I do so, rather, only to portray
Our customs. For, myself, I am above
Such base ambition; though, speaking thereof,
I must admit that Phaedrus,2 in his day,
Sought not a little glory. Anyway,
My fable: of a father who decided
To warn his sons lest they become divided.
An old man, feeling he was soon to be
Called to where he would spend eternity,
Summoned his sons. “Children,” so he addressed
All three, “I bid you come hither and test
Your strength upon these arrows, tightly tied
Into a bundle. When you all have tried
To break them, I shall then explain the knot
That binds them.” One son tried, the eldest, got
Not very far before, with huff and puff,
At length he cried: “I have not strength enough!
Let someone stronger try!” At which, another,
The second, took his stance, but, like his brother,
Failed; whereupon, the youngest tried, but could
No better do: the bundle, tough, withstood.
“Weaklings!” the father shouted. “Watch!” They smile.
No doubt he twits and chaffs them! But, the while,
He separates the arrows, easily
Breaks them, and says: “Now I trust you can see
How valuable is unity, mes fils.
Remain forever joined. Let love and peace
Bind you as one.” Silent he lay, as on
He lingered in his malady… Anon,
Sensing the end, he summons them once more.
“Farewell! I join our fathers. But before
I do, I pray you swear that you will be
Forever bound as brothers…” Weepingly
Each takes his hand; he, theirs; so swears… He dies.
The brothers, after his tearful demise,
Find that he left great wealth, but much beset
It was with many a lawsuit, many a debt.
At first, no problem. But soon—any wonder?—
What blood had joined, interest rent asunder.
And when the time came to adjudicate it,
A myriad problems rose to complicate it:
Errors, and disagreements, and deceit;
A judge whose every judgment was replete
With controversy, cavil, condemnation;
At every turn another contestation,
Another disagreement, till each brother
Promptly lost all he had, and blamed the other.
Now how they wished that they had kept in mind
That arrow-bundle, and the ties that bind.
IV, 18
THE ORACLE AND THE INFIDEL
To seek to fool the gods is folly arrant:
The labyrinthine crannies of Man’s heart—
Disguise them though he try, with cleverest art—
Appear before them, clear, transparent.
In fact, his every deed, his every act,
However darkly done, rises intact
Before their eyes. And so my story:
A rustic infidel, a heathen (yet
One who took stock of heaven, to hedge his bet!)
Went to Apollo’s oratory—
The oracle, that is—and, once inside
The holy precincts, boldly cried:
“Tell me, is what I’m holding in my fist
Dead or alive?” Our demi-atheist
Held, so they say, a sparrow; one that he,
At the god’s answer, could set free
Or smother utterly, thereby
Proving him wrong, whichever his reply.
Seeing his plan, “Come now,” Apollo said.
“Fie on your foolish traps! Alive or dead,
Show us your sparrow!… See? My sight is strong.
And, what is more, beware: My arm is long!”
IV, 19
THE MISER WHO LOST HIS TREASURE
Possessions have no value till we use them.
Misers there are, no doubt, who would dissent.
This tale, I trust, will disabuse them:
What does it profit them to hold, unspent,
Pile upon pile of gold? Diogenes,1
For all his poverty, in death, is quite
As rich; and avarice’s devotees
Are quite as poor, in life, as he. Thereto, we might
Consider one of Aesop’s tales:2 the one
About a miser and his hoard,
Who wants to wait until his life is done
(And off he goes to his reward),
To be reborn before he spends his treasure.
With it, his heart lies buried; such
That, day and night, he knows no other pleasure
Than to go worship it; to touch
The ground; to muse, to dream… Eating or drinking,
Coming or going, one thought ever thinking!
Truly, the gold owns him; not he, the gold.
Now, in the interim,
A certain graveyard digger, seeing him
Pay visits to the spot, untold,
Suspects, digs, finds the treasure… And that’s that!
Our miser, one fine day, comes, sees the hole—
Empty, alas!—gazes thereat,
And heartsick, sighing from his very soul,
Weeps, wails, and groans in grief. A passerby
Asks him: “Why all the hue and cry?”
“Why? It’s my money! It’s been stolen… See?”
“Oh? Where?” “Next to that rock!” “Dear me,
Are we at war? Why keep it way out here?
You should have kept it in your chiffonier.
You could have used it when you chose.”
“‘Used it?’ Good God! Do you suppose
It grows on trees? I never spent a sou.”
“You didn’t?” “No!” “Then I suggest
You needn’t rend your hair and beat your breast,
My friend! Here’s all you have to do:
That hole of yours… Go take some stones and fill it.
Really, it won’t make any difference, will it?
They’ll be worth quite as much to you!”
IV, 20
THE MASTER’S EYE
A stag sought refuge with the race bovine
Inside a barn. The oxen thought,
All things considered, that he ought
Best seek another. “Brothers mine,
I pray you, do a kindly deed
And not betray me! By and by
I’ll show you where to find the tastiest feed!”
His oxen hosts agree, comply
With his request for sanctuary.
Off in a corner, much relieved, and very
Grateful, he hides… The servants come, that night,
With fodder… Come, go… In, out… But despite
The hubbub and the feeding fuss,
Stewart and minions are oblivious
To antlered head (and stag in toto!). Quite
Thankful, the forest denizen waits, bides
His time until the varlets leave, to labor,
Tilling fair Ceres’1 field; decides
Now is the time to go. “But, neighbor,”
Bellows an ox, chewing his cud. “Poor deer!
Till now you’ve had no dealings, none,
With him we call ‘the hundred-eyeballed one!’
Don’t be so brash, so cavalier!
Until he comes, himself, to check the herd,
The barn, and all, you haven’t heard the end,
I fear!” No sooner had that final word
Parted his lips than—heaven forfend!—
In stalks the master; makes his rounds…
“What’s this?” he cries. “Gadzooks and zounds!
Look at this filthy litter!… Change it please!…
Go get more fodder!… What are these
Yokes doing here?… And tell me, wh
y
Must there be spiders everywhere?…” And on
And on he rants and cavils; whereupon,
Darting his glance, his eyes espy
An unknown head. Alas, our stag lies caught.
Mid pikes and spears, tears, pleas go all for naught!
They kill him, salt him… Many a mouth will feast
For many a day upon our beast.
Phaedrus it was who proved the point concisely:
“The master’s eye is best!”2 he put it nicely.
(Myself, I’ll add another’s, con amore:
The lover’s too! But that’s another story!)
IV, 21
THE LARK, HER LITTLE ONES, AND THE FARMER WHO OWNS THE FIELD
“Count not on others!” Thus our antecedents
Wisely advised us to behave.
Common the adage. Here’s how Aesop gave
It credence.
Each year the larks would build their nest
Amid the stalks of grain budding to life;
That season green when, passion-rife,
A teeming Nature—birds, plants, all the rest
Of livingkind—gives way to love: sweet spring.
Beasts all, and all with but one notion:
Monsters beneath the briny ocean,
Tigers of forest climes, larks on the wing…
One of the latter, for some reason
Deaf to the urgings of the season
Until it was, alas, half past,
Decided it was time, at last,
To taste the joys of springtime love, and do
Like earth and Nature, and give birth anew.
Quickly she builds her nest, lays, sits… Anon,
She hatches out her brood; but, spring now gone,
The wheat whereon they nested had already
Ripened before the hatchlings—too unsteady,
Too weak of wing yet to take flight—
Had learned to go in search of food.
Wherefore, with much solicitude,
The mother lark, eager to ease their plight,
Goes foraging; but not before
Proffering words of warning by the score,
Telling them they must keep a well-peeled eye
In case monsieur, who owns the field, comes by:
“He and his son,” she says, “as they
Most surely will.” Then, adding: “Listen well!
For, truly, what he has to say
Can seal our fate.” She leaves, and, truth to tell,
Monsieur appears next moment with said son.
“The wheat is ripe. Go ask our friends, each one,”
Says he, “to bring a sickle and come here
At dawn to help us.” Soon our lark returns,
Finds her brood much alarmed, and learns
Quickly the reason for their fear.
“‘At dawn,’ he said… With all his friends… Tomorrow…”
“Indeed? If that was all he said, no worry!
Come feed on what I’ve found. No hurry!
Surely we have no need to go and borrow
Trouble just yet. Tomorrow, once again,
We’ll listen well and, maybe, worry then.”
Meanwhile they supped, then slept… Next day,
Dawn breaks. And friends? No, none… Off flies
The mother. Comes monsieur: “I say,”
Says he, “my wheat still standing? Ah,” he sighs,
“What worthless friends! What good-for-nothing wretches!
Go fetch my cousins all!” And, in the nest,
Our fledgelings, still more sore distressed:
“Now cousins… Cousins, now he fetches…
Cousins galore he’s sending for!…” Another
“Tut tut” of reassurance from the mother:
“Sleep tight. We have no cause to flee.”
And right she was. Cousins? Not one… The third
Day, when monsieur came eagerly
To view his crop, these were the words they heard:
“What fools we are to count on others! We
Can count on but ourselves, you hear?
Tomorrow we—no neighbors, brothers, kin—
Will come, each with our sickle, and begin
Our labors, best we can.” The lark gave ear.
“Now is the time,” she tells her brood. And they
Flutter, untrumpeted, and fly away.
IV, 22
· BOOK V ·
THE WOODSMAN AND MERCURY
FOR M. L. C. D. B.1
Your taste it is that guides my art; I try
To please your gracious audience thereby.
You would have me a florid style eschew,
Pompous and labored. I would do so too.
Such effort is not pleasing, and a poet,
Lest he mar all he writes, had best forego it.
Not that one must reject a certain charm—
Delicacy of touch—that does no harm
And that you find attractive quite as much
As I. Indeed, it is with such
Traits that I try to do as Aesop tried
Before me, with as few faults, flaws
Withal. If neither pleased nor edified
Is he who reads me, it is not because
I do not try. With pointed phrase—
Since, with Herculean force I cannot flout
Vice in its source—I seek to rout
It out with ridicule. I dare not raise
The hope that I succeed. Sometimes my story
Paints envy and foppish vainglory:
Pivots round which our lives revolve these days.
For instance, take that paltry beast
Who sought to see her girth increased
Until she reached the ox’s size.2
Other times I pair vice with virtue, sense
With folly, showing the experience
Of lamb with wolf in blackguard’s guise,
Of fly and ant, rivals forever; whence
A drama in a hundred acts I write,
Whose setting is the universe. Gods, men,
Beasts play their parts, time and again,
And Jove as well. Here let me cite
Mercury too, who does the latter’s
Errands in all his amatory matters.
But that is not the role he has today.
A woodsman lost his bread and butter—
His axe, that is—and stood in utter
Woe and pathetic disarray.
No other tools to sell had he;
Nothing ’twixt him and penury
Complete. As tears stream from his eyes,
Bathing his face, “My axe,” he cries,
“My poor, dear axe! O Jupiter!
Pray give it back to me, Seigneur,
And I will thank you for the boon!”
Olympus hears his plea, and soon
Sends Mercury… He comes… Replies: “It
Has not been lost. But tell me, should
You see it, would you recognize it?
I saw one hereabout that could
Be yours…” Wherewith he holds one out,
Crafted of gold. “Ah, no! I doubt
That would be mine! It cannot be!”
A second one, of silver made,
Followed the first. The woodsman bade
Mercury keep it: certainly,
In no wise was such an axe his.
At length, a third, of wood… “Ah me!”
He shouted joyously. “That is
The very one!” “And yours shall be
The other two as well, all three,”
Answered the god, “as a reward
For virtue, and good faith restored!”
When word about the precious pair
Went spreading, bruited here and there,
How many are the Jeans and Jacques
In feigned despair, who claim that they
Have likewise lost their trusty axe,
A
nd pray the heavens that it may
Soon be returned! Before the lot,
Poor Jove can scarce decide which one
To listen to; and which one, not.
And so once more he sends his son
To earth. Again to each he shows
An axe of gold. Each would suppose
Himself a dolt not to cry: “Ods
Bodkins! ’Tis mine!…” Ah, but instead
Of giving them the axe, the gods’
Runner thwacks them about the head.
Best to speak true and be content
With what is yours. For, what’s the use
Of lying to grow opulent?
Jupiter is no simple goose!
V, 1
THE EARTHEN POT AND THE IRON POT
Said iron pot to earthen pot:
“Let’s travel, you and I.”
Said earthen pot: “I’d rather not,
My friend, and this is why:
For somebody the likes of me
It’s best to stay home peacefully,
Here by the fire. It doesn’t take
More than a touch to make me break
To bits, a-crumble and a-shatter.
With you it’s quite another matter:
Go where you like; your iron hide
Is tough enough.” The pot replied:
“I understand why you object.
You fail to fancy, I suspect,
That I’ll protect you, come what may.
Indeed, you’ll be my protégé:
Should object hard and unforeseen
Come threaten you, I’ll stand between.”
These promises at length persuade
His fretful friend, who, unafraid,
Accepts his offer. Off they go—
Two pots together, forward ho!—
Waddling along three-footedly;
But as they clip-clop, fancy-free,
The earthen pot, with every stride,
Is jarred and jostled by the one beside.
In but a yard or two, our pot—
With little right to wonder “Why?” or “Wherefore?”—
Lies in a shattered heap.
My advice, therefore:
Keep to your kind. Because, if not,
You too may get the fate he got.
V, 2
THE LITTLE FISH AND THE FISHERMAN
Though every little fish, God willing,
Surely, one day, will bigger grow,
Folly it is to let one go
Until he’s fatter for the killing.
Later you well may try, and not be able,
To land him when he’s fitter for the table.
Angling at river’s edge, a fisherman
Captured a baby carp—so goes the fable—
The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine Page 12
