Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes

by Jean de La Fontaine

No flowery path to glory leads.
This truth no better voucher needs
Than Hercules, of mighty deeds.
Few demigods, the tomes of fable
Reveal to us as being able
Such weight of task-work to endure:
In history, I find still fewer.
One such, however, here behold--
A knight by talisman made bold,
Within the regions of romance,
To seek adventures with the lance.
There rode a comrade at his ride,
And as they rode they both espied
This writing on a post:--
"Wouldst see, sir valiant knight,
A thing whereof the sight
No errant yet can boast?
Thou hast this torrent but to ford,
And, lifting up, alone,
The elephant of stone
Upon its margin shored,
Upbear it to the mountain's brow,
Round which, aloft before thee now,
The misty chaplets wreathe--
Not stopping once to breathe."
One knight, whose nostrils bled,
Betokening courage fled,
Cried out, 'What if that current's sweep
Not only rapid be, but deep!
And grant it cross'd,--pray, why encumber
One's arms with that unwieldy lumber,
An elephant of stone?
Perhaps the artist may have done
His work in such a way, that one
Might lug it twice its length;
But then to reach yon mountain top,
And that without a breathing stop,
Were surely past a mortal's strength--
Unless, indeed, it be no bigger
Than some wee, pigmy, dwarfish figure,
Which one would head a cane withal;--
And if to this the case should fall,
The adventurer's honour would be small!
This posting seems to me a trap,
Or riddle for some greenish chap;
I therefore leave the whole to you.'
The doubtful reasoner onward hies.
With heart resolved, in spite of eyes,
The other boldly dashes through;
Nor depth of flood nor force
Can stop his onward course.
He finds the elephant of stone;
He lifts it all alone;
Without a breathing stop,
He bears it to the top
Of that steep mount, and seeth there
A high-wall'd city, great and fair.
Out-cried the elephant--and hush'd;
But forth in arms the people rush'd.
A knight less bold had surely fled;
But he, so far from turning back,
His course right onward sped,
Resolved himself to make attack,
And die but with the bravest dead.
Amazed was he to hear that band
Proclaim him monarch of their land,
And welcome him, in place of one
Whose death had left a vacant throne!
In sooth, he lent a gracious ear,
Meanwhile expressing modest fear,
Lest such a load of royal care
Should be too great for him to bear.
And so, exactly, Sixtus[[22]] said,
When first the pope's tiara press'd his head;
(Though, is it such a grievous thing
To be a pope, or be a king?)
But days were few before they read it,
That with but little truth he said it.
Blind Fortune follows daring blind.
Oft executes the wisest man,
Ere yet the wisdom of his mind
Is task'd his means or end to scan.

[[21]] Bidpaii; also in Lokman.
[[22]] Sixtus.--Pope Sixtus V., who simulated decrepitude to get elected to the Papal chair, and when elected threw off all disguise and ruled despotically.

[XV].--THE RABBITS.[[23]]

An Address To The Duke De La Rochefoucauld.[[24]]

While watching man in all his phases,
And seeing that, in many cases,
He acts just like the brute creation,--
I've thought the lord of all these races
Of no less failings show'd the traces
Than do his lieges in relation;
And that, in making it, Dame Nature
Hath put a spice in every creature
From off the self-same spirit-stuff--
Not from the immaterial,
But what we call ethereal,
Refined from matter rough.
An illustration please to hear.
Just on the still frontier
Of either day or night,--
Or when the lord of light
Reclines his radiant head
Upon his watery bed,
Or when he dons the gear,
To drive a new career,--
While yet with doubtful sway
The hour is ruled 'twixt night and day,--
Some border forest-tree I climb;
And, acting Jove, from height sublime
My fatal bolt at will directing,
I kill some rabbit unsuspecting.
The rest that frolick'd on the heath,
Or browsed the thyme with dainty teeth,
With open eye and watchful ear,
Behold, all scampering from beneath,
Instinct with mortal fear.
All, frighten'd simply by the sound,
Hie to their city underground.
But soon the danger is forgot,
And just as soon the fear lives not:
The rabbits, gayer than before,
I see beneath my hand once more!
Are not mankind well pictured here?
By storms asunder driven,
They scarcely reach their haven,
And cast their anchor, ere
They tempt the same dread shocks
Of tempests, waves, and rocks.
True rabbits, back they frisk
To meet the self-same risk!
I add another common case.
When dogs pass through a place
Beyond their customary bounds,
And meet with others, curs or hounds,
Imagine what a holiday!
The native dogs, whose interests centre
In one great organ, term'd the venter,
The strangers rush at, bite, and bay;
With cynic pertness tease and worry,
And chase them off their territory.
So, too, do men. Wealth, grandeur, glory,
To men of office or profession,
Of every sort, in every nation,
As tempting are, and sweet,
As is to dogs the refuse meat.
With us, it is a general fact,
One sees the latest-come attack'd,
And plunder'd to the skin.
Coquettes and authors we may view,
As samples of the sin;
For woe to belle or writer new!
The fewer eaters round the cake,
The fewer players for the stake,
The surer each one's self to take.
A hundred facts my truth might test;
But shortest works are always best.
In this I but pursue the chart
Laid down by masters of the art;
And, on the best of themes, I hold,
The truth should never all be told.
Hence, here my sermon ought to close.
O thou, to whom my fable owes
Whate'er it has of solid worth,--
Who, great by modesty as well as birth,
Hast ever counted praise a pain,--
Whose leave I could so ill obtain
That here your name, receiving homage,
Should save from every sort of damage
My slender works--which name, well known
To nations, and to ancient Time,
All France delights to own;
Herself more rich in names sublime
Than any other earthly clime;--
Permit me here the world to teach
That you have given my simple rhyme
The text from which it dares to preach.

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

[XVI].--THE MERCHANT, THE NOBLE, THE SHEPHERD, AND THE KING'S SON.[[25]]

Four voyagers to parts unknown,
On shore, not far from naked, thrown
By furious waves,--a merchant, now undone,
A noble, shepherd, and a monarch's son,--
Brought to the lot of Belisarius,[[26]]
Their wants supplied on alms precarious.
To tell what fates, and winds, and weather,
Had brought these mortals all together,
Though from far distant points abscinded,
Would make my tale long-winded.
Suffice to say, that, by a fountain met,
In council grave these outcasts held debate.
The prince enlarged, in an oration set,
Upon the mis'ries that befall the great.
The shepherd deem'd it best to cast
Off thought of all misfortune past,
And each to do the best he could,
In efforts for the common weal.
'Did ever a repining mood,'
He added, 'a misfortune heal?
Toil, friends, will take us back to Rome,
Or make us here as good a home.'
A shepherd so to speak! a shepherd? What!
As though crown'd heads were not,
By Heaven's appointment fit,
The sole receptacles of wit!
As though a shepherd could be deeper,
In thought or knowledge, than his sheep are!
The three, howe'er, at once approved his plan,
Wreck'd as they were on shores American.
'I'll teach arithmetic,' the merchant said,--
Its rules, of course, well seated in his head,--
'For monthly pay.' The prince replied, 'And I
Will teach political economy.'
'And I,' the noble said, 'in heraldry
Well versed, will open for that branch a school--'
As if, beyond a thousand leagues of sea,
That senseless jargon could befool!
'My friends, you talk like men,'
The shepherd cried, 'but then
The month has thirty days; till they are spent,
Are we upon your faith to keep full Lent?
The hope you give is truly good;
But, ere it comes, we starve for food!
Pray tell me, if you can divine,
On what, to-morrow, we shall dine;
Or tell me, rather, whence we may
Obtain a supper for to-day.
This point, if truth should be confess'd,
Is first, and vital to the rest.
Your science short in this respect,
My hands shall cover the defect.--'
This said, the nearest woods he sought,
And thence for market fagots brought,
Whose price that day, and eke the next,
Relieved the company perplex'd--
Forbidding that, by fasting, they should go
To use their talents in the world below.
We learn from this adventure's course,
There needs but little skill to get a living.
Thanks to the gifts of Nature's giving,
Our hands are much the readiest resource.

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

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