EDITED BY F.C. TILNEY
PREFACE
If deep wisdom, gentle satire, polite cynicism, and, above all, irresistible humour are qualities which make a book attractive then La Fontaine's Fables should be in the hands of all. Their charm is two-fold; for whilst they induce pleasurable reflection in the reader they delight him by the gaiety of their subject matter.
Notwithstanding the fact that the spell of La Fontaine's verse necessarily disappears when another tongue is employed, his English translators, both Elizur Wright and Walter Thornbury, have courageously attempted to do him justice in prosody. In this little book no such effort has been made, chiefly for the reason that, for any but the unusually gifted, to snatch at rhythm and rhyme is often to let drop the apt and ready word as Æsop's mastiff dropped his dinner. But there is a further excuse for the present writer. Verse has little attraction for children unless it jingles merrily, and that is a thing as impossible as it is undesirable where the claims of a philosophic original make restrictions. Since the spirit is more likely to survive if the letter is not exacting, it is difficult to see why custom looks askance upon prose versions of poetry. But this little book may escape such censure on the ground of its being but a selection from the complete Fables of La Fontaine. It presents only those of which the great fabulist was himself the originator. A selection of some sort being imperative there seemed to be a simple and easy choice in the condition of absolute originality; particularly as the older fables are given in another volume of this series.
This translation (in which I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of my friend Mrs. A.H. Beddoe) is neither "free" nor literal. It sometimes amplifies a thought, much as a musician might amplify the harmonies upon a master's figured bass. But even this is rarely done, and then only with a view to the youthful reader's pleasure and profit. With that view, further, the social and political introductions to the fables have been omitted, as well as the scientific discourses and the allusions to the unfortunate wars of Louis XIV. and other historical matters, all of which would have neither meaning nor interest but for "grown-ups" of a certain class.
F.C. Tilney.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| The Two Mules | [13] |
| The Hare and the Partridge | [15] |
| The Gardener and His Landlord | [17] |
| The Man and His Image | [20] |
| The Animals Sick of the Plague | [22] |
| The Unhappily Married Man | [25] |
| The Rat retired from the World | [27] |
| The Maiden | [29] |
| The Wishes | [31] |
| The Dairy-Woman and the Pail of Milk | [34] |
| The Priest and the Corpse | [36] |
| The Man Who ran after Fortune and the Man who waited for Her in His Bed | [38] |
| An Animal in the Moon | [42] |
| The Fortune-Tellers | [44] |
| The Cobbler and the Financier | [47] |
| The Power of Fable | [50] |
| The Dog Who carried His Master's Dinner | [52] |
| Thyrsis and Amaranth | [54] |
| The Rat and the Elephant | [56] |
| The Horoscope | [57] |
| Jupiter and the Thunderbolts | [60] |
| Education | [62] |
| Democritus and the People of Abdera | [64] |
| The Acorn and the Pumpkin | [67] |
| The Schoolboy, the Pedant, and the Owner of a Garden | [69] |
| The Sculptor and the Statue of Jupiter | [71] |
| The Oyster and the Pleaders | [73] |
| The Cat and the Fox | [75] |
| The Monkey and the Cat | [77] |
| The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg | [79] |
| The Dog with His Ears Cropped | [86] |
| The Lioness and the She-Bear | [88] |
| The Rabbits | [90] |
| The Gods wishing to Instruct a Son of Jupiter | [93] |
| The Lion, the Monkey, and the Two Asses | [95] |
| The Wolf and the Fox in the Well | [98] |
| The Mice and the Screech-Owl | [100] |
| The Companions of Ulysses | [102] |
| The Quarrel between the Dogs and the Cats and between the Cats and the Mice | [106] |
| The Wolf and the Fox | [109] |
| Love and Folly | [111] |
| The Forest and the Woodcutter | [113] |
| The Fox and the Young Turkeys | [115] |
| The Ape | [117] |
| The Scythian Philosopher | [118] |
| The Elephant and Jupiter's Ape | [120] |
| The League of Rats | [122] |
| The Arbiter, the Hospitaller, and the Hermit | [124] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| The Heart of Thyrsis leapt | [Frontispiece] | |
| "You boasted of being so Swift" | Facing page | [14] |
| Over toppled the Milk | " | [35] |
| The Garret was still a Sibyl's Den | " | [46] |
| Deliberately swallowed the Oyster | " | [74] |
| "Why cannot You be Silent also?" | " | [88] |
| Descended by His greater Weight | " | [98] |
| A Guide for the Footsteps of Love | " | [111] |
The poet Jean de la Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry on July 8, 1621. He was a kindly, merry, and generous man and much beloved.
His fables were written in verse and were published in three collections at different times of his life. Many were new versions of existing fables; but those of his later years were more often original inventions.
All in this book are of La Fontaine's own invention, although several have since appeared in collections of Æsop's fables without the acknowledgment that is La Fontaine's due.
He died on April 13, 1695, at the age of seventy-three.
