To Mademoiselle De Sevigne.[2]
Sevigne, type of every grace
In female form and face,
In your regardlessness of men,
Can you show favour when
The sportive fable craves your ear,
And see, unmoved by fear,
A lion's haughty heart
Thrust through by Love's audacious dart?
Strange conqueror, Love! And happy he,
And strangely privileged and free,
Who only knows by story
Him and his feats of glory!
If on this subject you are wont
To think the simple truth too blunt,
The fabulous may less affront;
Which now, inspired with gratitude,
Yea, kindled into zeal most fervent,
Does venture to intrude
Within your maiden solitude,
And kneel, your humble servant. –
In times when animals were speakers,
Among the quadrupedal seekers
Of our alliance
There came the lions.
And why not? for then
They yielded not to men
In point of courage or of sense,
Nor were in looks without pretence.
A high-born lion, on his way
Across a meadow, met one day
A shepherdess, who charmed him so,
That, as such matters ought to go,
He sought the maiden for his bride.
Her sire, it cannot be denied,
Had much preferred a son-in-law
Of less terrific mouth and paw.
It was not easy to decide –
The lion might the gift abuse –
It was not quite prudent to refuse.
And if refusal there should be,
Perhaps a marriage one would see,
Some morning, made clandestinely.
For, over and above
The fact that she could bear
With none but males of martial air,
The lady was in love
With him of shaggy hair.
Her sire, much wanting cover
To send away the lover,
Thus spoke: 'My daughter, sir,
Is delicate. I fear to her
Your fond caressings
Will prove rough blessings.
To banish all alarm
About such sort of harm,
Permit us to remove the cause,
By filing off your teeth and claws.
In such a case, your royal kiss
Will be to her a safer bliss,
And to yourself a sweeter;
Since she will more respond
To those endearments fond
With which you greet her."
The lion gave consent at once,
By love so great a dunce!
Without a tooth or claw now view him –
A fort with cannon spiked.
The dogs, let loose on him, slew him,
All biting safely where they liked.
O, tyrant Love! when held by you,
We may to prudence bid adieu.
[1] Aesop, also Verdizotti.
[2] Mademoiselle de Sevigne. – Francoise-Marguerite de Sevigne, afterwards
Madame de Grignan, the daughter of the celebrated Madame de Sevigne. The famous Sevigne
"Letters" were for the most part addressed to Madame de Grignan. For some account of Madame
de Sevigne and La Fontaine, see also note to Fable 11, Book 7.
A shepherd, neighbour to the sea,
Lived with his flock contentedly.
His fortune, though but small,
Was safe within his call.
At last some stranded kegs of gold
Him tempted, and his flock he sold,
Turned merchant, and the ocean's waves
Bore all his treasure – to its caves.
Brought back to keeping sheep once more,
But not chief shepherd, as before,
When sheep were his that grazed the shore,
He who, as Corydon or Thyrsis,
Might once have shone in pastoral verses,
Bedecked with rhyme and metre,
Was nothing now but Peter.
But time and toil redeemed in full
Those harmless creatures rich in wool;
And as the lulling winds, one day,
The vessels wafted with a gentle motion,
"Want you," he cried, "more money, Madam Ocean?
Address yourself to some one else, I pray;
You shall not get it out of me!
I know too well your treachery."
This tale's no fiction, but a fact,
Which, by experience backed,
Proves that a single penny,
At present held, and certain,
Is worth five times as many,
Of Hope's, beyond the curtain;
That one should be content with his condition,
And shut his ears to counsels of ambition,
More faithless than the wreck-strown sea, and which
Does thousands beggar where it makes one rich, –
Inspires the hope of wealth, in glorious forms,
And blasts the same with piracy and storms.
[3] Aesop.
A fly and ant, on a sunny bank,
Discussed the question of their rank.
"O Jupiter!" the former said,
"Can love of self so turn the head,
That one so mean and crawling,
And of so low a calling,
To boast equality shall dare
With me, the daughter of the air?
In palaces I am a guest,
And even at your glorious feast.
Whenever the people that adore you
May immolate for you a bullock,
I'm sure to taste the meat before you.
Meanwhile this starveling, in her hillock,
Is living on some bit of straw
Which she has laboured home to draw.
But tell me now, my little thing,
Do you camp ever on a king,
An emperor, or lady?
I do, and have full many a play-day
On fairest bosom of the fair,
And sport myself on her hair.
Come now, my hearty, rack your brain
To make a case about your grain."
"Well, have you done?" replied the ant.
"You enter palaces, I grant,
And for it get right soundly cursed.
Of sacrifices, rich and fat,
Your taste, quite likely, is the first; –
Are they the better off for that?
You enter with the holy train;
So enters many a wretch profane.
On heads of kings and asses you may squat;
Deny your vaunting I will not;
But well such impudence, I know,
Provokes a sometimes fatal blow.
The name in which your vanity delights
Is owned as well by parasites,
And spies that die by ropes – as you soon will
By famine or by ague-chill,
When Phoebus goes to cheer
The other hemisphere, –
The very time to me most dear.
Not forced abroad to go
Through wind, and rain, and snow,
My summer's work I then enjoy,
And happily my mind employ,
From care by care exempted.
By which this truth I leave to you,
That by two sorts of glory we are tempted,
The false one and the true.
Work waits, time flies; adieu:
This gabble does not fill
My granary or till."
[4] Phaedrus, 4, 23.
A lover of gardens, half cit and half clown,
Possessed a nice garden beside a small town;
And with it a field by a live hedge inclosed,
Where sorrel and lettuce, at random disposed,
A little of jasmine, and much of wild thyme,
Grew gaily, and all in their prime
To make up Miss Peggy's bouquet,
The grace of her bright wedding day.
For poaching in such a nice field – 'twas a shame;
A foraging, cud-chewing hare was to blame.
Whereof the good owner bore down
This tale to the lord of the town:
"Some mischievous animal, morning and night,
In spite of my caution, comes in for his bite.
He laughs at my cunning-set dead-falls and snares;
For clubbing and stoning as little he cares.
I think him a wizard. A wizard! the coot!
I had catch him if he were a devil to boot!"
The lord said, in haste to have sport for his hounds,
"I'll clear him, I warrant you, out of your grounds;
To morrow I'll do it without any fail."
The thing thus agreed on, all hearty and hale,
The lord and his party, at crack of the dawn,
With hounds at their heels cantered over the lawn.
Arrived, said the lord in his jovial mood,
"We'll breakfast with you, if your chickens are good.
That lass, my good man, I suppose is your daughter:
No news of a son-in-law? Any one sought her?
No doubt, by the score. Keep an eye on the docket,
Eh? Dost understand me? I speak of the pocket."
So saying, the daughter he graciously greeted,
And close by his lordship he bade her be seated;
Avowed himself pleased with so handsome a maid,
And then with her kerchief familiarly played, –
Impertinent freedoms the virtuous fair
Repelled with a modest and lady-like air, –
So much that her father a little suspected
The girl had already a lover elected.
Meanwhile in the kitchen what bustling and cooking!
"For what are your hams? They are very good looking."
"They're kept for your lordship." "I take them," said he;
"Such elegant flitches are welcome to me."
He breakfasted finely his troop, with delight, –
Dogs, horses, and grooms of the best appetite.
Thus he governed his host in the shape of a guest,
Unbottled his wine, and his daughter caressed.
To breakfast, the huddle of hunters succeeds,
The yelping of dogs and the neighing of steeds,
All cheering and fixing for wonderful deeds;
The horns and the bugles make thundering din;
Much wonders our gardener what it can mean.
The worst is, his garden most wofully fares;
Adieu to its arbours, and borders, and squares;
Adieu to its chiccory, onions, and leeks;
Adieu to whatever good cookery seeks.
Beneath a great cabbage the hare was in bed,
Was started, and shot at, and hastily fled.
Off went the wild chase, with a terrible screech,
And not through a hole, but a horrible breach,
Which some one had made, at the beck of the lord,
Wide through the poor hedge! "Twould have been quite absurd
Should lordship not freely from garden go out,
On horseback, attended by rabble and rout.
Scarce suffered the gard'ner his patience to wince,
Consoling himself – 'Twas the sport of a prince;
While bipeds and quadrupeds served to devour,
And trample, and waste, in the space of an hour,
Far more than a nation of foraging hares
Could possibly do in a hundred of years.
Small princes, this story is true,
When told in relation to you.
In settling your quarrels with kings for your tools,
You prove yourselves losers and eminent fools.
One's native talent from its course
Cannot be turned aside by force;
But poorly apes the country clown
The polished manners of the town.
Their Maker chooses but a few
With power of pleasing to imbue;
Where wisely leave it we, the mass,
Unlike a certain fabled ass,
That thought to gain his master's blessing
By jumping on him and caressing.
"What!" said the donkey in his heart;
"Ought it to be that puppy's part
To lead his useless life
In full companionship
With master and his wife,
While I must bear the whip?
What does the cur a kiss to draw?
Forsooth, he only gives his paw!
If that is all there needs to please,
I'll do the thing myself, with ease."
Possessed with this bright notion, –
His master sitting on his chair,
At leisure in the open air, –
He ambled up, with awkward motion,
And put his talents to the proof;
Upraised his bruised and battered hoof,
And, with an amiable mien,
His master patted on the chin,
The action gracing with a word –
The fondest bray that ever was heard!
O, such caressing was there ever?
Or melody with such a quaver?
"Ho! Martin![6] here! a club, a club bring!"
Out cried the master, sore offended.
So Martin gave the ass a drubbing, –
And so the comedy was ended.
[5] Aesop.
[6] Martin. – La Fontaine has "Martin-baton," a name for a groom or ostler armed
with his cudgel of office, taken from Rabelais.
The weasels live, no more than cats,
On terms of friendship with the rats;
And, were it not that these
Through doors contrive to squeeze
Too narrow for their foes,
The animals long-snouted
Would long ago have routed,
And from the planet scouted
Their race, as I suppose.
One year it did betide,
When they were multiplied,
An army took the field
Of rats, with spear and shield,
Whose crowded ranks led on
A king named Ratapon.
The weasels, too, their banner
Unfurled in warlike manner.
As Fame her trumpet sounds,
The victory balanced well;
Enriched were fallow grounds
Where slaughtered legions fell;
But by said trollop's tattle,
The loss of life in battle
Thinned most the rattish race
In almost every place;
And finally their rout
Was total, spite of stout
Artarpax and Psicarpax,
And valiant Meridarpax,[8]
Who, covered over with dust,
Long time sustained their host
Down sinking on the plain.
Their efforts were in vain;
Fate ruled that final hour,
(Inexorable power!)
And so the captains fled
As well as those they led;
The princes perished all.
The undistinguished small
In certain holes found shelter,
In crowding, helter-skelter;
But the nobility
Could not go in so free,
Who proudly had assumed
Each one a helmet plumed;
We know not, truly, whether
For honour's sake the feather,
Or foes to strike with terror;
But, truly, It was their error.
Nor hole, nor crack, nor crevice
Will let their head-gear in;
While meaner rats in bevies
An easy passage win; –
So that the shafts of fate
Do chiefly hit the great.
A feather in the cap
Is often a great mishap.
An equipage too grand
Comes often to a stand
Within a narrow place.
The small, whatever the case,
With ease slip through a strait,
Where larger folks must wait.
[7] Phaedrus, Book 4. 6.
[8] Names of rats, invented by Homer. – Translator.
It was the custom of the Greeks
For passengers over sea to carry
Both monkeys full of tricks
And funny dogs to make them merry.
A ship, that had such things on deck,
Not far from Athens, went to wreck.
But for the dolphins, all had drowned.
They are a philanthropic fish,
Which fact in Pliny may be found; –
A better voucher who could wish?
They did their best on this occasion.
A monkey even, on their plan
Well nigh attained his own salvation;
A dolphin took him for a man,
And on his dorsal gave him place.
So grave the silly creature's face,
That one might well have set him down
That old musician of renown.[10]
The fish had almost reached the land,
When, as it happened, – what a pity! –
He asked, "Are you from Athens grand?"
"Yes; well they know me in that city.
If ever you have business there,
I'll help you do it, for my kin
The highest offices are in.
My cousin, sir, is now lord mayor."
The dolphin thanked him, with good grace,
Both for himself and all his race,
And asked, "You doubtless know Piraeus,
Where, should we come to town, you'll see us."
"Piraeus? yes, indeed I know;
He was my crony long ago."
The dunce knew not the harbour's name,
And for a man's mistook the same.
The people are by no means few,
Who never went ten miles from home,
Nor know their market-town from Rome,
Yet cackle just as if they knew.
The dolphin laughed, and then began
His rider's form and face to scan,
And found himself about to save
From fishy feasts, beneath the wave,
A mere resemblance of a man.
So, plunging down, he turned to find
Some drowning wight of human kind.
[9] Aesop.
[10] Arion. – Translator. According to Herodotus, 1. 24 (Bonn's ed., p. 9), Arion, the
son of Cyclon of Methymna, and famous lyric poet and musician, having won riches at a
musical contest in Sicily, was voyaging home, when the sailors of his ship determined to
murder him for his treasure. He asked to be allowed to play a tune; and as soon as he had
finished he threw himself into the sea. It was then found that the music had attracted a
number of dolphins round the ship, and one of these took the bard on its back and conveyed
him safely to Taenarus.
A pagan kept a god of wood, –
A sort that never hears,
Though furnished well with ears, –
From which he hoped for wondrous good.
The idol cost the board of three;
So much enriched was he
With vows and offerings vain,
With bullocks garlanded and slain:
No idol ever had, as that,
A kitchen quite so full and fat.
But all this worship at his shrine
Brought not from this same block divine
Inheritance, or hidden mine,
Or luck at play, or any favour.
Nay, more, if any storm whatever
Brewed trouble here or there,
The man was sure to have his share,
And suffer in his purse,
Although the god fared none the worse.
At last, by sheer impatience bold,
The man a crowbar seizes,
His idol breaks in pieces,
And finds it richly stuffed with gold.
"How's this? Have I devoutly treated,"
Says he, "your godship, to be cheated?
Now leave my house, and go your way,
And search for altars where you may.
You're like those natures, dull and gross,
From, which comes nothing but by blows;
The more I gave, the less I got;
I'll now be rich, and you may rot."
[11] Aesop.
A peacock moulted: soon a jay was seen
Bedecked with Argus tail of gold and green,[13]
High strutting, with elated crest,
As much a peacock as the rest.
His trick was recognized and bruited,
His person jeered at, hissed, and hooted.
The peacock gentry flocked together,
And plucked the fool of every feather.
Nay more, when back he sneaked to join his race,
They shut their portals in his face.
There is another sort of jay,
The number of its legs the same,
Which makes of borrowed plumes display,
And plagiary is its name.
But hush! the tribe I'll not offend;
It's not my work their ways to mend.
[12] Aesop; Phaedrus, 1. 3.
[13] Argus tail of gold and green. – According to mythology, Argus, surnamed
Panoptes (or all-seeing), possessed a hundred eyes, some of which were never closed in
sleep. At his death Juno either transformed him into the peacock, or transferred his
hundred eyes to the tail of that, her favourite, bird. "Argus tail of gold and green,"
therefore, means tail endowed with the eyes of Argus.
The first who saw the humpbacked camel
Fled off for life; the next approached with care;
The third with tyrant rope did boldly dare
The desert wanderer to trammel.
Such is the power of use to change
The face of objects new and strange;
Which grow, by looking at, so tame,
They do not even seem the same.
And since this theme is up for our attention,
A certain watchman I will mention,
Who, seeing something far
Away on the ocean,
Could not but speak his notion
That It was a ship of war.
Some minutes more had past, –
A bomb-ketch It was without a sail,
And then a boat, and then a bale,
And floating sticks of wood at last!
Full many things on earth, I wot,
Will claim this tale, – and well they may;
They're something dreadful far away,
But near at hand – they're not.
[14] Aesop.
They to bamboozle are inclined,
Says Merlin,[16] who bamboozled are.
The word, though rather unrefined,
Has yet an energy we ill can spare;
So by its aid I introduce my tale.
A well-fed rat, rotund and hale,
Not knowing either Fast or Lent,
Disporting round a frog-pond went.
A frog approached, and, with a friendly greeting,
Invited him to see her at her home,
And pledged a dinner worth his eating, –
To which the rat was nothing loath to come.
Of words persuasive there was little need:
She spoke, however, of a grateful bath;
Of sports and curious wonders on their path;
Of rarities of flower, and rush, and reed:
One day he would recount with glee
To his assembled progeny
The various beauties of these places,
The customs of the various races,
And laws that sway the realms aquatic,
(She did not mean the hydrostatic!)
One thing alone the rat perplexed, –
He was but moderate as a swimmer.
The frog this matter nicely fixed
By kindly lending him her
Long paw, which with a rush she tied
To his; and off they started, side by side.
Arrived on the lakelet's brink,
There was but little time to think.
The frog leaped in, and almost brought her
Bound guest to land beneath the water.
Perfidious breach of law and right!
She meant to have a supper warm
Out of his sleek and dainty form.
Already did her appetite
Dwell on the morsel with delight.
The gods, in anguish, he invokes;
His faithless hostess rudely mocks;
He struggles up, she struggles down.
A kite, that hovers in the air,
Inspecting everything with care,
Now spies the rat belike to drown,
And, with a rapid wing,
Upbears the wretched thing,
The frog, too, dangling by the string!
The joy of such a double haul
Was to the hungry kite not small.
It gave him all that he could wish –
A double meal of flesh and fish.
The best contrived deceit
Can hurt its own contriver,
And perfidy does often cheat
Its author's purse of every stiver.
[15] Aesop.
[16] Merlin. – This is Merlin, the wizard of the old French novels.
A fable flourished with antiquity
Whose meaning I could never clearly see.
Kind reader, draw the moral if you're able:
I give you here the naked fable.
Fame having bruited that a great commander,
A son of Jove, a certain Alexander,
Resolved to leave nothing free on this our ball,
Had to his footstool gravely summoned all
Men, quadrupeds, and nullipeds, together
With all the bird-republics, every feather, –
The goddess of the hundred mouths, I say,
Thus having spread dismay,
By widely publishing abroad
This mandate of the demigod,
The animals, and all that do obey
Their appetite alone, mistrusted now
That to another sceptre they must bow.
Far in the desert met their various races,
All gathering from their hiding-places.
Discussed was many a notion.
At last, it was resolved, on motion,
To pacify the conquering banner,
By sending homage in, and tribute.
With both the homage and its manner
They charged the monkey, as a glib brute;
And, lest the chap should too much chatter,
In black on white they wrote the matter.
Nothing but the tribute served to fash,
As that must needs be paid in cash.
A prince, who chanced a mine to own,
At last, obliged them with a loan.
The mule and ass, to bear the treasure,
Their service tendered, full of pleasure;
And then the caravan was none the worse,
Assisted by the camel and the horse.
Forthwith proceeded all the four
Behind the new ambassador,
And saw, erelong, within a narrow place,
Monseigneur Lion's quite unwelcome face.
"Well met, and all in time," said he;
"Myself your fellow traveller will be.
I wend my tribute by itself to bear;
And though It's light, I well might spare
The unaccustomed load.
Take each a quarter, if you please,
And I will guard you on the road;
More free and at my ease –
In better plight, you understand,
To fight with any robber band."
A lion to refuse, the fact is,
Is not a very usual practice:
So in he comes, for better and for worse;
Whatever he demands is done,
And, spite of Jove's heroic son,
He fattens freely from the public purse.
While wending on their way,
They found a spot one day,
With waters hemmed, of crystal sheen;
Its carpet, flower-besprinkled green;
Where pastured at their ease
Both flocks of sheep and dainty heifers,
And played the cooling breeze –
The native land of all the zephyrs.
No sooner is the lion there
Than of some sickness he complains.
Says he, "You on your mission fare.
A fever, with its thirst and pains,
Dries up my blood, and bakes my brains;
And I must search some herb,
Its fatal power to curb.
For you, there is no time to waste;
Pay me my money, and make haste."
The treasures were unbound,
And placed on the ground.
Then, with a look which testified
His royal joy, the lion cried,
"My coins, good heavens, have multiplied!
And see the young ones of the gold
As big already as the old!
The increase belongs to me, no doubt;"
And eagerly he took it out!
It was little staid beneath the lid;
The wonder was that any did.
Confounded were the monkey and his suite.
And, dumb with fear, betook them to their way,
And bore complaint to Jove's great son, they say –
Complaint without a reason meet;
For what could he? Though a celestial scion,
He could but fight, as lion versus lion.
When corsairs battle, Turk with Turk,
They're not about their proper work.
[17] The story of this fable has been traced to Gilbert Cousin, in whose
works it figures with the title "De Jovis Ammonis oraculo." Gilbert Cousin was Canon of
Nozeret, and wrote between 1506 and 1569.
The horses have not always been
The humble slaves of men.
When, in the far-off past,
The fare of gentlemen was mast,
And even hats were never felt,
Horse, ass, and mule in forests dwelt.
Nor saw one then, as in these ages,
So many saddles, housings, pillions;
Such splendid equipages,
With golden-lace postilions;
Such harnesses for cattle,
To be consumed in battle;
As one saw not so many feasts,
And people married by the priests.
The horse fell out, within that space,
With the antlered stag, so fleetly made:
He could not catch him in a race,
And so he came to man for aid.
Man first his suppliant bitted;
Then, on his back well seated,
Gave chase with spear, and rested not
Till to the ground the foe he brought.
This done, the honest horse, quite blindly,
Thus thanked his benefactor kindly:
"Dear sir, I'm much obliged to you;
I'll back to savage life. Adieu!"
"O, no," the man replied;
"You'd better here abide;
I know too well your use.
Here, free from all abuse,
Remain a liege to me,
And large your provender shall be."
Alas! good housing or good cheer,
That costs one's liberty, is dear.
The horse his folly now perceived,
But quite too late he grieved.
No grief his fate could alter;
His stall was built, and there he lived,
And died there in his halter.
Ah! wise had he one small offence forgot!
Revenge, however sweet, is dearly bought
By that one good, which gone, all else is nothing.
[18] Phaedrus, 4. 4; Horace (Epistles, Book 1. 10), and
others.
The great are like the maskers of the stage;
Their show deceives the simple of the age.
For all that they appear to be they pass,
With only those whose type's the ass.
The fox, more wary, looks beneath the skin,
And looks on every side, and, when he sees
That all their glory is a semblance thin,
He turns, and saves the hinges of his knees,
With such a speech as once, it's said,
He uttered to a hero's head.
A bust, somewhat colossal in its size,
Attracted crowds of wondering eyes.
The fox admired the sculptor's pains:
"Fine head," said he, "but void of brains!"
The same remark to many a lord applies.
[19] Aesop: Phaedrus, 1. 7 (The Fox and the Tragic Mask).
As went the goat her pendent dugs to fill,
And browse the herbage of a distant hill,
She latched her door, and bid,
With matron care, her kid; –
"My daughter, as you live,
This portal don't undo
To any creature who
This watchword does not give:
"Deuce take the wolf and all his race!""
The wolf was passing near the place
By chance, and heard the words with pleasure,
And laid them up as useful treasure;
And hardly need we mention,
Escaped the goat's attention.
No sooner did he see
The matron off, than he,
With hypocritic tone and face,
Cried out before the place,
"Deuce take the wolf and all his race!"
Not doubting thus to gain admission.
The kid, not void of all suspicion,
Peered through a crack, and cried,
"Show me white paw before
You ask me to undo the door."
The wolf could not, if he had died,
For wolves have no connexion
With paws of that complexion.
So, much surprised, our gormandiser
Retired to fast till he was wiser.
How would the kid have been undone
Had she but trusted to the word
The wolf by chance had overheard!
Two sureties better are than one;
And caution's worth its cost,
Though sometimes seeming lost.
[20] Corrozet; and others.
This wolf another brings to mind,
Who found dame Fortune more unkind,
In that the greedy, pirate sinner,
Was balked of life as well as dinner.
As says our tale, a villager
Dwelt in a by, unguarded place;
There, hungry, watched our pillager
For luck and chance to mend his case.
For there his thievish eyes had seen
All sorts of game go out and in –
Nice sucking calves, and lambs and sheep;
And turkeys by the regiment,
With steps so proud, and necks so bent,
Theyed make a daintier glutton weep.
The thief at length began to tire
Of being gnawed by vain desire.
Just then a child set up a cry:
"Be still," the mother said, "or I
Will throw you to the wolf, you brat!"
"Ha, ha!" thought he, "what talk is that!
The gods be thanked for luck so good!"
And ready at the door he stood,
When soothingly the mother said,
"Now cry no more, my little dear;
That naughty wolf, if he comes here,
Your dear papa shall kill him dead."
"Humph!" cried the veteran mutton-eater.
"Now this, now that! Now hot, now cool!
Is this the way they change their metre?
And do they take me for a fool?
Some day, a nutting in the wood,
That young one yet shall be my food."
But little time has he to dote
On such a feast; the dogs rush out
And seize the caitiff by the throat;
And country ditchers, thick and stout,
With rustic spears and forks of iron,
The hapless animal environ.
"What brought you here, old head?" cried one.
He told it all, as I have done.
"Why, bless my soul!" the frantic mother said, –
"You, villain, eat my little son!
And did I nurse the darling boy,
Your fiendish appetite to cloy?"
With that they knocked him on the head.
His feet and scalp they bore to town,
To grace the seigneur's hall,
Where, pinned against the wall,
This verse completed his renown:
"You honest wolves, believe not all
That mothers say, when children squall!"
[21] Aesop; and others.
A house was built by Socrates
That failed the public taste to please.
Some blamed the inside; some, the out; and all
Agreed that the apartments were too small.
Such rooms for him, the greatest sage of Greece!
"I ask," said he, "no greater bliss
Than real friends to fill even this."
And reason had good Socrates
To think his house too large for these.
A crowd to be your friends will claim,
Till some unhandsome test you bring.
There's nothing plentier than the name;
There's nothing rarer than the thing.
[22] Phaedrus, 3, 9.
All power is feeble with dissension:
For this I quote the Phrygian slave.[24]
If anything I add to his invention,
It is our manners to engrave,
And not from any envious wishes; –
I'm not so foolishly ambitious.
Phaedrus enriches often his story,
In quest – I doubt it not – of glory:
Such thoughts were idle in my breast.
An aged man, near going to his rest,
His gathered sons thus solemnly addressed:
"To break this bunch of arrows you may try;
And, first, the string that binds them I untie."
The eldest, having tried with might and main,
Exclaimed, "This bundle I resign
To muscles sturdier than mine."
The second tried, and bowed himself in vain.
The youngest took them with the like success.
All were obliged their weakness to confess.
Unharmed the arrows passed from son to son;
Of all they did not break a single one.
"Weak fellows!" said their sire, "I now must show
What in the case my feeble strength can do."
They laughed, and thought their father but in joke,
Till, one by one, they saw the arrows broke.
"See, concord's power!" replied the sire; "as long
As you in love agree, you will be strong.
I go, my sons, to join our fathers good;
Now promise me to live as brothers should,
And soothe by this your dying father's fears."
Each strictly promised with a flood of tears.
Their father took them by the hand, and died;
And soon the virtue of their vows was tried.
Their sire had left a large estate
Involved in lawsuits intricate;
Here seized a creditor, and there
A neighbour levied for a share.
At first the trio nobly bore
The brunt of all this legal war.
But short their friendship as It was rare.
Whom blood had joined – and small the wonder! –
The force of interest drove asunder;
And, as is wont in such affairs,
Ambition, envy, were co-heirs.
In parcelling their sire's estate,
They quarrel, quibble, litigate,
Each aiming to supplant the other.
The judge, by turns, condemns each brother.
Their creditors make new assault,
Some pleading error, some default.
The sundered brothers disagree;
For counsel one, have counsels three.
All lose their wealth; and now their sorrows
Bring fresh to mind those broken arrows.
[23] Aesop, Avianus, and others.
[24] Phrygan slave. – Aesop.
That man his Maker can deceive,
Is monstrous folly to believe.
The labyrinthine mazes of the heart
Are open to His eyes in every part.
Whatever one may do, or think, or feel,
From Him no darkness can the thing conceal.
A pagan once, of graceless heart and hollow,
Whose faith in gods, I'm apprehensive,
Was quite as real as expensive.
Consulted, at his shrine, the god Apollo.
"Is what I hold alive, or not?"
Said he, – a sparrow having brought,
Prepared to wring its neck, or let it fly,
As need might be, to give the god the lie.
Apollo saw the trick,
And answered quick,
"Dead or alive, show me your sparrow,
And cease to set for me a trap
Which can but cause yourself mishap.
I see afar, and far I shoot my arrow."
[25] Aesop.
It's use that constitutes possession.
I ask that sort of men, whose passion
It is to get and never spend,
Of all their toil what is the end?
What they enjoy of all their labours
Which do not equally their neighbours?
Throughout this upper mortal strife,
The miser leads a beggar's life.
Old Aesop's man of hidden treasure
May serve the case to demonstrate.
He had a great estate,
But chose a second life to wait
Before he began to taste his pleasure.
This man, whom gold so little blessed,
Was not possessor, but possessed.
His cash he buried under ground,
Where only might his heart be found;
It being, then, his sole delight
To ponder of it day and night,
And consecrate his rusty pelf,
A sacred offering, to himself.
In all his eating, drinking, travel,
Most wondrous short of funds he seemed;
One would have thought he little dreamed
Where lay such sums beneath the gravel.
A ditcher marked his coming to the spot,
So frequent was it,
And thus at last some little inkling got
Of the deposit.
He took it all, and babbled not.
One morning, before the dawn,
Forth had our miser gone
To worship what he loved the best,
When, lo! he found an empty nest!
Alas! what groaning, wailing, crying!
What deep and bitter sighing!
His torment makes him tear
Out by the roots his hair.
A passenger demands why
Such marvellous outcry.
"They've got my gold! it's gone – it's gone!"
"Your gold! pray where?" – 'Beneath this stone."
"Why, man, is this a time of war,
That you should bring your gold so far?
You'd better keep it in your drawer;
And I'll be bound, if once but in it,
You could have got it any minute."
"At any minute! Ah, Heaven knows
That cash comes harder than it goes!
I touched it not." – 'Then have the grace
To explain to me that rueful face,"
Replied the man; "for, if It's true
You touched it not, how plain the case,
That, put the stone back in its place,
And all will be as well for you!"
[26] Aesop, and others.
A stag took refuge from the chase
Among the oxen of a stable,
Who counseled him, as says the fable,
To seek at once some safer place.
"My brothers," said the fugitive,
"Betray me not, and, as I live,
The richest pasture I will show,
That ever was grazed on, high or low;
Your kindness you will not regret,
For well some day I'll pay the debt."
The oxen promised secrecy.
Down crouched the stag, and breathed more free.
At eventide they brought fresh hay,
As was their custom day by day;
And often came the servants near,
As did indeed the overseer,
But with so little thought or care,
That neither horns, nor hide, nor hair
Revealed to them the stag was there.
Already thanked the wild-wood stranger
The oxen for their treatment kind,
And there to wait made up his mind,
Till he might issue free from danger.
Replied an ox that chewed the cud,
"Your case looks fairly in the bud;
But then I fear the reason why
Is, that the man of sharpest eye
Has not yet come his look to take.
I dread his coming, for your sake;
Your boasting may be premature:
Till then, poor stag, you're not secure."
It was but a little while before
The careful master oped the door.
"How's this, my boys?" said he;
"These empty racks will never do.
Go, change this dirty litter too.
More care than this I want to see
Of oxen that belong to me.
Well, Jim, my boy, you're young and stout;
What would it cost to clear these cobwebs out?
And put these yokes, and hames, and traces,
All as they should be, in their places?"
Thus looking round, he came to see
One head he did not usually.
The stag is found; his foes
Deal heavily their blows.
Down sinks he in the strife;
No tears can save his life.
They slay, and dress, and salt the beast,
And cook his flesh in many a feast,
And many a neighbour gets a taste.
As Phaedrus says it, pithily,
The master's is the eye to see:
I add the lover's, as for me.
[27] Phaedrus, 2, 8 (The Stag and the Oxen); and others.
"Depend on yourself alone,"
Has to a common proverb grown.
It's thus confirmed in Aesop's way:
The larks to build their nests are seen
Among the wheat-crops young and green;
That is to say,
What time all things, dame Nature heeding,
Betake themselves to love and breeding –
The monstrous whales and sharks,
Beneath the briny flood,
The tigers in the wood,
And in the fields, the larks.
One she, however, of these last,
Found more than half the spring-time past
Without the taste of spring-time pleasures;
When firmly she set up her will
That she would be a mother still,
And resolutely took her measures; –
First, got herself by Hymen matched;
Then built her nest, laid, sat, and hatched.
All went as well as such things could.
The wheat-crop ripening before the brood
Were strong enough to take their flight,
Aware how perilous their plight,
The lark went out to search for food,
And told her young to listen well,
And keep a constant sentinel.
"The owner of this field," said she,
"Will come, I know, his grain to see.
Hear all he says; we little birds
Must shape our conduct by his words."
No sooner was the lark away,
Than came the owner with his son.
"This wheat is ripe," said he: "now run
And give our friends a call
To bring their sickles all,
And help us, great and small,
Tomorrow, at the break of day."
The lark, returning, found no harm,
Except her nest in wild alarm.
Says one, "We heard the owner say,
Go, give our friends a call
To help, tomorrow, break of day."
Replied the lark, "If that is all,
We need not be in any fear,
But only keep an open ear.
As gay as larks, now eat your victuals. – "
They ate and slept – the great and littles.
The dawn arrives, but not the friends;
The lark soars up, the owner wends
His usual round to view his land.
"This grain," says he, "ought not to stand.
Our friends do wrong; and so does he
Who trusts that friends will friendly be.
My son, go call our kith and kin
To help us get our harvest in."
This second order made
The little larks still more afraid.
"He sent for kindred, mother, by his son;
The work will now, indeed, be done."
"No, darlings; go to sleep;
Our lowly nest we'll keep."
With reason said; for kindred there came none.
Thus, tired of expectation vain,
Once more the owner viewed his grain.
"My son," said he, "we're surely fools
To wait for other people's tools;
As if one might, for love or pelf,
Have friends more faithful than himself!
Engrave this lesson deep, my son.
And know you now what must be done?
We must ourselves our sickles bring,
And, while the larks their matins sing,
Begin the work; and, on this plan,
Get in our harvest as we can."
This plan the lark no sooner knew,
Than, "Now's the time," she said, "my chicks;"
And, taking little time to fix,
Away they flew;
All fluttering, soaring, often grounding,
Decamped without a trumpet sounding.
[28] Aesop (Aulus Gellus); Avianus.
