Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes

Dear prince, a special favourite of the skies, Pray let my incense from your altars rise. With these her gifts, if rather late my muse, My age and labours must her fault excuse....

Death never taketh by surprise The well-prepared, to wit, the wise-- They knowing of themselves the time To meditate the final change of clime. That time, alas! embraces all Whi...

You, Iris, 'twere an easy task to praise; But you refuse the incense of my lays. In this you are unlike all other mortals, Who welcome all the praise that seeks their portals; N...

The apologue[3] is from the immortal gods; Or, if the gift of man it is, Its author merits apotheosis. Whoever magic genius lauds Will do what in him lies To raise this art's in...

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 through...

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...

A Grasshopper gay Sang the summer away, And found herself poor By the winter's first roar. Of meat or of bread, Not a morsel she had! So a begging she went, To her neighbour the...

Old Rodilard,[5] a certain cat, Such havoc of the rats had made, 'Twas difficult to find a rat With nature's debt unpaid. The few that did remain, To leave their holes afraid, F...

Of fables judge not by their face; They give the simplest brute a teacher's place. Bare precepts were inert and tedious things; The story gives them life and wings. But story fo...

Because the arts are plainly birthright matters, For fables we to ancient Greece are debtors; But still this field could not be reap'd so clean As not to let us, later comers, g...

Some time ago, a sultan Leopard, By means of many a rich escheat, Had many an ox in meadow sweet, And many a stag in forest, fleet, And (what a savage sort of shepherd!) Full ma...

An iron pot proposed To an earthen pot a journey. The latter was opposed, Expressing the concern he Had felt about the danger Of going out a ranger. He thought the kitchen heart...

Your taste has served my work to guide; To gain its suffrage I have tried. You'd have me shun a care too nice, Or beauty at too dear a price, Or too much effort, as a vice. My t...

Were I a pet of fair Calliope, I would devote the gifts conferr'd on me To dress in verse old Aesop's lies divine; For verse, and they, and truth, do well combine; But, not a fa...

Sévigné, 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 lio...

'Tis thus, by crystal fount, my muse hath sung, Translating into heavenly tongue Whatever came within my reach, From hosts of beings borr'wing nature's speech. Interpreter of tr...

contemporaries. [28] _Another._--Epicurus, founder of the Epicurean philosophy. He lived B. C. about 300 years. [29] _Water crooks a stick_.--An allusion to the bent appearance...