Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes

by Jean de La Fontaine

[XXVI].--DAPHNIS AND ALCIMADURE.

An Imitation Of Theocritus.[[42]]

To Madame De La Mésangère.[[43]]

Offspring of her to whom, to-day,
While from thy lovely self away,
A thousand hearts their homage pay,
Besides the throngs whom friendship binds to please,
And some whom love presents thee 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
Upon 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 call'd 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 nought of law but her caprice.
A fairer could not be,
Nor crueller, than she.
Still charming in her sternest mien,--
E'en when her haughty look debarr'd,--
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 e'en a gracious word, the while,
Relieved the fierceness of his pain.
O'erwearied with a suit so vain,
His hope was but to die;
No power had he to fly.
He sought, impell'd 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 join'd 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 thou, 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 march'd the maid, in triumph deck'd,
And of his murder little reck'd.
In vain her steps her own attendants check'd,
And plead
That she, at least, should shed,
Upon 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 crush'd 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 wonder'd there to meet
The maid, a ghostess, at his feet.
All Erebus awaken'd wide,
To hear that beauteous homicide
Beg pardon of the swain who died--
For being deaf to love confess'd,
As was Ulysses to the prayer
Of Ajax, begging him to spare,
Or as was Dido's faithless guest.[[44]]

[[42]] Theocritus, Idyl xxiii.
[[43]] Madame de la Mésangère.--This lady was the daughter of Madame de la Sablière.--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.

[XXVII].--THE ARBITER, THE ALMONER, AND THE HERMIT.

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
Attach'd 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 possess'd 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 rack'd by rheum, or parch'd 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 nought 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 ask'd his sage advice.
'Your own,' he answer'd, '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 obey'd 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 impress'd.
For inward thought a desert home is best.'
Such was the hermit's answer brief;
And, happily, it gain'd 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,
Disturb'd by countless accidents most sinister,
By adverse gales abased, debased by fair,--
Yourself you never see, nor see you aught.
Comes there a moment's rest for serious thought,
There comes a flatterer too, and brings it all to nought.
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 XII.

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FINIS.