Part 5
This residence of Æsop in Egypt may, perhaps, have been the origin of the story that he was a slave there with Rhodope, who, by the aid of the presents made her by her lovers, erected one of the three Pyramids which still exist, and are regarded with such admiration. The legend refers to the smallest of the three, but the one built with the most skill.
Æsop, on his return to Babylon, was received by Lycerus with great demonstrations of joy and good-will, and had a statue erected to him. His desire, however, to see the world and acquire knowledge, induced him to renounce all honours. He accordingly quitted the court of Lycerus, where he enjoyed everything that could be wished, and took leave of this prince, for the purpose of visiting Greece. Lycerus did not allow him to leave without bestowing upon him the greatest marks of affection, nor without making him swear that he would return to end his days with him.
Amongst the cities which he visited, Delphi was one of the principal. The Delphians were very willing to listen to him, but they paid him no honours, and Æsop, piqued by this lack of respect, compared them to sticks which float on the water, which at some distance off seem to be something important, but when close at hand are discovered to be worthless. This comparison, however, cost him dear, for the Delphians conceived such a dislike to him, and such a vehement desire of being avenged on him (as well as being impressed by a fear that he would defame them), that they resolved to compass his death. To attain this end, they concealed amongst his goods one of their sacred vessels, intending to accuse him of theft and sacrilege, and then to condemn him to death.
As Æsop was setting out from Delphi, and journeying towards Phocis, the Delphians ran after him with every appearance of great wrath, and accused him of having stolen their sacred vessel. Æsop denied the theft with solemn oaths, but when his baggage was searched it was found amongst it; therefore, all that Æsop could say did not prevent them from treating him as an infamous criminal. He was conveyed back to Delphi, loaded with irons, cast into a dungeon, and condemned to be thrown headlong from a rock. It was in vain that, attempting to defend himself with his ordinary weapons, he recited fables. The Delphians only laughed at them.
"The frog," he said, "had invited the rat to come to see her. In order to enable him to pass across the pond, she tied him to her foot. As soon as he was fairly on the water she tried to drag him to the bottom, in order to drown him, and then make a meal of him. The unfortunate rat resisted for some little time; and whilst he was struggling on the surface, a bird of prey perceived him, pounced on him, and having carried him off, together with the frog, who could not extricate herself, made a meal of both. And thus, O Delphians, one more powerful than either of us will avenge me. I shall perish; but you will perish also."
As Æsop was being led to his place of punishment, he found means to escape, and entered a little chapel dedicated to Apollo, from which, however, the Delphians tore him. "You violate this asylum," he said to them, "because it is only a little chapel; but a day will come when your wickedness will find no hiding-place--no, not even in your great temple. The same thing will happen to you that happened to the eagle, which, in spite of the prayers of the beetle, carried off the leveret, which had taken refuge with the insect. The eagle's offspring was punished for this, even when it had sought shelter in Jupiter's bosom." The Delphians, however, little moved by these remarks, cast Æsop headlong from the rock.
Soon after Æsop's death a pestilence spread havoc throughout the Delphian land. The inhabitants asked of the oracle by what means they might appease the wrath of the gods; the oracle replied, that the only means by which they could do this was by expiating their crime and laying Æsop's ghost. On this a pyramid was immediately erected to his memory. But it was not Heaven alone that testified its displeasure at Æsop's murder; man also avenged the sage's death. Greece instantly sent a commission to inquire into the circumstances, and inflicted a severe punishment on the criminals.[4]
[1] The chronology of our worthy La Fontaine is here at fault, for between the times of Æsop and Planudes there was an interval of nearly twenty centuries; Æsop having flourished in the sixth century before Christ, and Planudes having lived in the fourteenth century of the Christian era.
[2] This life of Æsop, composed by a monk of the fourteenth century, is a legend which has replaced history by disfiguring it. If we confine ourselves exclusively to the testimonies of the ancients, we shall be able to tell in a few words all that has come down to us that is at all likely to be true respecting the life of Æsop. Although various authors have attributed his birth-place in turn to Mesembria in Thrace, to Samos, and to Sardis in Lydia, it is almost certain that he was born in Phrygia, either at Amorium, or in another city of the same province named Cotisium. The deformity which has been attributed to him is simply an exaggeration of a certain ugliness of countenance; and as he also stammered, he has been declared to have been almost dumb. The first portion of his life was passed in slavery, at first under the Lydian philosopher Xantus, and then under Iadmo at Samos, where he had for a companion the celebrated courtesan, Rhodope. Having been freed by Iadmo, he went to the court of Crœsus, where he enjoyed great favour. Employed by this prince to convey his presents to the temple at Delphi, and certain liberalities to the inhabitants, the perfidy and resentment of the people, whom he had not deemed worthy of his master's gifts, were the cause of his death. He was accused of having stolen a sacred vase which had been treacherously concealed amongst his goods. Both gods and men avenged his death. His journeys to Babylon and in Egypt are pure inventions. If we may believe Plutarch, he was present at the banquet of the Seven Wise Men at Corinth. The contradictory accounts given by authors as to the place of his birth may be explained by his many journeys; for he has been said to have been born wherever he resided. It will be seen by this brief sketch, that the life of Æsop by Planudes is not a pure invention, and that we may say with respect to it--
"However great the lie may he. Therein some grains of truth we see."
[3] In the lists of the Kings of Babylon there is found no monarch of this name, and this is another proof amongst many that the life of Æsop by Planudes is a fiction.
[4] The Athenians erected a statue to Æsop, which was the work of the celebrated Lysippus, and it was placed opposite those of the Seven Wise Men.
DEDICATION
TO
MONSEIGNEUR THE DAUPHIN[1]
MONSEIGNEUR,
If there be anything ingenious in the republic of letters, it may be said that it is the manner in which Æsop has deduced his moral. It were truly to be wished that other hands than mine had added to the fable the ornaments of poetry, since the wisest of the ancients[2] has decided that they are not useless. I venture, Monseigneur, to submit to you certain attempts in this manner, as being not altogether unsuited to your earlier years. You are of an age[3] at which amusements and sports are allowed to princes; but at the same time you should devote some portion of your attention to serious reflections. This is precisely what we meet with in the fables which we owe to Æsop. At first sight they appear puerile; but their puerility is only the covering of important truths.
I do not doubt, Monseigneur, that you entertain a favourable opinion of compositions which are at once so useful and so agreeable; for what more can one desire than the useful and the agreeable? It is these that have been the means of introducing knowledge amongst men. Æsop has discovered the singular art of joining the one to the other. The perusal of his works invariably plants in the soul the seeds of virtue, and teaches it to know itself, without letting it feel that it is pursuing a study, whilst, in fact, it even believes that it is otherwise engaged. It is a means of instruction which has been happily made use of by him whom His Majesty has selected as your tutor.[4] He teaches you all that a prince should learn in such a manner that you study not only without trouble, but even with pleasure. We hope much from this; but, to tell the truth, there are things from which we hope infinitely more, and those, Monseigneur, are the qualities which our invincible monarch has bestowed upon you by the mere circumstance of your birth, and the example which he gives you day by day. When you see him forming such grand designs; when you see him calmly regarding the agitation of Europe and the efforts which it makes to divert him from his enterprises;[5] when you see him penetrating by a single effort the heart of one province[6] bristling against him with insurmountable obstacles, and subjugating another[7] within eight days, during that season which is the most hostile of all others to the operations of war, and when the courts of other princes are redolent only of peace and pleasure; when you see him not content with merely subduing men, but resolved also to vanquish the elements; and when, I say, on his return from this expedition, in which he has conquered like another Alexander, you see him ruling his people like another Augustus,--admit, Monseigneur, that, in spite of the tenderness of your years, you sigh for glory as ardently as your father, and that you await with impatience the moment when you will be able to declare yourself his rival in your worship of this divine mistress. But, no; you do not await it, Monseigneur; you anticipate it; and in proof of this I need no other witnesses than that noble restlessness, that vivacity, that ardour, those many evidences of spirit, of courage, of greatness of soul, which you so continually display. It must, doubtless, be the greatest gratification to our monarch, as it is a most agreeable spectacle to the universe, to see you thus growing up, a young plant which will one day protect with its shadow peoples and nations.
I might enlarge upon this subject. But as the plan I have proposed to myself of amusing you is more suited to my powers than that of praising you, I shall hasten to have recourse to my fables, and will add to the truths I have told you but this--and that is, Monseigneur, that I am, with respectful zeal, your very humble, very obedient, and very faithful servant,
DE LA FONTAINE.
[1] Louis, Dauphin of France, son of Louis XIV., and of Marie Theresa of Austria, was born at Fontainebleau on the 1st of November, 1661, and died at Meudon on the 14th of April, 1671.
[2] Socrates.
[3] The Dauphin was six years and five months old when La Fontaine published the collection of fables to which this Dedication is prefixed. It was completed on the 3rd of March, 1668.
[4] Monseigneur the Dauphin had two tutors: the first being M. the President de Perigni, and the second M. Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux. La Fontaine, in the above passage, alludes to M. de Perigni.
[5] This refers to the Triple Alliance formed between England, Spain, and Holland, for the purpose of checking the conquests of the French monarch.
[6] Flanders, in which the French king made a campaign in 1667, when he took Douai, Tournoi, Oudenarde, Ath, Alost, and Lille.
[7] Franche-Comté, which he subdued in 1668.
PREFACE.
The indulgence with which some of my fables have been received[1] has induced me to hope that this present collection may meet with the same favour. At the same time I must admit that one of the masters of our eloquence[2] has disapproved of the plan of rendering these fables in verse, since he believes that their chief ornament consists in having none; and that, moreover, the restraints of poetry, added to the severity of our language, would frequently embarrass me, and deprive most of these narratives of that brevity which may be styled the very soul of the art of story-telling, since without it a tale necessarily becomes tame and languid. This opinion could only have been expressed by a man of exquisite taste, and I will merely ask of him that he will in some degree relax it, and will admit that the Lacedemonian graces are not so entirely opposed to the French language, that it is impossible to make them accord.
After all, I have but followed the example, I will not say of the ancients, which would not affect me in this case, but that of the moderns. In every age, amongst every poetical people, Parnassus has deemed this species of composition its own. Æsop's fables had scarcely seen the light, when Socrates[3] thought proper to dress them in the livery of the Muses; and what Plato says on this subject is so pleasant, that I cannot refrain from making it one of the ornaments of this Preface. He says, then, that Socrates having been condemned to death, his punishment was respited on account of the occurrence of certain fêtes. Cébès went to see him on the day of his death, and Socrates then told him that the gods had several times warned him by dreams that he should devote himself to music before he died. He did not at first understand the signification of these dreams; for, as music does not improve a man's moral nature, of what use could it be to him?[4] It was evident, however, that there was some mystery involved, for the gods never ceased to give him the same warning, and it had come to him again on the occasion of one of the fêtes to which I have above alluded. At length, after having deeply reflected on what it might be that Heaven intended him to do, he concluded that as music and poetry are so closely allied, it probably meant him to turn his attention to the latter. There can be no good poetry without harmony; but to good poetry fiction is also equally necessary, and Socrates only knew how to tell the truth. At length, however, he discovered a compromise; selecting such fables as those of Æsop, which always contain something of truth in them, he employed the last moments of his life in rendering them into verse.
Socrates is not the only one who has regarded fables and poetry as sisters. Phædrus has also declared that he held this opinion, and by the excellence of his work we are able to judge of that of the philosopher. After Phædrus, Avienus treated the same subject in the same way; finally, the moderns have also followed their example, and we find instances of this not only amongst foreign nations, but in our own. It is true, that when our own countrymen devoted their attention to this species of composition, the French language was so different from what it now is, that we may regard them in this case as foreigners. This has not deterred me from my enterprise. On the contrary, I have flattered myself with the hope that, if I did not pursue this career with success, I should at least earn the credit of having opened the road.
It may possibly happen that my labours will induce others to continue the work; and, indeed, there is no reason why this species of composition should be exhausted until there shall remain no fresh fables to put in verse. I have selected the best; that is to say, those which seem to me to be so; but, in addition to the fact that I may have erred in my selection, it will be by no means a difficult thing for others to give a different rendering even to those which I have selected; and if their renderings should be briefer than mine, they will doubtless be more approved. In any case, some praise will always be due to me, either because my rashness has had a happy result, and that I have not departed too far from the right path, or, at least, because I shall have instigated others to do better.
I think that I have sufficiently justified my design. As regards the execution, I shall leave the public to be the judge. There will not be found in my renderings the elegance and extreme brevity which are the charms of Phædrus, for these qualities are beyond my powers; and that being the case, I have thought it right to give more ornament to my work than he has done. I do not blame him for having restricted himself in length, for the Latin language enabled him to be brief; and, indeed, if we take the trouble to examine closely, we shall find in this author all the genuine characteristics and genius of Terence. The simplicity of these great men is magnificent; but, not possessing the powers of language of these authors, I cannot attain their heights. I have striven, therefore, to compensate in some degree for my failings in this respect, and I have done this with all the more boldness because Quintilian has said that one can never deviate too much in narrative. It is not necessary in this place to prove whether this be true or not; it is sufficient that Quintilian has made the statement.[5]
I have also considered that, as these fables are already known to all the world, I should have done nothing if I had not rendered them in some degree new, by clothing them with certain fresh characteristics. I have endeavoured to meet the wants of the day, which are novelty and gaiety; and by gaiety I do not mean merely that which excites laughter, but a certain charm, an agreeable air, which may be given to every species of subject, even the most serious.
It is not, however, by the outward form which I have given it that the value of my work should be alone judged, but by the quality of the matter of which it is composed, and by its utility. For what is there that is worthy of praise in the productions of the mind which is not to be found in the apologue? There is something so grand in this species of composition, that many of the ancients have attributed the greater part of these fables to Socrates; selecting as their author that individual amongst mortals who was most directly in communication with the gods. I am rather surprised that they have not maintained that these fables descended direct from heaven,[6] or that they have not attributed their guardianship to some one special deity, as they have done in the case of poetry and eloquence. And what I say is not altogether without foundation, since, if I may venture to speak of that which is most sacred in our eyes in the same breath with the errors of the ancients, we find that Truth has spoken to men in parables; and is the parable anything else than a fable? that is to say, a feigned example of some truth, which has by so much the more force and effect as it is the more common and familiar?
It is for these reasons that Plato, having banished Homer from his Republic, has given a very honourable place in it to Æsop. He maintains that infants suck in fables with their mothers' milk, and recommends nurses to teach them to them, since it is impossible that children should be accustomed at too early an age to the accents of wisdom and virtue. If we would not have to endure the pain of correcting our habits, we should take care to render them good whilst as yet they are neither good nor bad. And what better aids can we have in this work than fables? Tell a child that Crassus, when he waged war against the Parthians, entered their country without considering how he should be able to get out of it again, and that this was the cause of the destruction of himself and his whole army, and how great an effort will the infant have to make to remember the fact! But tell the same child that the fox and the he-goat descended to the bottom of a well for the purpose of quenching their thirst, and that the fox got out of it by making use of the shoulders and horns of his companion as a ladder, but that the goat remained there in consequence of not having had so much foresight, and that, consequently, we should always consider what is likely to be the result of what we do,--tell a child these two stories, I say, and which will make the most impression on his mind? Is it not certain that he will cling to the latter version as more conformable and less disproportioned than the other to the tenderness of his brain? It is useless for you to reply that the ideas of childhood are in themselves sufficiently infantine, without filling them with a heap of fresh trifles. These trifles, as you may please to call them, are only trifles in appearance; in reality, they are full of solid sense. And as by the definition of the point, the line, the surface, and the other well-known elements of form, we obtain a knowledge which enables us to measure not only the earth but the universe, in the same manner, by the aid of the truths involved in fables, we finally become enabled to form correct opinions of what is right and what is wrong, and to take a foremost place in the ranks of life.
The fables which are included in this collection are not merely moral, but are, to a certain extent, an encyclopædia of the qualities and characteristics of animals, and, consequently, of our own; since we men are, in fact, but a summary of all that is good and bad in the lower ranks of creatures. When Prometheus determined upon creating man, he took the dominant characteristic of each beast, and of these various characteristics composed the human species. It follows, therefore, that in these fables, in which beasts play so great a part, we may each of us find some feature which we may recognise as our own. The old may find in them a confirmation of their experiences, and the young may learn from them that which they ought to know. As the latter are but strangers in the world, they are as yet unacquainted with its inhabitants; they are even unacquainted with themselves. They ought not to be left in this ignorance, but should be instructed as to the qualities of the lion, the fox, and so forth, and as to the why and the wherefore a man is sometimes compared to the said lion and fox. To effect this instruction is the object of these fables.
I have already overstepped the ordinary limits of a Preface, but I have still a few remarks to make on the principles on which the present work has been constructed.
The fable proper is composed of two parts, of which one may be termed the body, and the other the soul. The body is the subject-matter of the fable, and the soul is the moral. Aristotle will admit none but animals into the domain of fabledom, and rigorously excludes from it both men and plants. This rule, however, cannot be strictly necessary, since neither Æsop, Phædrus, nor any of the fabulists[7] have observed it; but, on the other hand, a moral is to a fable an indispensable adjunct, and if I have in any instances omitted it, it is only in those cases in which it could not be gracefully introduced, or in which it was so obvious that the reader could deduce it for himself. The great rule in France is to value only that which pleases, and I have thought it no crime, therefore, to cancel ancient customs when they would not harmonise with modern ones. In Æsop's time the fable was first related as a simple story, and then supplemented by a moral which was distinct in itself. Next Phædrus came, who was so far from complying with this rule, that he sometimes transposed the moral from the end to the commencement. For my own part, I have never failed to follow Æsop's rule, except when it was necessary to observe a no less important one laid down by Horace, to the effect that no writer should obstinately struggle against the natural bent of his mind or the capabilities of his subject. A man, he asserts, who wishes to succeed will never pursue such a course, but will at once abandon a subject when he finds that he cannot mould it into a creditable shape:
"Et quæ Desperat tractata intescere posse, relinquit."[8]