Thanks to Memory's daughters nine,
Animals have graced my line:
Higher heroes in my story
Might have won me less of glory.
Wolves, in language of the sky,
Talk with dogs throughout my verse;
Beasts with others shrewdly vie,
Representing characters;
Fools in furs not second-hand,
Sages, hoofed or feathered, stand:
Fewer truly are the latter,
More the former – ay, and fatter.
Flourish also in my scene
Tyrants, villains, mountebanks,
Beasts incapable of thanks,
Beasts of rash and reckless pranks,
Beasts of sly and flattering mien;
Troops of liars, too, I believe.
As to men, of every age,
All are liars, says the sage.
Had he writ but of the low,
One could hardly think it so;
But that human mortals, all,
Lie like serpents, great and small,
Had another certified it,
I, for one, should have denied it.
He who lies in Aesop's way,
Or like Homer, minstrel gray,
Is no liar, sooth to say.
Charms that bind us like a dream,
Offspring of their happy art,
Cloaked in fiction, more than seem
Truth to offer to the heart.
Both have left us works which I
Think unworthy ever to die.
Liar call not him who squares
All his ends and aims with theirs;
But from sacred truth to vary,
Like the false depositary,
Is to be, by every rule
Both a liar and a fool.
The story goes:
A man of trade,
In Persia, with his neighbour made
Deposit, as he left the state,
Of iron, say a hundredweight.
Returned, said he, "My iron, neighbour."
"Your iron! you have lost your labour;
I grieve to say it, – 'pon my soul,
A rat has eaten up the whole.
My men were sharply scolded at,
But yet a hole, in spite of that,
Was left, as one is wont to be
In every barn or granary,
By which crept in that cursed rat."
Admiring much the novel thief,
The man affected full belief.
Before long, his faithless neighbour's child
He stole away, – a heavy lad, –
And then to supper bade the dad,
Who thus plead off in accents sad:
"It was but yesterday I had
A boy as fine as ever smiled,
An only son, as dear as life,
The darling of myself and wife.
Alas! we have him now no more,
And every joy with us is over."
Replied the merchant, "Yesternight,
By evening's faint and dusky ray,
I saw a monstrous owl alight,
And bear your darling son away
To yonder tott'ring ruin gray."
"Can I believe you, when you say
An owl bore off: so large a prey?
How could it be?" the father cried;
"The thing is surely quite absurd;
My son with ease had killed the bird."
"The how of it," the man replied,
"Is not my province to decide;
I know I saw your son arise,
Borne through, the air before my eyes.
Why should it seem a strange affair,
Moreover, in a country where
A single rat contrives to eat
A hundred pounds of iron meat,
That owls should be of strength to lift you
A booby boy that weighs but fifty?"
The other plainly saw the trick,
Restored the iron very quick.
And got, with shame as well as joy,
Possession of his kidnapped boy.
The like occurred two travellers between.
One was of those
Who wear a microscope, I believe,
Each side the nose.
Would you believe their tales romantic,
Our Europe, in its monsters, beats
The lands that feel the tropic heats,
Surcharged with all that is gigantic.
This person, feeling free
To use the trope hyperbole,
Had seen a cabbage with his eyes
Exceeding any house in size.
"And I have seen," the other cries,
Resolved to leave his fellow in the lurch,
"A pot that would have held a church.
Why, friend, don't give that doubting look, –
The pot was made your cabbages to cook."
This pot-discovarer was a wit;
The iron-monger, too, was wise.
To such absurd and ultra lies
Their answers were exactly fit.
it were doing honour overmuch,
To reason or dispute with such.
To overbid them is the shortest path,
And less provocative of wrath.
[1] Bidpai.
Two doves once cherished for each other
The love that brother has for brother.
But one, of scenes domestic tiring,
To see the foreign world aspiring,
Was fool enough to undertake
A journey long, over land and lake.
"What plan is this?" the other cried;
"Would quit so soon your brother's side?
This absence is the worst of ills;
Your heart may bear, but me it kills.
Pray, let the dangers, toil, and care,
Of which all travellers tell,
Your courage somewhat quell.
Still, if the season later were –
O wait the zephyrs! – hasten not –
Just now the raven, on his oak,
In hoarser tones than usual spoke.
My heart forebodes the saddest lot, –
The falcons, nets – Alas, it rains!
My brother, are your wants supplied –
Provisions, shelter, pocket-guide,
And all that to health pertains?"
These words occasioned some demur
In our imprudent traveller.
But restless curiosity
Prevailed at last; and so said he, –
"The matter is not worth a sigh;
Three days, at most, will satisfy,
And then, returning, I shall tell
You all the wonders that befell, –
With scenes enchanting and sublime
Shall sweeten all our coming time.
Who sees nothing, has nothing to say.
My travel's course, from day to day,
Will be the source of great delight.
A store of tales I shall relate, –
Say there I lodged at such a date,
And saw there such and such a sight.
You'll think it all occurred to you. – "
On this, both, weeping, bade adieu.
Away the lonely wanderer flew. –
A thunder-cloud began to lower;
He sought, as shelter from the shower,
The only tree that graced the plain,
Whose leaves ill turned the pelting rain.
The sky once more serene above,
On flew our drenched and dripping dove,
And dried his plumage as he could.
Next, on the borders of a wood,
He spied some scattered grains of wheat,
Which one, he thought, might safely eat;
For there another dove he saw. –
He felt the snare around him draw!
This wheat was but a treacherous bait
To lure poor pigeons to their fate.
The snare had been so long in use,
With beak and wings he struggled loose:
Some feathers perished while it stuck;
But, what was worst in point of luck,
A hawk, the cruellest of foes,
Perceived him clearly as he rose,
Off dragging, like a runaway,
A piece of string. The bird of prey
Had bound him, in a moment more,
Much faster than he was before,
But from the clouds an eagle came,
And made the hawk himself his game.
By war of robbers profiting,
The dove for safety plied the wing,
And, lighting on a ruined wall,
Believed his dangers ended all.
A roguish boy had there a sling,
(Age pitiless!
We must confess,)
And, by a most unlucky fling,
Half killed our hapless dove;
Who now, no more in love
With foreign travelling,
And lame in leg and wing,
Straight homeward urged his crippled flight,
Fatigued, but glad, arrived at night,
In truly sad and piteous plight.
The doves rejoined, I leave you all to say,
What pleasure might their pains repay.
Ah, happy lovers, would you roam? –
Pray, let it not be far from home.
To each the other ought to be
A world of beauty ever new;
In each the other ought to see
The whole of what is good and true.
Myself have loved; nor would I then,
For all the wealth of crowned men,
Or arch celestial, paved with gold,
The presence of those woods have sold,
And fields, and banks, and hillocks, which
Were by the joyful steps made rich,
And smiled beneath the charming eyes
Of her who made my heart a prize –
To whom I pledged it, nothing loath,
And sealed the pledge with virgin oath.
Ah, when will time such moments bring again?
To me are sweet and charming objects vain –
My soul forsaking to its restless mood?
O, did my withered heart but dare
To kindle for the bright and good,
Should not I find the charm still there?
Is love, to me, with things that were?
[2] Bidpai. By common consent this fable is ranked among La Fontaine's very
best.
A monkey and a leopard were
The rivals at a country fair.
Each advertised his own attractions.
Said one, "Good sirs, the highest place
My merit knows; for, of his grace,
The king has seen me face to face;
And, judging by his looks and actions,
I gave the best of satisfactions.
When I am dead, it's plain enough,
My skin will make his royal muff.
So richly is it streaked and spotted,
So delicately waved and dotted,
Its various beauty cannot fail to please."
And, thus invited, everybody sees;
But soon they see, and soon depart.
The monkey's show-bill to the mart
His merits thus sets forth the while,
All in his own peculiar style:
"Come, gentlemen, I pray you, come;
In magic arts I am at home.
The whole variety in which
My neighbour boasts himself so rich,
Is to his simple skin confined,
While mine is living in the mind.
Your humble servant, Monsieur Gille,
The son-in-law to Tickleville,
Pope's monkey, and of great renown,
Is now just freshly come to town,
Arrived in three bateaux, express,
Your worships to address;
For he can speak, you understand;
Can dance, and practise sleight-of-hand;
Can jump through hoops, and balance sticks;
In short, can do a thousand tricks;
And all for blancos six – [4]
Not, messieurs, for a sou.
And, if you think the price won't do,
When you have seen, then he'll restore
Each man his money at the door."
The ape was not to reason blind;
For who in wealth of dress can find
Such charms as dwell in wealth of mind?
One meets our ever-new desires,
The other in a moment tires.
Alas! how many lords there are,
Of mighty sway and lofty mien,
Who, like this leopard at the fair,
Show all their talents on the skin!
[3] Aesop; also Avianus.
[4] Blancos six. – The blanc was a French copper coin, six of which were
equivalent in value to something over a penny of the present English money.
God's works are good. This truth to prove
Around the world I need not move;
I do it by the nearest pumpkin.
"This fruit so large, on vine so small,"
Surveying once, exclaimed a bumpkin –
"What could He mean who made us all?
He's left this pumpkin out of place.
If I had ordered in the case,
On that oak it should have hung –
A noble fruit as ever swung
To grace a tree so firm and strong.
Indeed, it was a great mistake,
As this discovery teaches,
That I myself did not partake
His counsels whom my curate preaches.
All things had then in order come;
This acorn, for example,
Not bigger than my thumb,
Had not disgraced a tree so ample.
The more I think, the more I wonder
To see outraged proportion's laws,
And that without the slightest cause;
God surely made an awkward blunder."
With such reflections proudly fraught,
Our sage grew tired of mighty thought,
And threw himself on Nature's lap,
Beneath an oak, – to take his nap.
Plump on his nose, by lucky hap,
An acorn fell: he waked, and in
The matted beard that graced his chin,
He found the cause of such a bruise
As made him different language use.
"O! O!" he cried; "I bleed! I bleed!
And this is what has done the deed!
But, truly, what had been my fate,
Had this had half a pumpkin's weight!
I see that God had reasons good,
And all his works well understood."
Thus home he went in humbler mood.[5]
[5] This fable was much admired by Madame de Sevigne.
A boy who savoured of his school, –
A double rogue and double fool, –
By youth and by the privilege
Which pedants have, by ancient right,
To alter reason, and abridge, –
A neighbour robbed, with fingers light,
Of flowers and fruit. This neighbour had,
Of fruits that make the autumn glad,
The very best – and none but he.
Each season brought, from plant and tree,
To him its tribute; for, in spring,
His was the brightest blossoming.
One day, he saw our hopeful lad
Perched on the finest tree he had,
Not only stuffing down the fruit,
But spoiling, like a Vandal brute,
The buds that play advance-courier
Of plenty in the coming year.
The branches, too, he rudely tore,
And carried things to such a pass,
The owner sent his servant over
To tell the master of his class.
The latter came, and came attended
By all the urchins of his school,
And thus one plunderer's mischief mended
By pouring in an orchard-full.
It seems the pedant was intent
On making public punishment,
To teach his boys the force of law,
And strike their roguish hearts with awe.
The use of which he first must show
From Virgil and from Cicero,
And many other ancients noted,
From whom, in their own tongues, he quoted.
So long, indeed, his lecture lasted,
While not a single urchin fasted,
That, before its close, their thievish crimes
Were multiplied a hundred times.
I hate all eloquence and reason
Expended plainly out of season.
Of all the beasts that earth have cursed
While they have fed on't,
The school-boy strikes me as the worst –
Except the pedant.
The better of these neighbours two
For me, I'm sure, would never do.
6. The Sculptor and the Statue Of Jupiter
A block of marble was so fine,
To buy it did a sculptor hasten.
"What shall my chisel, now It's mine –
A god, a table, or a basin?"
"A god," said he, "the thing shall be;
I'll arm it, too, with thunder.
Let people quake, and bow the knee
With reverential wonder."
So well the cunning artist wrought
All things within a mortal's reach,
That soon the marble wanted nothing
Of being Jupiter, but speech.
Indeed, the man whose skill did make
Had scarcely laid his chisel down,
Before himself began to quake,
And fear his manufacture's frown.
And even this excess of faith
The poet once scarce fell behind,
The hatred fearing, and the wrath,
Of gods the product of his mind.
This trait we see in infancy
Between the baby and its doll,
Of wax or china, it may be –
A pocket stuffed, or folded shawl.
Imagination rules the heart:
And here we find the fountain head
From whence the pagan errors start,
That over the teeming nations spread.
With violent and flaming zeal,
Each takes his own chimera's part;
Pygmalion[6] does a passion feel
For Venus chiseled by his art.
All men, as far as in them lies,
Create realities of dreams.
To truth our nature proves but ice;
To falsehood, fire it seems.
[6] Pygmalion. – The poet here takes an erroneous view of the story
of Pygmalion. That sculptor fell in love with his statue of the nymph Galatea, to which
Venus gave life at his request. See Ovid, Metam. Book 10.
A mouse once from an owl's beak fell;
I had not have picked it up, I wis;
A Brahmin did it: very well;
Each country has its prejudice.
The mouse, indeed, was sadly bruised.
Although, as neighbours, we are used
To be more kind to many others,
The Brahmins treat the mice as brothers.
The notion haunts their heads, that when
The soul goes forth from dying men,
It enters worm, or bird, or beast,
As Providence or Fate is pleased;
And on this mystery rests their law,
Which from Pythagoras they're said to draw.
And hence the Brahmin kindly prayed
To one who knew the wizard's trade,
To give the creature, wounded sore,
The form in which it lodged before.
Forthwith the mouse became a maid,
Of years about fifteen;
A lovelier was never seen.
She would have waked, I believe,
In Priam's son, a fiercer flame
Than did the beauteous Grecian dame.
Surprised at such a novelty,
The Brahmin to the damsel cried,
"Your choice is free;
For every he
Will seek you for his bride."
Said she, "Am I to have a voice?
The strongest, then, shall be my choice."
"O sun!" the Brahmin cried, "this maid is thine,
And you shall be a son-in-law of mine."
"No," said the sun, "this murky cloud, it seems,
In strength exceeds me, since he hides my beams;
And him I counsel you to take."
Again the reverend Brahmin spake –
"O cloud, on-flying with your stores of water,
Pray wast you born to wed my daughter?"
"Ah, no, alas! for, you may see,
The wind is far too strong for me.
My claims with Boreas' to compare,
I must confess, I do not dare."
"O wind," then cried the Brahmin, vexed,
And wondering what would hinder next, –
"Approach, and, with your sweetest air,
Embrace – possess – the fairest fair."
The wind, enraptured, there blew; –
A mountain stopped him as he flew,
To him now passed the tennis-ball,
And from him to a creature small.
Said he, "I had wed the maid, but that
I have had a quarrel with the rat.
A fool were I to take the bride
From one so sure to pierce my side."
The rat! It thrilled the damsel's ear;
To name at once seemed sweet and dear.
The rat! It was one of Cupid's blows;
The like full many a maiden knows;
But all of this beneath the rose.
One smacks ever of the place
Where first he showed the world his face.
Thus far the fable's clear as light;
But, if we take a nearer sight,
There lurks within its drapery
Somewhat of graceless sophistry;
For who, that worships even the glorious sun,
Would not prefer to wed some cooler one?
And does a flea's exceed a giant's might,
Because the former can the latter bite?
And, by the rule of strength, the rat
Had sent his bride to wed the cat;
From cat to dog, and onward still
To wolf or tiger, if you will:
Indeed, the fabulist might run
A circle backward to the sun. –
But to the change the tale supposes, –
In learned phrase, metempsychosis.
The very thing the wizard did
Its falsity exposes –
If that indeed were ever hid.
According to the Brahmin's plan,
The proud aspiring soul of man,
And souls that dwell in humbler forms
Of rats and mice, and even worms,
All issue from a common source,
And, hence, they are the same of course. –
Unequal but by accident
Of organ and of tenement,
They use one pair of legs, or two,
Or even with none contrive to do,
As tyrant matter binds them to.
Why, then, could not so fine a frame
Constrain its heavenly guest
To wed the solar flame?
A rat her love possessed.
In all respects, compared and weighed,
The souls of men and souls of mice
Quite different are made, –
Unlike in sort as well as size.
Each fits and fills its destined part
As Heaven does well provide;
Nor witch, nor fiend, nor magic art,
Can set their laws aside.
[7] Bidpai.
Of fools come never in the reach:
No rule can I more wisely teach.
Nor can there be a better one
Than this, – distempered heads to shun.
We often see them, high and low.
They tickle even the royal ear,
As, privileged and free from fear,
They hurl about them joke and jeer,
At pompous lord or silly beau.
A fool, in town, did wisdom cry;
The people, eager, flocked to buy.
Each for his money got,
Paid promptly on the spot,
Besides a box on the head,
Two fathoms' length of thread.
The most were vexed – but quite in vain
The public only mocked their pain.
The wiser they who nothing said,
But pocketed the box and thread.
To search the meaning of the thing
Would only laughs and hisses bring.
Has reason ever guaranteed
The wit of fools in speech or deed?
It's said of brainless heads in France,
The cause of what they do is chance.
One dupe, however, needs must know
What meant the thread, and what the blow;
So asked a sage, to make it sure.
"They're both hieroglyphics pure,"
The sage replied without delay;
"All people well advised will stay
From fools this fibre's length away,
Or get – I hold it sure as fate –
The other symbol on the pate.
So far from cheating you of gold,
The fool this wisdom fairly sold."
[8] Abstemius.
Two pilgrims on the sand espied
An oyster thrown up by the tide.
In hope, both swallowed ocean's fruit;
But before the fact there came dispute.
While one stooped down to take the prey,
The other pushed him quite away.
Said he, "'Twere rather meet
To settle which shall eat.
Why, he who first the oyster saw
Should be its eater, by the law;
The other should but see him do it."
Replied his mate, "If thus you view it,
Thank God the lucky eye is mine."
"But I have an eye not worse than thine,"
The other cried, "and will be cursed,
If, too, I didn't see it first."
"You saw it, did you? Grant it true,
I saw it then, and felt it too."
Amidst this sweet affair,
Arrived a person very big,
Ycleped Sir Nincom Periwig.[9]
They made him judge, – to set the matter square.
Sir Nincom, with a solemn face,
Took up the oyster and the case:
In opening both, the first he swallowed,
And, in due time, his judgment followed.
"Attend: the court awards you each a shell
Cost free; depart in peace, and use them well."
Foot up the cost of suits at law,
The leavings reckon and awards,
The cash you'll see Sir Nincom draw,
And leave the parties – purse and cards.[10]
[9] Sir Nincom Periwig. – The name in La Fontaine is Perrin Dandin,
which is also that of the peasant judge in Rabelais (Book 3, ch. 41), and the judge in
Racine's "Plaideurs" (produced in 1668). Moliere's "George Dandin" (produced 1664), may also
have helped La Fontaine to the name. The last-mentioned character is a farmer, but, like the
others, he is a species of incapable; and the word dandin in the old French dictionaries is
given as signifying inaptness or incapacity.
[10] The oyster and lawyer story is also treated in Fable 21, Book 1. (The Hornet and
the Bees).
A troutling, some time since,[12]
Endeavoured vainly to convince
A hungry fisherman
Of his unfitness for the frying-pan.
That controversy made it plain
That letting go a good secure,
In hope of future gain,
Is but imprudence pure.
The fisherman had reason good –
The troutling did the best he could –
Both argued for their lives.
Now, if my present purpose thrives,
I'll prop my former proposition
By building on a small addition.
A certain wolf, in point of wit
The prudent fisher's opposite,
A dog once finding far astray,
Prepared to take him as his prey.
The dog his leanness pled;
"Your lordship, sure," he said,
"Cannot be very eager
To eat a dog so meagre.
To wait a little do not grudge:
The wedding of my master's only daughter
Will cause of fatted calves and fowls a slaughter;
And then, as you yourself can judge,
I cannot help becoming fatter."
The wolf, believing, waived the matter,
And so, some days therefrom,
Returned with sole design to see
If fat enough his dog might be.
The rogue was now at home:
He saw the hunter through the fence.
"My friend," said he, "please wait;
I'll be with you a moment from now,
And fetch our porter of the gate."
This porter was a dog immense,
That left to wolves no future tense.
Suspicion gave our wolf a jog, –
It might not be so safely tampered.
"My service to your porter dog,"
Was his reply, as off he scampered.
His legs proved better than his head,
And saved him life to learn his trade.
[11] Aesop.
[12] A troutling. – See Book 5, Fable 3. – Translator.
Look where we will throughout creation,
We look in vain for moderation.
There is a certain golden mean,
Which Nature's sovereign Lord, I believe,
Designed the path of all forever.
Does one pursue it? Never.
Even things which by their nature bless,
Are turned to curses by excess.
The grain, best gift of Ceres fair,
Green waving in the genial air,
By overgrowth exhausts the soil;
By superfluity of leaves
Defrauds the treasure of its sheaves,
And mocks the busy farmer's toil.
Not less redundant is the tree,
So sweet a thing is luxury.
The grain within due bounds to keep,
Their Maker licenses the sheep
The leaves excessive to retrench.
In troops they spread across the plain,
And, nibbling down the hapless grain,
Contrive to spoil it, root and branch.
So, then, with, licence from on high,
The wolves are sent on sheep to prey;
The whole the greedy gluttons slay;
Or, if they don't, they try.
Next, men are sent on wolves to take
The vengeance now condign:
In turn the same abuse they make
Of this behest divine.
Of animals, the human kind
Are to excess the most inclined.
On low and high we make the charge, –
Indeed, on the race at large.
There lives not the soul select
That sins not in this respect.
Of "Nothing too much," the fact is,
All preach the truth, – none practise.
[13] Abstemius.
From bowers of gods the bees came down to man.
On Mount Hymettus,[15] first, they say,
They made their home, and stored away
The treasures which the zephyrs fan.
When men had robbed these daughters of the sky,
And left their palaces of nectar dry, –
Or, as in French the thing's explained
When hives were of their honey drained –
The spoilers "gan the wax to handle,
And fashioned from it many a candle.
Of these, one, seeing clay, made brick by fire,
Remain uninjured by the teeth of time,
Was kindled into great desire
For immortality sublime.
And so this new Empedocles[16]
On the blazing pile one sees,
Self-doomed by purest folly
To fate so melancholy.
The candle lacked philosophy:
All things are made diverse to be.
To wander from our destined tracks –
There cannot be a vainer wish;
But this Empedocles of wax,
That melted in the chafing-dish,
Was truly not a greater fool
Than he of whom we read at school.
[14] Abstemius.
[15] Mount Hymettus. – This was the mountain from where the Greeks got fine
honey.
[16] Empedocles. – A Pythagorean philosopher who asserted that he had been,
before becoming a man, a girl, a boy, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He is further credited
with the vanity of wishing to be thought a god, and hence of throwing himself into Mount
Etna to conceal his death. Unfortunately for the success of this scheme, says one story, he
convicted himself of suicide by inadvertently leaving his slippers at the foot of the
volcano.
How danger would the gods enrich,
If we the vows remembered which
It drives us to! But, danger past,
Kind Providence is paid the last.
No earthly debt is treated so.
"Now, Jove," the wretch exclaims, "will wait;
He sends no sheriff to one's gate,
Like creditors below;"
But, let me ask the dolt,
What means the thunderbolt?
A passenger, endangered by the sea,
Had vowed a hundred oxen good
To him who quelled old Terra's brood.
He had not one: as well might he
Have vowed a hundred elephants.
Arrived on shore, his good intents
Were dwindled to the smoke which rose
An offering merely for the nose,
From half a dozen beefless bones.
"Great Jove," said he, "behold my vow!
The fumes of beef you breathest now
Are all your godship ever owns:
From debt I therefore stand acquitted."
With seeming smile, the god submitted,
But not long after caught him well,
By sending him a dream, to tell
Of treasure hid. Off ran the liar,
As if to quench a house on fire,
And on a band of robbers fell.
As but a crown he had that day,
He promised them of sterling gold
A hundred talents truly told;
Directing where concealed they lay,
In such a village on their way.
The rogues so much the tale suspected,
Said one, "If we should suffer you to,
You'd cheaply get us all detected;
Go, then, and bear your gold to Pluto."
[17] Aesop.
The cat and fox, when saints were all the rage,
Together went on pilgrimage.
Arch hypocrites and swindlers, they,
By sleight of face and sleight of paw,
Regardless both of right and law,
Contrived expenses to repay,
By eating many a fowl and cheese,
And other tricks as bad as these.
Disputing served them to beguile
The road of many a weary mile.
Disputing! but for this resort,
The world would go to sleep, in short.
Our pilgrims, as a thing of course,
Disputed till their throats were hoarse.
Then, dropping to a lower tone,
They talked of this, and talked of that,
Till Renard whispered to the cat,
"You think yourself a knowing one:
How many cunning tricks have you?
For I have a hundred, old and new,
All ready in my haversack."
The cat replied, "I do not lack,
Though with but one provided;
And, truth to honour, for that matter,
I hold it than a thousand better."
In fresh dispute they sided;
And loudly were they at it, when
Approached a mob of dogs and men.
"Now," said the cat, "your tricks ransack,
And put your cunning brains to rack,
One life to save; I'll show you mine –
A trick, you see, for saving nine."
With that, she climbed a lofty pine.
The fox his hundred ruses tried,
And yet no safety found.
A hundred times he falsified
The nose of every hound. –
Was here, and there, and everywhere,
Above, and under ground;
But yet to stop he did not dare,
Pent in a hole, it was no joke,
To meet the terriers or the smoke.
So, leaping into upper air,
He met two dogs, that choked him there.
Expedients may be too many,
Consuming time to choose and try.
On one, but that as good as any,
It's best in danger to rely.
15. The Husband, the Wife, and the Thief [18]
A man that loved, – and loved his wife, –
Still led an almost joyless life.
No tender look, nor gracious word,
Nor smile, that, coming from a bride,
Its object would have deified,
Ever told her doting lord
The love with which he burned
Was in its kind returned.
Still unrepining at his lot,
This man, thus tied in Hymen's knot,
Thanked God for all the good he got.
But why? If love does fail to season
Whatever pleasures Hymen gives,
I'm sure I cannot see the reason
Why one for him the happier lives.
However, since his wife
Had never caressed him in her life,
He made complaint of it one night.
The entrance of a thief
Cut short his tale of grief,
And gave the lady such a fright,
She shrunk from dreaded harms
Within her husband's arms.
"Good thief," cried he,
"This joy so sweet, I owe to you:
Now take, as your reward,
Of all that owns me lord,
Whatever suits you save my spouse;
Ay, if you pleasest, take the house."
As thieves are not remarkably
Overstocked with modesty,
This fellow made quite free.
From this account it does appear,
The passions all are ruled by fear.
Aversion may be conquered by it,
And even love may not defy it.
But still some cases there have been
Where love has ruled the roast, I believe.
That lover, witness, highly bred,
Who burnt his house above his head,
And all to clasp a certain dame,
And bear her harmless through the flame.
This transport through the fire,
I own, I much admire;
And for a Spanish soul, reputed coolish,
I think it grander even than It was foolish.[19]
[18] Bidpai.
[19] 'Twas foolish. – La Fontaine here refers to the adventure of the Spanish
Count Villa Medina with Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip 4. of Spain. The former, having
invited the Spanish court to a splendid entertainment in his palace, had it set on fire,
that he might personally rescue the said lady from its flames. – Translator.
A man whose credit failed, and what was worse,
Who lodged the devil in his purse, –
That is to say, lodged nothing there, –
By self-suspension in the air
Concluded his accounts to square,
Since, should he not, he understood,
From various tokens, famine would –
A death for which no mortal wight
Had ever any appetite.
A ruin, crowned with ivy green,
Was of his tragedy the scene.
His hangman's noose he duly tied,
And then to drive a nail he tried; –
But by his blows the wall gave way,
Now tremulous and old,
Disclosing to the light of day
A sum of hidden gold.
He clutched it up, and left Despair
To struggle with his halter there.
Nor did the much delighted man
Even stop to count it as he ran.
But, while he went, the owner came,
Who loved it with a secret flame,
Too much indeed for kissing, –
And found his money – missing!
"O Heavens!" he cried, "shall I
Such riches lose, and still not die?
Shall I not hang? – as I, in fact,
Might justly do if cord I lacked;
But now, without expense, I can;
This cord here only lacks a man."
The saving was no saving clause;
It suffered not his heart to falter,
Till it reached his final pause
As full possessor of the halter, –
It's thus the miser often grieves:
Whoever the benefit receives
Of what he owns, he never must –
Mere treasurer for thieves,
Or relatives, or dust.
But what say we about the trade
In this affair by Fortune made?
Why, what but that it was just like her!
In freaks like this delights she.
The shorter any turn may be,
The better it is sure to strike her.
It fills that goddess full of glee
A self-suspended man to see;
And that it does especially,
When made so unexpectedly.
[20] The story of this fable has been traced to the Epigrams of Ausonius who
was born at Bordeaux, and lived in the fourth century.
Sly Bertrand and Ratto in company sat,
(The one was a monkey, the other a cat,)
Co-servants and lodgers:
More mischievous codgers
Never messed from a platter, since platters were flat.
Was anything wrong in the house or about it,
The neighbours were blameless, – no mortal could doubt it;
For Bertrand was thievish, and Ratto so nice,
More attentive to cheese than he was to the mice.
One day the two plunderers sat by the fire,
Where chestnuts were roasting, with looks of desire.
To steal them would be a right noble affair.
A double inducement our heroes drew there –
"Twould benefit them, could they swallow their fill,
And then "twould occasion to somebody ill.
Said Bertrand to Ratto, "My brother, today
Exhibit your powers in a masterly way,
And take me these chestnuts, I pray.
Which were I but otherwise fitted
(As I am ingeniously witted)
For pulling things out of the flame,
Would stand but a pitiful game."
"It's done," replied Ratto, all prompt to obey;
And thrust out his paw in a delicate way.
First giving the ashes a scratch,
He opened the coveted batch;
Then lightly and quickly impinging,
He drew out, in spite of the singeing,
One after another, the chestnuts at last, –
While Bertrand contrived to devour them as fast.
A servant girl enters. Adieu to the fun.
Our Ratto was hardly contented, says one. –
No more are the princes, by flattery paid
For furnishing help in a different trade,
And burning their fingers to bring
More power to some mightier king.[21]
[21] For Madame de Sevigne's opinion of this fable, see the Translator's
Preface.
A noted thief, the kite,
Had set a neighbourhood in fright,
And raised the clamorous noise
Of all the village boys,
When, by misfortune, – sad to say, –
A nightingale fell in his way.
Spring's herald begged him not to eat
A bird for music – not for meat.
"O spare!" cried she, "and I'll relate
"The crime of Tereus and his fate." –
"What's Tereus?[23] Is it food for kites?" –
"No, but a king, of female rights
The villain spoiler, whom I taught
A lesson with repentance fraught;
And, should it please you not to kill,
My song about his fall
Your very heart shall thrill,
As it, indeed, does all." –
Replied the kite, a "pretty thing!
When I am faint and famishing,
To let you go, and hear you sing?" –
"Ah, but I entertain the king!" –
"Well, when he takes you, let him hear
Your tale, full wonderful, no doubt;
For me, a kite, I'll go without."
An empty stomach has no ear.[24]
[22] Abstemius; also Aesop.
[23] What's Tereus? – See story of Tereus Philomela and Progne, in Ovid's
Metamorphoses. – See also Fable XV., Book 3, and Note.
[24] An empty stomach has no ear. – Cato the Censor said in one of his speeches
to the Romans, who were clamouring for a distribution of corn, "It is a difficult task, my
fellow-citizens, to speak to the belly, because it has no ears." – Plutarch's Life of
Cato (Langhorne's ed.). "The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fair
words." – Rabelais, Book 4, ch. 63.
"What! shall I lose them one by one,
This stupid coward throng?
And never shall the wolf have done?
They were at least a thousand strong,
But still they've let poor Robin[26] fall a prey!
Ah, woe's the day!
Poor Robin Wether lying dead!
He followed for a bit of bread
His master through the crowded city,
And would have followed, had he led,
Around the world. O! what a pity!
My pipe, and even step, he knew;
To meet me when I came, he flew;
In hedge-row shade we napped together;
Alas, alas, my Robin Wether!"
When Willy thus had duly said
His eulogy on the dead
And to everlasting fame
Consigned poor Robin Wether's name,
He then harangued the flock at large,
From proud old chieftain rams
Down to the smallest lambs,
Addressing them this weighty charge, –
Against the wolf, as one, to stand
In firm, united, fearless band,
By which they might expel him from their land.
On their faith, they would not flinch,
They promised him, a single inch.
"We'll choke," said they, "the murderous glutton
Who robbed of us of our Robin Mutton."
Their lives they pledged against the beast,
And Willy gave them all a feast.
But evil Fate, than Phoebus faster,
Before night had brought a new disaster:
A wolf there came. By nature's law,
The total flock were prompt to run;
And yet It was not the wolf they saw,
But shadow of him from the setting sun.
Harangue a craven soldiery,
What heroes they will seem to be!
But let them snuff the smoke of battle,
Or even hear the ramrods rattle,
Adieu to all their spunk and mettle:
Your own example will be vain,
And exhortations, to retain
The timid cattle.
[25] Abstemius.
[26] Robin. – Rabelais, in his Pantagruel, Book 4, ch. 4, has Robin,
Robin Mouton, etc.
