'm lean at present; please to wait,
And for your heirs reserve my fate."
The captive mouse thus spake.
Replied the captor, "You mistake;
To me shall such a thing be said?
Address the deaf! address the dead!
A cat to pardon! – old one too!
Why, such a thing I never knew.
You victim of my paw,
By well-established law,
Die as a mousling should,
And beg the sisterhood
Who ply the thread and shears,
To lend your speech their ears.
Some other like repast
My heirs may find, or fast."
He ceased. The moral's plain.
Youth always hopes its ends to gain,
Believes all spirits like its own:
Old age is not to mercy prone.
[12] The story is from Abstemius.
A stag, where stags abounded,
Fell sick, and was surrounded
Forthwith by comrades kind,
All pressing to assist,
Or see, their friend, at least,
And ease his anxious mind –
An irksome multitude.
"Ah, sirs!" the sick was fain to cry,
"Pray leave me here to die,
As others do, in solitude.
Pray, let your kind attentions cease,
Till death my spirit shall release."
But comforters are not so sent:
On duty sad full long intent,
When Heaven pleased, they went:
But not without a friendly glass;
That is to say, they cropped the grass
And leaves which in that quarter grew,
From which the sick his pittance drew.
By kindness thus compelled to fast,
He died for want of food at last.
The men take off no trifling dole
Who heal the body, or the soul.
Alas the times! do what we will,
They have their payment, cure or kill.
[13] "The Gazelle" in Lokman's Fables.
A bush, duck, and bat, having found that in trade,
Confined to their country, small profits were made,
Into partnership entered to traffic abroad,
Their purse, held in common, well guarded from fraud.
Their factors and agents, these trading allies
Employed where they needed, as cautious as wise:
Their journals and ledgers, exact and discreet,
Recorded by items expense and receipt.
All throve, till an argosy, on its way home,
With a cargo worth more than their capital sum,
In attempting to pass through a dangerous strait,
Went down with its passengers, sailors, and freight,
To enrich those enormous and miserly stores,
From Tartarus distant but very few doors.
Regret was a thing which the firm could but feel;
Regret was the thing they were slow to reveal;
For the least of a merchant well knows that the weal
Of his credit requires him his loss to conceal.
But that which our trio unluckily suffered
Allowed no repair, and of course was discovered.
No money nor credit, It was plain to be seen
Their heads were now threatened with bonnets of green;[15]
And, the facts of the case being everywhere known,
No mortal would open his purse with a loan.
Debts, bailiffs, and lawsuits, and creditors gruff,
At the crack of day knocking,
(Importunity shocking!)
Our trio kept busy enough.
The bush, ever ready and on the alert,
Now caught all the people it could by the skirt:
"Pray, sir, be so good as to tell, if you please,
If you know whereabout the old villanous seas
Have hid all our goods which they stole t" other night.
The diver, to seek them, went down out of sight.
The bat didn't venture abroad in the day,
And thus of the bailiffs kept out of the way.
Full many insolvents, not bats, to hide so,
Nor bushes, nor divers, I happen to know,
But even grand seigniors, quite free from all cares,
By virtue of brass, and of private backstairs.
[14] Aesop.
[15] With bonnets of green. – Such as insolvent debtors were anciently required
to wear, in France, after making cession of their effects, in order to escape
imprisonment. – Translator. The custom also prevailed in Italy.
Enthroned by an eternal law,
Has Discord reigned throughout the universe.
In proof, I might from this our planet draw
A thousand instances diverse.
Within the circle of our view,
This queen has subjects not a few.
Beginning with the elements,
It is astonishing to see
How they have stood, to all intents,
As wrestlers from eternity.
Besides these four great potentates,
Old stubborn earth, fire, flood, and air,
How many other smaller states
Are waging everlasting war!
In mansion decked with frieze and column,
Dwelt dogs and cats in multitudes;
Decrees, promulged in manner solemn,
Had pacified their ancient feuds.
Their lord had so arranged their meals and labours,
And threatened quarrels with the whip,
That, living in sweet cousinship,
They edified their wondering neighbours.
At last, some dainty plate to lick,
Or profitable bone to pick,
Bestowed by some partiality,
Broke up the smooth equality.
The side neglected were indignant
At such a slight malignant.
Some writers make the whole dispute begin
With favours to a bitch while lying in.
Whatever the cause, the altercation
Soon grew a perfect conflagration.
In hall and kitchen, dog and cat
Took sides with zeal for this or that.
New rules on the cat side falling
Produced tremendous caterwauling.
Their advocate, against such rules as these,
Advised recurrence to the old decrees.
They searched in vain, for, hidden in a nook,
The thievish mice had eaten up the book.
Another quarrel, in a trice,
Made many sufferers with the mice;
For many a veteran whiskered-face,
With craft and cunning richly stored,
And grudges old against the race,
Now watched to put them to the sword;
Nor mourned for this that mansion's lord.
Resuming our discourse, we see
No creature from opponents free.
It's nature's law for earth and sky;
it were vain to ask the reason why;
God's works are good, – I cannot doubt it, –
And that is all I know about it.
I know, however, that the cause
Which has our human quarrels brought,
Three quarters of the time, is nothing
That will be, is, or ever was.
You veterans, in state and church,
At threescore years, indeed,
It seems there still is need
To give you lessons with the birch!
9. The Wolf and the Fox
Whence comes it that there lives not
A man contented with his lot?
Here's one who would a soldier be,
Whom soldiers all with envy see.
A fox to be a wolf once sighed.
With disappointments mortified,
Who knows but that, his wolfship cheap,
The wolf himself would be a sheep?
I marvel that a prince[16] is able,
At eight, to put the thing in fable;
While I, beneath my seventy snows,
Forge out, with toil and time,
The same in laboured rhyme,
Less striking than his prose.
The traits which in his work we meet,
A poet, it must be confessed,
Could not have half so well expressed:
He bears the palm as more complete.
It's mine to sing it to the pipe;
But I expect that when the sands
Of Time have made my hero ripe,
He'll put a trumpet in my hands.
My mind but little does aspire
To prophecy; but yet it reads
On high, that soon his glorious deeds
Full many Homers will require –
Of which this age produces few.
But, bidding mysteries adieu,
I try my powers on this fable new.
"Dear wolf," complained a hungry fox,
"A lean chick's meat, or veteran cock's,
Is all I get by toil or trick:
Of such a living I am sick.
With far less risk, you've better cheer;
A house you need not venture near,
But I must do it, spite of fear.
Pray, make me master of your trade.
And let me by that means be made
The first of all my race that took
Fat mutton to his larder's hook:
Your kindness shall not be repented."
The wolf quite readily consented.
"I have a brother, lately dead:
Go fit his skin to yours," he said.
It was done; and then the wolf proceeded:
"Now mark you well what must be done,
The dogs that guard the flock to shun."
The fox the lessons strictly heeded.
At first he boggled in his dress;
But awkwardness grew less and less,
Till perseverance gave success.
His education scarce complete,
A flock, his scholarship to greet,
Came rambling out that way.
The new-made wolf his work began,
Amidst the heedless nibblers ran,
And spread a sore dismay.
Such terror did Patroclus[17] spread,
When on the Trojan camp and town,
Clad in Achilles' armour dread,
He valiantly came down.
The matrons, maids, and aged men
All hurried to the temples then. –
The bleating host now surely thought
That fifty wolves were on the spot:
Dog, shepherd, sheep, all homeward fled,
And left a single sheep in pawn,
Which Renard seized when they were gone.
But, before on his prize he fed,
There crowed a cock near by, and down
The scholar threw his prey and gown,
That he might run that way the faster –
Forgetting lessons, prize and master.
How useless is the art of seeming!
Reality, in every station,
Is through its cloak at all times gleaming,
And bursting out on fit occasion.
Young prince, to your unrivalled wit
My muse gives credit, as is fit,
For what she here has laboured with –
The subject, characters, and pith.
[16] A prince. – The infant Duke de Bourgogne. See Note to Table 4, Book
12. The context shows that La Fontaine was over seventy when this fable was written.
[17] Patroclus. – In the Trojan war, when Achilles, on his difference with
Agamemnon, remained inactive in his tent, Patroclus, his friend, put on Achilles' "armour
dread," and so caused dire alarm to the Trojans, who thought that Achilles had at last
taken the field.
The wise, sometimes, as lobsters do,
To gain their ends back foremost go.
It is the rower's art; and those
Commanders who mislead their foes,
Do often seem to aim their sight
Just where they don't intend to smite.
My theme, so low, may yet apply
To one whose fame is very high,
Who finds it not the hardest matter
A hundred-headed league to scatter.
What he will do, what leave undone,
Are secrets with unbroken seals,
Till victory the truth reveals.
Whatever he would have unknown
Is sought in vain. Decrees of Fate
Forbid to check, at first, the course
Which sweeps at last with torrent force.
One Jove, as ancient fables state,
Exceeds a hundred gods in weight.
So Fate and Louis[19] would seem able
The universe to draw,
Bound captive to their law. –
But come we to our fable.
A mother lobster did her daughter chide:
"For shame, my daughter! can't you go ahead?"
"And how go you yourself?" the child replied;
"Can I be but by your example led?
Head foremost should I, singularly, wend,
While all my race pursue the other end."
She spoke with sense: for better or for worse,
Example has a universal force.
To some it opens wisdom's door,
But leads to folly many more.
Yet, as for backing to one's aim,
When properly pursued
The art is doubtless good,
At least in grim Bellona's game.
[18] Aesop; also in Avianus.
[19] Louis. – Louis XIV.
The eagle, through the air a queen,
And one far different, I believe,
In temper, language, thought, and mien, –
The magpie, – once a prairie crossed.
The by-path where they met was drear,
And Madge gave up herself for lost;
But having dined on ample cheer,
The eagle bade her, "Never fear;
You're welcome to my company;
For if the king of gods can be
Full often in need of recreation, –
Who rules the world, – right well may I,
Who serve him in that high relation:
Amuse me, then, before you fly."
Our cackler, pleased, at quickest rate
Of this and that began to prate.
Not he of whom old Flaccus writes,
The most impertinent of wights,
Or any babbler, for that matter,
Could more incontinently chatter.
At last she offered to make known –
A better spy had never flown –
All things, whatever she might see,
In travelling from tree to tree.
But, with her offer little pleased –
Nay, gathering wrath at being teased, –
For such a purpose, never rove, –
Replied the impatient bird of Jove.
"Adieu, my cackling friend, adieu;
My court is not the place for you:
Heaven keep it free from such a bore!"
Madge flapped her wings, and said no more.
It's far less easy than it seems
An entrance to the great to gain.
The honour often has cost extremes
Of mortal pain.
The craft of spies, the tattling art,
And looks more gracious than the heart,
Are odious there;
But still, if one would meet success,
Of different parishes the dress
He, like the pie, must wear.
[20] Abstemius.
To His August Highness, Monseigneur The Prince De Conti.[22]
The gods, for that themselves are good,
The like in mortal monarchs would.
The prime of royal rights is grace;
To this even sweet revenge gives place.
So thinks your highness, – while your wrath
Its cradle for its coffin has.
Achilles no such conquest knew –
In this a hero less than you.
That name indeed belongs to none,
Save those who have, beneath the sun,
Their hundred generous actions done.
The golden age produced such powers,
But truly few this age of ours.
The men who now the topmost sit,
Are thanked for crimes which they omit.
For you, unharmed by such examples,
A thousand noble deeds are winning temples,
Wherein Apollo, by the altar-fire,
Shall strike your name on his golden lyre.
The gods await you in their azure dome;
One age must serve for this your lower home.
One age entire with you would Hymen dwell:[23]
O that his sweetest spell
For you a destiny may bind
By such a period scarce confined!
The princess and yourself no less deserve.
Her charms as witnesses shall serve;
As witnesses, those talents high
Poured on you by the lavish sky,
Outshining all pretence of peers
Throughout your youthful years.
A Bourbon seasons grace with wit:
To that which gains esteem, in mixture fit,
He adds a portion from, above,
Wherewith to waken love.
To paint your joy – my task is less sublime:
I therefore turn aside to rhyme
What did a certain bird of prey.
A kite, possessor of a nest antique,
Was caught alive one day.
It was the captor's freak
That this so rare a bird
Should on his sovereign be conferred.
The kite, presented by the man of chase,
With due respect, before the monarch's face,
If our account is true,
Immediately flew
And perched on the royal nose.
What! on the nose of majesty?
Ay, on the consecrated nose did he!
Had not the king his sceptre and his crown?
Why, if he had, or had not, it were all one:
The royal nose, as if it graced a clown,
Was seized. The things by courtiers done,
And said, and shrieked, it were hopeless to relate.
The king in silence sate:
An outcry, from a sovereign king,
Were quite an unbecoming thing.
The bird retained the post where he had fastened;
No cries nor efforts his departure hastened.
His master called, as in an agony of pain,
Presented lure and fist, but all in vain.
It seemed as if the cursed bird,
With instinct most absurd,
In spite of all the noise and blows,
Would roost on that sacred nose!
The urging off of courtiers, pages, master,
But roused his will to cling the faster.
At last he quit, as thus the monarch spoke:
"Give egress hence, imprimis, to this kite,
And, next, to him who aimed at our delight.
From each his office we revoke.
The one as kite we now discharge;
The other, as a forester at large.
As in our station it is fit,
We do all punishment remit."
The court admired. The courtiers praised the deed,
In which themselves did but so ill succeed. –
Few kings had taken such a course.
The fowler might have fared far worse;
His only crime, as of his kite,
Consisted in his want of light,
About the danger there might be
In coming near to royalty.
Forsooth, their scope had wholly been
Within the woods. Was that a sin? –
By Pilpay this remarkable affair
Is placed beside the Ganges' flood.
No human creature ventures, there,
To shed of animals the blood:
The deed not even royalty would dare.
"Know we," they say, – both lord and liege, –
"This bird saw not the Trojan siege?
Perhaps a hero's part he bore,
And there the highest helmet wore.
What once he was, he yet may be.
Taught by Pythagoras are we,
That we our forms with animals exchange;
We're kites or pigeons for a while,
Then biped plodders on the soil;
And then
As volatile, again
The liquid air we range. – "
Now since two versions of this tale exist,
I'll give the other if you list.
A certain falconer had caught
A kite, and for his sovereign thought
The bird a present rich and rare.
It may be once a century
Such game is taken from the air;
For It's the pink of falconry.
The captor pierced the courtier crowd,
With zeal and sweat, as if for life;
Of such a princely present proud,
His hopes of fortune sprang full rife;
When, slap, the savage made him feel
His talons, newly armed with steel,
By perching on his nasal member,
As if it had been senseless timber.
Outshrieked the wight; but peals of laughter,
Which threatened ceiling, roof, and rafter,
From courtier, page, and monarch broke:
Who had not laughed at such a joke?
From me, so prone am I to such a sin,
An empire had not held me in.
I dare not say, that, had the pope been there,
He would have joined the laugh sonorous;
But sad the king, I hold, who should not dare
To lead, for such a cause, in such a chorus.
The gods are laughers. Spite of ebon brows,
Jove joints the laugh which he allows.
As history says, the thunderer's laugh went up
When limping Vulcan served the nectar cup.
Whether or not immortals here are wise,
Good sense, I think, in my digression lies.
For, since the moral's what we have in view,
What could the falconer's fate have taught us new?
Who does not notice, in the course of things,
More foolish falconers than indulgent kings?
[21] Bidpai.
[22] Prince de Conti. – This was Francis-Louis, Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon and
de Conti, another of La Fontaine's great friends at court. He was born in Paris, 1664, and
died in 1709.
[23] Would Hymen dwell. – An allusion to the marriage of the Prince with
Marie-Theresa de Bourbon (Mdlle. de Blois, the daughter of the King and La Valliere), which
took place in 1688.
A fox, old, subtle, vigilant, and sly, –
By hunters wounded, fallen in the mud, –
Attracted, by the traces of his blood,
That buzzing parasite, the fly.
He blamed the gods, and wondered why
The Fates so cruelly should wish
To feast the fly on such a costly dish.
"What! light on me! make me its food!
Me, me, the nimblest of the wood!
How long has fox-meat been so good?
What serves my tail? Is it a useless weight?
Go, – Heaven confound you, greedy reprobate! –
And suck your fill from some more vulgar veins!"
A hedgehog, witnessing his pains,
(This fretful personage
Here graces first my page,)
Desired to set him free
From such cupidity.
"My neighbour fox," said he,
My quills these rascals shall empale,
And ease your torments without fail."
"Not for the world, my friend!" the fox replied.
"Pray let them finish their repast.
These flies are full. Should they be set aside,
New hungrier swarms would finish me at last."
Consumers are too common here below,
In court and camp, in church and state, we know.
Old Aristotle's penetration
Remarked our fable's application;
It might more clearly in our nation.
The fuller certain men are fed,
The less the public will be bled.
[24] Aesop; also Philibert Hegemon, and others.
Love bears a world of mystery –
His arrows, quiver, torch, and infancy:
It's not a trifling work to sound
A sea of science so profound:
And, hence, explain it all today
Is not my aim; but, in my simple way,
To show how that blind archer lad
(And he a god!) came by the loss of sight,
And eke what consequence the evil had,
Or good, perhaps, if named aright –
A point I leave the lover to decide,
As fittest judge, who has the matter tried.
Together on a certain day,
Said Love and Folly were at play:
The former yet enjoyed his eyes.
Dispute arose. Love thought it wise
Before the council of the gods to go,
Where both of them by birth held stations;
But Folly, in her lack of patience,
Dealt on his forehead such a blow
As sealed his orbs to all the light of heaven.
Now Venus claimed that vengeance should be given.
And by what force of tears yourselves may guess
The woman and the mother sought redress.
The gods were deafened with her cries –
Jove, Nemesis, the stern assize
Of Orcus, – all the gods, in short,
From whom she might the boon extort.
The enormous wrong she well portrayed –
Her son a wretched groper made,
An ugly staff his steps to aid!
For such a crime, it would appear,
No punishment could be severe:
The damage, too, must be repaired.
The case maturely weighed and cast,
The public weal with private squared:
Poor Folly was condemned at last,
By judgment of the court above,
To serve for aye as guide to Love.[26]
[25] It is thought that La Fontaine owed somewhat of his idea of this fable
to one of the poems of Louise Labbe, "the beautiful ropemaker," as she was called, who
lived between 1526 and 1566.
[26] This fable was first published in the collection of the "Works in Prose, and Verse
of the Sieurs Maucroix and La Fontaine," issued by the joint authors in 1685. See, for M.
de Maucroix, note to Fable 1, Book 3.
To Madame De La Sabliere.[28]
A temple I reserved you in my rhyme:
It might not be completed but with time.
Already its endurance I had grounded
On this charming art, divinely founded;
And on the name of that divinity
For whom its adoration was to be.
These words I should have written over its gate –
TO IRIS IS THIS PALACE CONSECRATE;
Not her who served the queen divine;
For Juno's self, and he who crowned her bliss,
Had thought it for their dignity, I wis,
To bear the messages of mine.
Within the dome the apotheosis
Should greet the enraptured sight –
All heaven, in pomp and order meet,
Conducting Iris to her seat
Beneath a canopy of light!
The walls would amply serve to paint her life, –
A matter sweet, indeed, but little rife
In those events, which, ordered by the Fates,
Cause birth, or change, or overthrow of states.
The innermost should hold her image, –
Her features, smiles, attractions there, –
Her art of pleasing without care, –
Her loveliness, that's sure of homage.
Some mortals, kneeling at her feet,[29] –
Earth's noblest heroes, – should be seen;
Ay, demigods, and even gods, I believe:
(The worshipped of the world thinks meet,
Sometimes her altar to perfume.)
Her eyes, so far as that might be,
Her soul's rich jewel should illume;
Alas! but how imperfectly!
For could a heart that throbbed to bless
Its friends with boundless tenderness, –
Or could that heaven-descended mind
Which, in its matchless beauty, joined
The strength of man with woman's grace, –
Be given to sculptor to express?
O Iris, who can charm the soul –
Nay, bind it with supreme control, –
Whom as myself I can but love, –
(Nay, not that word: as I'm a man,
Your court has placed it under ban,
And we'll dismiss it,) pray approve
My filling up this hasty plan!
This sketch has here received a place,
A simple anecdote to grace,
Where friendship shows so sweet a face,
That in its features you may find
Somewhat accordant to your mind.
Not that the tale may kings beseem;
But he who wins your esteem
Is not a monarch placed above
The need and influence of love,
But simple mortal, void of crown,
That would for friends his life lay down –
Than which I know no friendlier act.
Four animals, in league compact,
Are now to give our noble race
A useful lesson in the case.
Rat, raven, tortoise, and gazelle,
Once into firmest friendship fell.
It was in a home unknown to man
That they their happiness began.
But safe from man there's no retreat:
Pierce you the loneliest wood,
Or dive beneath the deepest flood,
Or mount you where the eagles brood, –
His secret ambuscade you meet.
The light gazelle, in harmless play,
Amused herself abroad one day,
When, by mischance, her track was found
And followed by the baying hound –
That barbarous tool of barbarous man –
From which far, far away she ran.
At meal-time to the others
The rat observed, – 'My brothers,
How happens it that we
Are met today but three?
Is Miss Gazelle so little steady?
Has she forgotten us already?"
Out cried the tortoise at the word, –
"Were I, as Raven is, a bird,
I had fly this instant from my seat,
And learn what accident, and where,
Has kept away our sister fair, –
Our sister of the flying feet;
For of her heart, dear rat,
It were a shame to doubt of that."
The raven flew;
He spied afar, – the face he knew, –
The poor gazelle entangled in a snare,
In anguish vainly floundering there.
Straight back he turned, and gave the alarm;
For to have asked the sufferer now,
The why, when and how,
She had incurred so great a harm, –
And lose in vain debate
The turning-point of fate,
As would the master of a school, –
He was by no means such a fool.[30]
On tidings of so sad a pith,
The three their council held forthwith.
By two it was the vote
To hasten to the spot
Where lay the poor gazelle.
"Our friend here in his shell,
I think, will do as well
To guard the house," the raven said;
"For, with his creeping pace,
When would he reach the place?
Not till the deer were dead."
Eschewing more debate,
They flew to aid their mate,
That luckless mountain roe.
The tortoise, too, resolved to go.
Behold him plodding on behind,
And plainly cursing in his mind,
The fate that left his legs to lack,
And glued his dwelling to his back.
The snare was cut by Rongemail,
(For so the rat they rightly hail).
Conceive their joy yourself you may.
Just then the hunter came that way,
And, "Who has filched my prey?"
Cried he, on the spot
Where now his prey was not. –
A hole hid Rongemail;
A tree the bird as well;
The woods, the free gazelle.
The hunter, well nigh mad,
To find no inkling could be had,
Espied the tortoise in his path,
And straightway checked his wrath.
"Why let my courage flag,
Because my snare has chanced to miss?
I'll have a supper out of this."
He said, and put it in his bag.
And it had paid the forfeit so,
Had not the raven told the roe,
Who from her covert came,
Pretending to be lame.
The man, right eager to pursue,
Aside his wallet threw,
Which Rongemail took care
To serve as he had done the snare;
Thus putting to an end
The hunter's supper on his friend.
It's thus sage Pilpay's tale I follow.
Were I the ward of golden-haired Apollo,
It were, by favour of that god, easy –
And surely for your sake –
As long a tale to make
As is the Iliad or Odyssey.
Grey Rongemail the hero's part should play,
Though each would be as needful in his way.
He of the mansion portable awoke
Sir Raven by the words he spoke,
To act the spy, and then the swift express.
The light gazelle alone had had the address
The hunter to engage, and furnish time
For Rongemail to do his deed sublime.
Thus each his part performed. Which wins the prize?
The heart, so far as in my judgment lies.[31]
[27] Bidpai.
[28] Madame de la Sabliere. – See note to Fable 1, Book 10. : also Translator's
Preface.
[29] Some mortals kneeling at her feet. – In allusion to the distinguished
company which assembled at the house of Madame de la Sabliere. See notes on John Sobieski
(King John 3, of Poland), etc., Fable 1, Book 10.
[30] Such a fool. – In allusion to Fable XIX., Book 1.
[31] This fable was also first published in the "Works" of De Maucroix and La Fontaine,
1685. The text of the later issue is slightly abridged.
A certain wood-chopper lost or broke
From his axe's eye a bit of oak.
The forest must needs be somewhat spared
While such a loss was being repaired.
Came the man at last, and humbly prayed
That the woods would kindly lend to him –
A moderate loan – a single limb,
Whereof might another helve be made,
And his axe should elsewhere drive its trade.
O, the oaks and firs that then might stand,
A pride and a joy throughout the land,
For their ancientness and glorious charms!
The innocent Forest lent him arms;
But bitter indeed was her regret;
For the wretch, his axe new-helved and whet,
Did nothing but his benefactress spoil
Of the finest trees that graced her soil;
And ceaselessly was she made to groan,
Doing penance for that fatal loan.
Behold the world-stage and its actors,
Where benefits hurt benefactors! –
A weary theme, and full of pain;
For where's the shade so cool and sweet,
Protecting strangers from the heat,
But might of such a wrong complain?
Alas! I vex myself in vain;
Ingratitude, do what I will,
Is sure to be the fashion still.
[32] First published in 1685, in the "Works" of De Maucroix and La Fontaine;
a statement applying also to several of the remaining fables.
A fox, though young, by no means raw,
Had seen a horse, the first he ever saw:
"Ho! neighbour wolf," said he to one quite green,
"A creature in our meadow I have seen, –
Sleek, grand! I seem to see him yet, –
The finest beast I ever met."
"Is he a stouter one than we?"
The wolf demanded, eagerly;
"Some picture of him let me see."
"If I could paint," said fox, "I should delight
T" anticipate your pleasure at the sight;
But come; who knows? perhaps it is a prey
By fortune offered in our way."
They went. The horse, turned loose to graze,
Not liking much their looks or ways,
Was just about to gallop off.
"Sir," said the fox, "your humble servants, we
Make bold to ask you what your name may be."
The horse, an animal with brains enough,
Replied, "Sirs, you yourselves may read my name;
My shoer round my heel has writ the same."
The fox excused himself for want of knowledge:
"Me, sir, my parents did not educate, –
So poor, a hole was their entire estate.
My friend, the wolf, however, taught at college,
Could read it were it even Greek."
The wolf, to flattery weak,
Approached to verify the boast;
For which four teeth he lost.
The high raised hoof came down with such a blow,
As laid him bleeding on the ground full low.
"My brother," said the fox, "this shows how just
What once was taught me by a fox of wit, –
Which on your jaws this animal has writ, –
"All unknown things the wise mistrust.""
[33] Aesop.
Against a robber fox, a tree
Some turkeys served as citadel.
That villain, much provoked to see
Each standing there as sentinel,
Cried out, "Such witless birds
At me stretch out their necks, and gobble!
No, by the powers! I'll give them trouble."
He verified his words.
The moon, that shined full on the oak,
Seemed then to help the turkey folk.
But fox, in arts of siege well versed,
Ransacked his bag of tricks accursed.
He feigned himself about to climb;
Walked on his hinder legs sublime;
Then death most aptly counterfeited,
And seemed anon resuscitated.
A practiser of wizard arts
Could not have filled so many parts.
In moonlight he contrived to raise
His tail, and make it seem a blaze:
And countless other tricks like that.
Meanwhile, no turkey slept or sat.
Their constant vigilance at length,
As hoped the fox, wore out their strength.
Bewildered by the rigs he run,
They lost their balance one by one.
As Renard slew, he laid aside,
Till nearly half of them had died;
Then proudly to his larder bore,
And laid them up, an ample store.
A foe, by being over-heeded,
Has often in his plan succeeded.
19. The Ape
There is an ape in Paris,
To which was given a wife:
Like many a one that marries,
This ape, in brutal strife,
Soon beat her out of life.
Their infant cries, – perhaps not fed, –
But cries, I believe, in vain;
The father laughs: his wife is dead,
And he has other loves again,
Which he will also beat, I think, –
Returned from tavern drowned in drink.
For anything that's good, you need not look
Among the imitative tribe;
A monkey be it, or what makes a book –
The worse, I deem – the aping scribe.
20. The Scythian Philosopher
A Scythian philosopher austere,
Resolved his rigid life somewhat to cheer,
Performed the tour of Greece, saw many things,
But, best, a sage, – one such as Virgil sings, –
A simple, rustic man, that equaled kings;
From whom, the gods would hardly bear the palm;
Like them unawed, content, and calm.
His fortune was a little nook of land;
And there the Scythian found him, hook in hand,
His fruit-trees pruning. Here he cropped
A barren branch, there slashed and lopped,
Correcting Nature everywhere,
Who paid with usury his care.
"Pray, why this wasteful havoc, sir?" –
So spoke the wondering traveller;
"Can it, I ask, in reason's name,
Be wise these harmless trees to maim?
Fling down that instrument of crime,
And leave them to the scythe of Time.
Full soon, unhastened, they will go
To deck the banks of streams below."
Replied the tranquil gardener,
"I humbly crave your pardon, sir;
Excess is all my hook removes,
By which the rest more fruitful proves."
The philosophic traveller, –
Once more within his country cold, –
Himself of pruning-hook laid hold,
And made a use most free and bold;
Prescribed to friends, and counseled neighbours
To imitate his pruning labours.
The finest limbs he did not spare,
But pruned his orchard past all reason,
Regarding neither time nor season,
Nor taking of the moon a care.
All withered, drooped, and died.
This Scythian I set beside
The indiscriminating Stoic.
The latter, with a blade heroic,
Retrenches, from his spirit sad,
Desires and passions, good and bad,
Not sparing even a harmless wish.
Against a tribe so Vandalish
With earnestness I here protest.
They maim our hearts, they stupefy
Their strongest springs, if not their best;
They make us cease to live before we die.
21. The Elephant and the Ape Of Jupiter
"Between elephant and beast of horned nose
About precedence a dispute arose,
Which they determined to decide by blows.
The day was fixed, when came a messenger
To say the ape of Jupiter
Was swiftly earthward seen to bear
His bright caduceus through the air.
This monkey, named in history Gill,
The elephant at once believed
A high commission had received
To witness, by his sovereign's will,
The aforesaid battle fought.
Uplifted by the glorious thought,
The beast was prompt on Monsieur Gill to wait,
But found him slow, in usual forms of state,
His high credentials to present.
The ape, however, before he went,
Bestowed a passing salutation.
His excellency would have heard
The subject matter of legation:
But not a word!
His fight, so far from stirring heaven, –
The news was not received there, even!
What difference sees the impartial sky
Between an elephant and fly?
Our monarch, doting on his object,
Was forced himself to break the subject.
"My cousin Jupiter," said he,
"Will shortly, from his throne supreme,
A most important combat see,
For all his court a thrilling theme."
"What combat?" said the ape, with serious face.
"Is it possible you should not know the case? – "
The elephant exclaimed – 'not know, dear sir,
That Lord Rhinoceros disputes
With me precedence of the brutes?
That Elephantis is at war
With savage hosts of Rhinocer?
You know these realms, not void of fame?"
"I joy to learn them now by name,"
Returned Sir Gill, "for, first or last,
No lisp of them has ever passed
Throughout our dome so blue and vast."
Abashed, the elephant replied,
"What came you, then, to do? – "
"Between two emmets to divide
A spire of grass in two.
We take of all a care;
And, as to your affair,
Before the gods, who view with equal eyes
The small and great, it has not chanced to rise."
22. The Fool and the Sage [34]
A fool pursued, with club and stone,
A sage, who said, "My friend, well done!
Receive this guinea for your pains;
They well deserve far higher gains.
The workman's worthy of his hire,
It's said. There comes a wealthy squire,
Who has wherewith your works to pay;
To him direct your gifts, and they
Shall gain their proper recompense."
Urged by the hope of gain,
On the wealthy citizen
The fool repeated the offence.
His pay this time was not in gold.
On the witless man
A score of ready footmen ran,
And on his back, in full, his wages told.
In courts, such fools afflict the wise;
They raise the laugh at your expense.
To check their babble, were it sense
Their folly meetly to chastise?
Perhaps "twill take a stronger man.
Then make them worry one who can.
[34] Phaedrus, 3, 4; also Aesop.
To Madame Harvey.[36]
Sound reason and a tender heart
With you are friends that never part.
A hundred traits might swell the roll; –
Suffice to name your nobleness of soul;
Your power to guide both men and things;
Your temper open, bland and free,
A gift that draws friends to you,
To which your firm affection clings,
Unmarred by age or change of clime,
Or tempests of this stormy time; –
All which deserve, in highest lyric,
A rich and lofty panegyric;
But no such thing would you desire,
Whom pomp displeases, praises tire.
Hence mine is simple, short, and plain;
Yet, madam, I would fain
Tack on a word or two
Of homage to your country due, –
A country well beloved by you.
With mind to match the outward case,
The English are a thinking race.
They pierce all subjects through and through;
Well armed with facts, they hew their way,
And give to science boundless sway.
Quite free from flattery, I say,
Your countrymen, for penetration,
Must bear the palm from every nation;
For even the dogs they breed excel
Our own in nicety of smell.
Your foxes, too, are cunninger,
As readily we may infer
From one that practised, it's believed,
A stratagem the best conceived.
The wretch, once, in the utmost strait
By dogs of nose so delicate,
Approached a gallows, where,
A lesson to like passengers,
Or clothed in feathers or in furs,
Some badgers, owls, and foxes, pendent were.
Their comrade, in his pressing need,
Arranged himself among the dead.
I seem to see old Hannibal
Outwit some Roman general,
And sit securely in his tent,
The legions on some other scent.
But certain dogs, kept back
To tell the errors of the pack,
Arriving where the traitor hung,
A fault in fullest chorus sung.
Though by their bark the welkin rung,
Their master made them hold the tongue.
Suspecting not a trick so odd,
Said he, "The rogue's beneath the sod.
My dogs, that never saw such jokes,
Won't bark beyond these honest folks."
The rogue would try the trick again.
He did so to his cost and pain.
Again with dogs the welkin rings;
Again our fox from gallows swings;
But though he hangs with greater faith,
This time, he does it to his death.
So uniformly is it true,
A stratagem is best when new.
The hunter, had himself been hunted,
So apt a trick had not invented;
Not that his wit had been deficient; –
With that, it cannot be denied,
Your English folks are well-provisioned; –
But wanting love of life sufficient,
Full many an Englishman has died.
One word to you, and I must quit
My much-inviting subject:
A long eulogium is a project
For which my lyre is all unfit.
The song or verse is truly rare,
Which can its meed of incense bear,
And yet amuse the general ear,
Or wing its way to lands afar.
Your prince[37] once told you, I have heard,
(An able judge, as rumour says,)
That he one dash of love preferred
To all a sheet could hold of praise.
Accept – It's all I crave – the offering
Which here my muse has dared to bring –
Her last, perhaps, of earthly acts;
She blushes at its sad defects.
Still, by your favour of my rhyme,
Might not the self-same homage please, the while,
The dame who fills your northern clime
With winged emigrants sublime
From Cytherea's isle?[38]
By this, you understand, I mean
Love's guardian goddess, Mazarin.[39]
[35] Abstemius.
[36] Madame Harvey. – An English lady (nee Montagu), the widow of an
officer of Charles 2. (of England) who is said to have died at Constantinople. She was a
visitor at the English embassy in Paris, and moved in the highest circles generally of that
city; a circumstance which enabled La Fontaine to make her acquaintance and secure her as
one of his best friends and patrons. She died in 1702.
[37] Your Prince. – Charles 2. of England.
[38] Cytherea's isle. – Where Venus was worshipped.
[39] Goddess Mazarin. – The Duchess de Mazarin, niece to the Cardinal. She was
at this time in England, where she died (at Chelsea) in 1699. She married the Duke de la
Meilleraie, but it was stipulated that she should adopt the name and arms of
Mazarin.
Long from the monarch of the stars
The daughters of the mud received
Support and aid; nor dearth nor wars,
Meanwhile, their teeming nation grieved.
They spread their empire far and wide
Through every marsh, by every tide.
The queens of swamps – I mean no more
Than simply frogs (great names are cheap) –
Caballed together on the shore,
And cursed their patron from the deep,
And came to be a perfect bore.
Pride, rashness, and ingratitude,
The progeny of fortune good,
Soon brought them to a bitter cry, –
The end of sleep for earth and sky.
Their clamours, if they did not craze,
Would truly seem enough to raise
All living things to mutiny
Against the power of Nature's eye.
The sun,[41] according to their croak,
Was turning all the world to smoke.
It now behoved to take alarm,
And promptly powerful troops to arm.
Forthwith in haste they sent
Their croaking embassies;
To all their states they went,
And all their colonies.
To hear them talk, the all
That rides on this whirling ball,
Of men and things, was left at stake
On the mud that skirts a lake!
The same complaint, in fens and bogs,
Still ever strains their lungs;
And yet these much-complaining frogs
Had better hold their tongues;
For, should the sun in anger rise,
And hurl his vengeance from the skies,
That kingless, half-aquatic crew
Their impudence would sorely rue.
[40] Phaedrus, 1, 6. Fable 12, Book 6, gives another version of the same
story.
[41] The sun. – This fable has reference to the current troubles between France
and the Dutch. Louis XIV. is the sun. He had adopted the sun as his emblem.
A mouse was once in mortal fear
Of a cat that watched her portal near.
What could be done in such a case?
With prudent care she left the catship,
And courted, with a humble grace,
A neighbour of a higher race,
Whose lordship – I should say his ratship –
Lay in a great hotel;
And who had boasted often, it's said,
Of living wholly without dread.
"Well," said this braggart, "well,
Dame Mouse, what should I do?
Alone I cannot rout
The foe that threatens you.
I'll rally all the rats about,
And then I'll play him such a trick!"
The mouse her court'sy dropped,
And off the hero scampered quick,
Nor till he reached the buttery stopped,
Where scores of rats were clustered,
In riotous extravagance,
All feasting at the host's expense.
To him, arriving there much flustered,
Indeed, quite out of breath,
A rat among the feasters says,
"What news? what news? I pray you, speak."
The rat, recovering breath to squeak,
Replied, "To tell the matter in a trice,
It is, that we must promptly aid the mice;
For old Raminagrab is making
Among their ranks a dreadful quaking.
This cat, of cats the very devil,
When mice are gone, will do us evil."
"True, true," said each and all;
"To arms! to arms!" they cry and call.
Some ratties by their fears
Were melted even to tears.
It mattered not a whisk,
Nor checked the valour brisk.
Each took on his back
Some cheese in haversack,
And roundly swore to risk
His carcass in the cause.
They marched as to a feast,
Not flinching in the least. –
But quite too late, for in his jaws
The cat already held the mouse.
They rapidly approached the house –
To save their friend, beyond a doubt.
Just then the cat came growling out,
The mouse beneath his whiskered nose.
And marched along before his foes.
At such a voice, our rats discreet,
Foreboding a defeat,
Effected, in a style most fleet,
A fortunate retreat.
Back hurried to his hole each rat,
And afterwards took care to shun the cat.
26. Daphnis And Alcimadure
An Imitation Of Theocritus.[42]
To Madame De La Mesangere.[43]
Offspring of her to whom, today,
While from your lovely self away,
A thousand hearts their homage pay,
Besides the throngs whom friendship binds to please,
And some whom love presents you on their knees!
A mandate which I cannot thrust aside
Between you both impels me to divide
Some of the incense which the dews distil
On the roses of a sacred hill,
And which, by secret of my trade,
Is sweet and most delicious made.
To you, I say, ... but all to say
Would task me far beyond my day;
I need judiciously to choose;
Thus husbanding my voice and muse,
Whose strength and leisure soon would fail.
I'll only praise your tender heart, and hale,
Exalted feelings, wit, and grace,
In which there's none can claim a higher place,
Excepting her whose praise is your entail.
Let not too many thorns forbid to touch
These roses – I may call them such –
If Love should ever say as much.
By him it will be better said, indeed;
And they who his advices will not heed,
Scourge fearfully will he,
As you shall shortly see.
A blooming miracle of yore
Despised his godship's sovereign power;
They called her name Alcimadure.
A haughty creature, fierce and wild,
She sported, Nature's tameless child.
Rough paths her wayward feet would lead
To darkest glens of mossy trees;
Or she would dance on daisied mead,
With nothing of law but her caprice.
A fairer could not be,
Nor crueller, than she.
Still charming in her sternest mien, –
Even when her haughty look debarred, –
What had she been to lover in
The fortress of her kind regard!
Daphnis, a high-born shepherd swain,
Had loved this maiden to his bane.
Not one regardful look or smile,
Nor even a gracious word, the while,
Relieved the fierceness of his pain.
Overwearied with a suit so vain,
His hope was but to die;
No power had he to fly.
He sought, impelled by dark despair,
The portals of the cruel fair.
Alas! the winds his only listeners were!
The mistress gave no entrance there –
No entrance to the palace where,
Ingrate, against her natal day,
She joined the treasures sweet and gay
In garden or in wild-wood grown,
To blooming beauty all her own.
"I hoped," he cried,
"Before your eyes I should have died;
But, ah! too deeply I have won your hate;
Nor should it be surprising news
To me, that you should now refuse
To lighten thus my cruel fate.
My sire, when I shall be no more,
Is charged to lay your feet before
The heritage your heart neglected.
With this my pasturage shall be connected,
My trusty dog, and all that he protected;
And, of my goods which then remain,
My mourning friends shall rear a fane.
There shall your image stand, midst rosy bowers,
Reviving through the ceaseless hours
An altar built of living flowers.
Near by, my simple monument
Shall this short epitaph present:
"Here Daphnis died of love. Stop, passenger,
And say you, with a falling tear,
This youth here fell, unable to endure
The ban of proud Alcimadure.""
He would have added, but his heart
Now felt the last, the fatal dart.
Forth marched the maid, in triumph decked,
And of his murder little recked.
In vain her steps her own attendants checked,
And plead
That she, at least, should shed,
On her lover dead,
Some tears of due respect.
The rosy god, of Cytherea born,
She ever treated with the deepest scorn:
Contemning him, his laws, and means of damage,
She drew her train to dance around his image,
When, woful to relate,
The statue fell, and crushed her with its weight!
A voice forth issued from a cloud, –
And echo bore the words aloud
Throughout the air wide spread, –
"Let all now love – the insensible is dead."
Meanwhile, down to the Stygian tide
The shade of Daphnis hied,
And quaked and wondered there to meet
The maid, a ghostess, at his feet.
All Erebus awakened wide,
To hear that beauteous homicide
Beg pardon of the swain who died –
For being deaf to love confessed,
As was Ulysses to the prayer
Of Ajax, begging him to spare,
Or as was Dido's faithless guest.[44]
[42] Theocritus, Idyl 23.
[43] Madame de la Mesangere. – This lady was the daughter of Madame de la
Sabliere. – Translator. She was the lady termed La Marquise with whom Fontenelle
sustained his imaginary "conversation" in the "Plurality of Worlds," a book which became
very popular both in France and England.
[44] Dido's faithless guest. – Aeneas, with whom Dido, according to Virgil and
Ovid, was in love, but who loved not, and sailed away.
Three saints, for their salvation jealous,
Pursued, with hearts alike most zealous,
By routes diverse, their common aim.
All highways lead to Rome: the same
Of heaven our rivals deeming true,
Each chose alone his pathway to pursue.
Moved by the cares, delays, and crosses
Attached to suits by legal process,
One gave himself as judge, without reward,
For earthly fortune having small regard.
Since there are laws, to legal strife
Man damns himself for half his life.
For half? – Three-fourths! – perhaps the whole!
The hope possessed our umpire's soul,
That on his plan he should be able
To cure this vice detestable. –
The second chose the hospitals.
I give him praise: to solace pain
Is charity not spent in vain,
While men in part are animals.
The sick – for things went then as now they go –
Gave trouble to the almoner, I trow.
Impatient, sour, complaining ever,
As racked by rheum, or parched with fever, –
"His favourites are such and such;
With them he watches over-much,
And lets us die," they say, –
Such sore complaints from day to day
Were nothing to those that did await
The reconciler of debate.
His judgments suited neither side;
Forsooth, in either party's view,
He never held the balance true,
But swerved in every cause he tried.
Discouraged by such speech, the arbiter
Betook himself to see the almoner.
As both received but murmurs for their fees,
They both retired, in not the best of moods,
To break their troubles to the silent woods,
And hold communion with the ancient trees.
There, underneath a rugged mountain,
Beside a clear and silent fountain,
A place revered by winds, to sun unknown,
They found the other saint, who lived alone.
Forthwith they asked his sage advice.
"Your own," he answered, "must suffice;
Who but yourselves your wants should know?
To know one's self, is, here below,
The first command of the Supreme.
Have you obeyed among the bustling throngs?
Such knowledge to tranquillity belongs;
Elsewhere to seek were fallacy extreme.
Disturb the water – do you see your face?
See we ourselves within a troubled breast?
A murky cloud in such a case,
Though once it were a crystal vase!
But, brothers, let it simply rest,
And each shall see his features there impressed.
For inward thought a desert home is best."
Such was the hermit's answer brief;
And, happily, it gained belief.
But business, still, from life must not be stricken
Since men will doubtless sue at law, and sicken,
Physicians there must be, and advocates, –
Whereof, thank God, no lack the world awaits,
While wealth and honours are the well-known baits.
Yet, in the stream of common wants when thrown,
What busy mortal but forgets his own?
O, you who give the public all your care,
Be it as judge, or prince, or minister,
Disturbed by countless accidents most sinister,
By adverse gales abased, debased by fair, –
Yourself you never see, nor see you anything.
Comes there a moment's rest for serious thought,
There comes a flatterer too, and brings it all to nothing.
This lesson seals our varied page:
O, may it teach from age to age!
To kings I give it, to the wise propose;
Where could my labours better close?[45]
[45] This fable was first printed in the "Recueil de vers choisis du P.
Bouhours," published in 1693, and afterwards given as the last of La Fontaine's Book
12.
