LA FONTAINE.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY WALTER THORNBURY,

WITH

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY

GUSTAVE DORÉ.

CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN,

LONDON AND NEW YORK.

1886

Jean de la Fontaine

[Pg v]

CONTENTS As Essay on the Life and Works of Jean de la Fontaine xiii The Life of Æsop, the Phrygian xxxiii Dedication to Monseigneur the Dauphin li Preface lv To Monseigneur the Dauphin lxiii The Grasshopper and the Ant 3 The Raven and the Fox 5 The Frog that Wished to make Herself as Big as the Ox 7 The Two Mules 11 The Wolf and the Dog 13 The Heifer, the She-goat, and the Lamb, in Partnership with the Lion 16 The Wallet 18 The Swallow and the Little Birds 20 The Town Rat and the Country Rat 27 The Man and his Image 29 The Dragon with many Heads, and the Dragon with many Tails 31 The Wolf and the Lamb 35 The Robbers and the Ass 37 Death and the Woodcutter 39 Simonides rescued by the Gods 43 Death and the Unhappy Man 47 The Wolf turned Shepherd 51 The Child and the Schoolmaster 53 The Pullet and the Pearl 55 The Drones and the Bees 56 The Oak and the Reed 61 Against Those Who are Hard to Please 63 The Council held by the Rats 69 The Wolf Pleading against the Fox before the Ape 71 The Middle-Aged Man and the Two Widows 73 The Fox and the Stork 75 The Lion and the Gnat 79

The Ass Laden with Sponges, and the Ass Laden with Salt 82 The Lion and the Rat 84 The Dove and the Ant 88 The Astrologer Who let Himself Fall into the Well 90 The Hare and the Frogs 95 The Two Bulls and the Frog 97 The Peacock Complaining to Juno 101 The Bat and the Two Weasels 103 The Bird Wounded by an Arrow 105 The Miller, his Son, and the Ass 106 The Cock and the Fox 113 The Frogs Who Asked for a King 116 The Dog and Her Companion 121 The Fox and the Grapes 125 The Eagle and the Beetle 126 The Raven Who Wished to Imitate the Eagle 130 The Wolves and the Sheep 132 The Cat Changed into a Woman 136 [Pg vi]Philomel and Progne 141 The Lion and the Ass 143 The Cat and the Old Rat 145 A Will Interpreted by Æsop 151 The Lion in Love 156 The Fox and the Goat 161 The Shepherd and the Sea 165 The Drunkard and His Wife 167 King Caster and the Members 169 The Monkey and the Dolphin 172 The Eagle, the Wild Sow, and the Cat 177 The Miser Who Lost His Treasure 180 The Gout and the Spider 185 The Eye of the Master 188 The Wolf and the Stork 193 The Lion Defeated by Man 195

The Swan and the Cook 196 The Wolf, the Goat, and the Kid 198 The Wolf, the Mother, and the Child 200 The Lion Grown Old 205 The Drowned Woman 207 The Weasel in the Granary 209 The Lark and Her Little Ones With the Owner of a Field 211 The Fly and the Ant 217 The Gardener and his Master 220 The Woodman and Mercury 223 The Ass and the Little Dog 230 Man and the Wooden Idol 233 The Jay Dressed in Peacock's Plumes 235 The Little Fish and the Fisherman 239 Battle Between the Rats and Weasles 241 The Camel and the Drift-Wood 244 The Frog and the Rat 246 The Old Woman and Her Servants 251 The Animals Sending a Tribute to Alexander 253 The Horse Wishing to be Revenged on the Stag 257 The Fox and the Bust 259 The Horse and the Wolf 263 The Saying of Socrates 265 The Old Man and His Children 267 The Oracle and the Impious Man 270 The Mountain in Labour 272 Fortune and the Little Child 275 The Earthen Pot and the Iron Pot 277 The Hare's Ears 279 The Fox with His Tail Cut Off 281 The Satyr and the Passer-By 283 The Doctors 287 The Labouring Man and His Children 289

The Hen with the Golden Eggs 291 The Ass that Carried the Relics 295 The Serpent and the File 296 The Hare and the Partridge 298 The Stag and the Vine 300 The Lion Going to War 304 The Ass in the Lion's Skin 306 The Eagle and the Owl 308 The Shepherd and the Lion 313 The Lion and the Hunter 316 Phœbus and Boreas 318 The Bear and the Two Friends 323 Jupiter and the Farmer 326 The Stag Viewing Himself in the Stream 328 The Cockerel, the Cat, and the Little Rat 332 The Fox, the Monkey, and the Other Animals 335 The Mule That Boasted of His Family 337 The Old Man and the Ass 339 The Countryman and the Serpent 343 The Hare and the Tortoise 345 The Sick Lion and the Fox 348 The Ass and His Masters 352 The Sun and the Frogs 354 The Carter Stuck in the Mud 356 The Doc and the Shadow 360 [Pg vii] The Bird-Catcher, the Hawk, and the Skylark 361 The Horse and the Ass 363 The Charlatan 365 The Young Widow 368 Discord 373 The Animals Sick of the Plague 375 The Rat Who Retired From the World 381 The Heron 383 The Man Badly Married 385 The Maiden 388 The Wishes 393 The Vultures and the Pigeons 396

The Court of the Lion 401 The Milk-Maid and the Milk-Pail 404 The Curate and the Corpse 409 The Man Who Runs After Fortune, and the Man Who Waits for Her 411 The Two Fowls 416 The Coach and the Fly 420 The Ingratitude and Injustice of Men Towards Fortune 422 An Animal in the Moon 426 The Fortune-Teller 431 The Cobbler and the Banker 435 The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit 440 The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox 443 The Head and the Tail of the Serpent 448 The Dog Which Carried Round His Neck His Master's Dinner 451 Death and the Dying Man 456 The Power of Fables 460 The Bear and the Amateur of Gardening 464 The Man and the Flea 469 The Woman and the Secret 471 Tircis and Amaranth 475 The Joker and the Fishes 479 The Rat and the Oyster 481 The Two Friends 484 The Pig, the Goat, and the Sheep 486 The Rat and the Elephant 488 The Funeral or the Lioness 492 The Bashaw and the Merchant 496 The Horoscope 502 The Torrent and the River 507 The Ass and the Dog 511 The Two Dogs and the Dead Ass 514 The Advantage of Being Clever 520 The Wolf and the Hunter 523

Jupiter and the Thunderbolts 529 The Falcon and the Capon 533 The Two Pigeons 536 Education 543 The Madman Who Sold Wisdom 547 The Cat and the Rat 549 Democritus and the Anderanians 553 The Oyster and Its Claimants 559 The Fraudulent Trustee 561 Jupiter and the Traveller 567 The Ape and the Leopard 571 The Acorn and the Gourd 574 The School-Boy, the Pedant, and the Nursery Gardener 577 The Cat and the Fox 580 The Sculptor and the Statue of Jupiter 585 The Mouse Metamorphosed Into a Girl 588 The Monkey and the Cat 595 The Wolf and the Starved Dog 597 The Wax Candle 599 "Not Too Much" 601 The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg 604 The Cormorant and the Fishes 619 The Husband, the Wife, and the Robber 624 The Shepherd and the King 627 The Two Men and the Treasure 635 The Shepherd and His Flock 637 The Kite and the Nightingale 639 The Fish and the Shepherd Who Played on the Clarionet 643 The Man and the Snake 645 [Pg viii] The Tortoise and the Two Ducks 650 The Two Adventurers and the Talisman 655 The Miser and his Friend 659 The Wolf and the Peasants 662 The Rabbits 667

The Swallow and the Spider 672 The Partridge and the Fowls 674 The Lion 676 The Dog Whose Ears Were Cut 682 The Two Parrots, the Monarch, and His Son 684 The Peasant of the Danube 688 The Lioness and She-Bear 695 The Merchant, the Nobleman, the Shepherd, and the King's Son 697 The Old Man and the Three Young Men 700 The Gods as Instructors of Jupiter's Son 705 The Owl and the Mice 708 The Companions of Ulysses 713 The Farmer, the Dog, and the Fox 721 The Dream of an Inhabitant of Mogul 725 The Two Goats 728 The Lion, the Ape, and the Two Asses 733 The Wolf and the Fox 737 The Sick Stag 740 The Cat and the Two Sparrows 744 The Miser and the Ape 747 To the Duke of Burgundy 750 The Old Cat and the Young Mouse 752 The Bat, the Bush, and the Duck 754 The Eagle and the Magpie 759 The Quarrel of the Dogs and the Cats; and, Also, That of the Cats and the Mice 762 Love and Folly 767 The Wolf and the Fox 770 The Crab and Its Daughter 774 The Forest and the Woodman 776 The Fox, the Flies, and the Hedge-Hog 780 The Hawk, the King, and the Falcon 782 The Fox and the Turkeys 791

The Crow, the Gazelle, the Tortoise, and the Rat 793 The English Fox 803 The Ape 807 The Fox, the Wolf, and the Horse 809 The League of the Rats 812 A Scythian Philosopher 817 Daphnis and Alcimadura 820 The Elephant and Jupiter's Monkey 826 The Madman and the Philosopher 829 The Frogs and the Sun 831 The Arbitrator, Almoner, and Hermit 833[Pg ix]

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. The Grasshopper and the Ant 1 The Two Mules 9 The Swallow and the Little Birds 21 The Town Rat and the Country Rat 25 The Wolf and the Lamb 33 The Robbers and the Ass (To face page) 38 Death and the Woodcutter 41 The Wolf Turned Shepherd 49 The Oak and the Reed 60 The Council Held by the Rats 68 The Lion and the Gnat 77 The Lion and the Rat 85 The Hare and the Frogs 93 The Peacock Complaining to Juno 100 The Miller, His Son, and the Ass 109 The Frogs Who Asked For a King 117 The Fox and the Grapes 124 The Wolves and the Sheep 133 Philomel and Progne 140 The Cat and the Old Rat 148 The Lion in Love 157 The Shepherd and the Sea 164 The Monkey and the Dolphin 173 The Miser Who Lost His Treasure 181 The Eye of the Master 189 The Wolf, the Mother, and the Child 201 The Lark and Her Little Ones 213 The Woodman and Mercury 225 [Pg x] The Little Fish and the Fisherman 236 The Old Woman and Her Servants 249 The Horse and the Wolf 261 Fortune and the Little Child 273 The Doctors 285 The Hen With the Golden Eggs 293 The Stag and the Vine 301

The Eagle and the Owl 309 The Bear and the Two Friends 321 The Stag Viewing Himself in the Stream 329 The Countryman and the Serpent 341 The Sick Lion and the Fox 349 The Carter Stuck in the Mud 357 The Young Widow 369 The Animals Sick of the Plague 377 The Maiden 389 The Vultures and the Pigeons 397 The Milkmaid and the Milk-Pail 405 The Two Fowls 417 An Animal in the Moon 425 An Animal in the Moon (2) 429 The Fortune-Teller (illustration missing) 432 The Cobbler and the Banker 437 The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox 445 The Dog and His Master's Dinner 453 The Bear and the Amateur of Gardening 465 Tircis and Amaranth 473 The Rat and the Elephant 489 The Bashaw and the Merchant 497 The Torrent and the River 509 The Two Dogs and the Dead Ass 517 The Wolf and the Hunter 525 The Two Pigeons 537 The Madman Who Sold Wisdom 545 The Oyster and Its Claimants 557 Jupiter and the Traveller 569 The Cat and the Fox 581 [Pg xi] The Monkey and the Cat 593 The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg 609 The Cormorant and the Fishes 621 The Shepherd and the King 629 The Fish and the Shepherd Who Played on

the Clarionet 641 The Two Adventurers and the Talisman 653 The Rabbits 665 The Lion 677 The Peasant of the Danube 689 The Old Man and the Three Young Men 701 The Owl and the Mice 709 The Companions of Ulysses 717 The Two Goats 729 The Sick Stag 741 The Eagle and the Magpie 757 Love and Folly 765 The Forest and the Woodman 777 The Fox and the Turkeys 789 The English Fox 801 The League of the Rats 813 Daphnis and Alcimadura 821 The Arbitrator, Almoner, and Hermit 837 [Pg xiii]

AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WORKS

OF

JEAN DE LA FONTAINE.

There are some writers the facts about whom can never be entirely told, because they are inexhaustible, and speaking of whom we do not fear to be blamed for repetition, because, though well known, they furnish topics which never weary. La Fontaine is one of this class. No poet has been praised oftener, or by more able critics, and of no poet has the biography been so frequently written, and with such affectionate minuteness. Nevertheless, it is certain that there will yet arise fresh critics and new biographers, who will be as regardless as ourselves of the fact that the subject has been so frequently enlarged upon. And why, indeed, should we refuse to ourselves, or forbid to others, the pleasure of speaking of an old friend of our childhood, whose memory is always fresh and always dear?

This truly worthy man was born in Château-Thierry, a little town of Champagne, where his father, Charles de la Fontaine, was a supervisor of woods and forests. His mother, Françoise Piloux, was[Pg xiv] the daughter of a mayor of Coulommiers. An amiable but careless child, he was lazy in his studies, and certainly did not display, by the direction of his earlier inclinations, the germs of his future genius. At twenty years of age, after the perusal of some religious works, he formed the idea that his vocation was the Church, and entered the seminary of Saint Magloire, where, however, he remained only one year. His example was followed by his brother Claude, with this difference, that the latter persevered to the end. On quitting the seminary, La Fontaine, in the paternal mansion, led that life of idleness and pleasure which so frequently, especially in the provinces, enervates young men of family. To bring him back to a more orderly course of life, his father procured him a wife, and gave him the reversion of his office. He was

then twenty-six years of age, and the demon of poetry had not yet taken possession of him. La Fontaine never hurried himself about anything.

The accidental recitation in his presence of an ode by Malherbe aroused in his soul, which had hitherto been devoted to pleasure and idleness, a taste for poetry. He read the whole of Malherbe's writings with enthusiasm, and endeavoured to imitate him. Malherbe alone would have spoiled La Fontaine, had not Pintrel and Maucroix, two of his friends, led him to the study of the true models. La Fontaine himself has left a confession of these first flights of his muse. Plato and Plutarch, amongst the ancients, were his favourite authors; but he could read them only by the aid of translations, as he had never studied Greek. Horace, Virgil, and Terence, whose writings he could approach in the original, also charmed him. Of modern authors his favourites were Rabelais, Marot, De Periers, Mathurin, Régnier, and D'Urfé, whose "Astræa" was his especial delight.

Marriage had not by any means fixed his inconstant tastes. Marie Héricart, whom he had been induced to marry in 1647, was endowed with beauty and intellect, but was unsupplied with those solid qualities, love of order, industry, and that firmness of character which might have exercised a wholesome discipline over her husband. Whilst she was reading romances, La Fontaine sought amusement away from home, or brooded either over his own poems or those of his favourite authors. The natural consequence was, that the affairs of the young people soon fell into disorder; in addition[Pg xv] to this, when La Fontaine's father died, he left our poet an inheritance encumbered with mortgages, which had been the only means of paying debts, and preserving the family estate intact; these became fresh sources of embarrassment to our poet, who being, as may well be supposed, anything but a man of business, incapable of self-denial, and unassisted by his wife, soon, as he himself gaily expressed it, devoured both capital and income, and in a few years found himself without either.

La Fontaine seems to have confined his duties, as supervisor of woods and waters, to simply taking long rambles under the venerable trees of the forests submitted to his care, or to enjoying prolonged slumbers on the verdant banks of murmuring brooks. And that this was the case we may reasonably suppose, since at sixty years of age he declared that he did not know what foresters meant by round timber, ornamental timber, or bois de touche.

His soul was wrapped up in poetry. His first poems were what might be called album verses, and could scarcely have been understood beyond Château-Thierry. These verses, however, obtained so favourable a reception, that at length he ventured to attempt a comedy. But, as the faculty of construction had been denied him, he only adapted one of Terence's plays, changing the names of the characters, and taking certain liberties with the situations. The piece which he had selected, the "Eunuchus," was very unsuited to the boards of the French stage, and he never attempted to get it produced; but he published it, and it was by means of this mediocre, although neatly versified work, that his name first became known to the public, when he had already entered his thirty-third year.

It was about this period that one of his relations, J. Jannart, a counsellor of the king, presented the poet to Fouquet, for whom Jannart acted as deputy in the Parliament of Paris. The Surintendant, partial to men of letters, gave La Fontaine a cordial reception, and bestowed upon him a liberal pension. La Fontaine became, not a mere accessory, but one of the most valued elements of the royal luxury of Fouquet's house, or, rather, court; and it was through his protégé, at a later period, that Fouquet received the only consolation that soothed his disgrace. La Fontaine, established as poet-in-ordinary to Fouquet, received a pension of a thousand livres, on condition that he furnished,[Pg xvi] once in every three months, a copy of laudatory verses. He was henceforth a guest at a perpetual round of fêtes; his eyes were dazzled, his heart was moved, and his mind at last awoke. The years which he passed in the midst of this voluptuous magnificence were years of enchantment, of which he has left traces in the "Songe de Vaux," the

earliest indication of a talent which was to develop into genius. The first efforts of his muse at this period were laid at the shrine of gratitude, but grief more happily inspired him, for the "Elegy to the Nymphs of Vaux," the subject matter of which was the disgrace of the Surintendant, raised him to the front rank amongst the masters of his art. Up to this time La Fontaine had been only a pleasant, lively, and ingenious versifier; but on this occasion he proved himself a true poet, and the lines which we have just named are still regarded as amongst the choicest productions of the sort in the French language. "La Fontaine did not merely bewail, in the fall of Fouquet, the loss of his own hopes and pleasures, but the misfortunes of the one friend to whom he was gratefully attached, and of whose brilliant qualities he had the highest admiration. The emotion which he expressed was no fleeting one, for, some years afterwards, when passing by Amboise, the faithful friend desired to visit the apartment in which Fouquet had

endured the first period of his imprisonment. He could not enter it, but paused on the threshold, weeping bitterly; and it was only at the approach of night that he could be induced to leave the spot."

Our poet's success amongst the crowd of brilliant men and distinguished women who formed Fouquet's court, could never be understood, if we gave full credence to those stories of odd eccentricities, simplicities, and blunders of which he has so frequently been made the hero. It cannot be denied that he was frequently a dreamer, absorbed in his own thoughts, and too apt to be credulous and absent in mind; but the greeting which was accorded to him, and the eagerness with which his acquaintance was courted in such a place, are sufficient evidences that he could be a charming companion when he pleased. He could be abstracted enough when surrounded by uncongenial spirits; he opened his heart only to those who pleased him: but on his friends he lavishly bestowed his joyous but refined wit, and his delightful bonhomie. The inborn carelessness of his nature rendered him averse to everything[Pg xvii] like effort; he was dumb to those who knew not how to touch the keynote of his soul; to such he was present, indeed, in the body, but his soul was cold and

inharmonious. It may even be added, that reverie with him was a species of politeness by which he was wont to conceal his weariness. On such occasions he doubtless fled to the companionship of his fabulous beasts, although he refrained from saying so. Abstraction was to La Fontaine a means of becoming independent, and it is not, therefore, very surprising that he should have allowed people to attribute to him, in an exaggerated degree, a defect which he found so useful.