In the blog I posted on 23 May 2013, I used the word “savoir-faire.”Donkey-Skin‘s fairy godmother does not merely turn rats into horses, as in most fairy tales. She suggests an attitude, such as not contradicting one’s father. Persons who have savoir-faire know ways of circumventing problems.
The word savoir-faire is well nigh him impossible to translate, but it describes the behaviour of “l’honnête homme” perhaps better than any other words. As Dr Jules Brody, an expert on Molière has said about Alceste, in Molière‘s Misanthrope, Alceste is morally right, but esthetically he blunders.
Dr Cecil MacLean
So I remembered a joke which Dr Cecil MacLean, the Carnegie Chair of French at St Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia told brilliantly. Dr Cecil does not have his equal as a raconteur. Nor could we find an example of a better athlete who was also a most refined scholar and teacher. He studied in France while playing hockey for the French all-star team. In a trial game preceding the Munich 1936 Olympics, the French team with Cecil as gardien de but, goal keeper, defeated the German team. Hitler was watching. Unfortunately, Cecil was recalled by StFX before the actual Olympics. StFX had lost its French teacher.
That was the demise of the French team, Cecil being described in French newspapers as the Canadian Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greco-Roman mythology, but StFX found in him the finest of teachers. By the time he started teaching, he had earned a Doctorat ès Lettres from the old Sorbonne.
Cecil was the personnification of “honnêteté.” His French was as flawless and rich as his handwriting. Yet he was a great lover of sports. He published articles on sports and co-hosted a radio program devoted to sports, his favourite being baseball.
Moïse sauvé des eaux, by Nicolas Poussin (Photo credit: Google Images*
I have removed the ’h,’ that is spelled ‘dat’ and the, ‘de.’
The American teacher makes the trip to Paris and visits the French Academy, numbering forty members called ”les quarante immortels” (the forty immortals). When one dies, that person is replaced.
One académicien described savoir-faire by giving an example.
The First Académicien
“When a man, ‘e goes ’ome and ‘e finds ‘is wife in bed wit’ another man, ‘e says: “Oh, pardon !” (Sorry!). Dat is savoir-faire.”
The Second Académicien
“Pas exactement” (not quite) said another académicien. Stroking his beard, he refined the example. ”When a man, ‘e goes ‘ome and ‘e finds ‘is wife in bed wit’ another man, ‘e says: “Oh, pardon, continuez !” (Sorry, carry on!) Dat is savoir-faire.
The Third Académicien
“Pas exactement” said a third académicien. Stroking his beard, he refined the example further: “when a man, ‘e goes ‘ome and ‘e finds ‘is wife in bed wit’ another man, ‘e says: “Oh, pardon, continuez !”(Sorry, carry on!) “Now if de man in de bed, ‘e can continue, ‘e ‘as savoir-faire.”
Comments
This is a story you may have heard and it is a story I cannot tell well. I am not a raconteur, but Cecil was. He gave this joke finesse. SoI bow to Cecil, the most extraordinary man I have ever met and a man who was so attentive to my every need.
Conclusion
Cecil’s doctoral dissertation was on the influence of Robert Louis Stevenson on French literature. It was published in Paris, but I do not think the book is in circulation anymore. It should be available even if it was written before Dr Cecil was twenty-four.
I so admired this gentleman, a twentieth-century honnête homme, who was an athlete, an intellectual and so very charming. As for his definition of savoir-faire, it was a joke, yet accurate. It would have delighted Charles Perrault whose Donkey-Skin or Donkeyskin is esthetically correct, thereby redeeming (racheter) less savoury parts of a lovely narrative.
A dying queen asks her husband to seek another spouse as beautiful as she is. The widowed king falls in love with his daughter who is as beautiful as her mother, hence the fairy tale‘s classification as “unnatural love.” However, Donkey-Skin seeks supernatural help provided by a fairy godmother. The princess is told that she must ask her father to provide her with lavish gowns, three as it turns out, and to kill his gold-defecating donkey. The father obliges and Donkey-Skin flees covered in the skin of the dead donkey.
After she escapes, Donkey-Skin starts working as a peasant. But a prince sees her through a key-hole when she is trying on one the lavish gowns her father has given her. This is an example of kairos, which means thatthe prince sees Donkey-Skin at the opportune moment. He falls in love to the point of being sick. In literature, French 17th-century literature in particular, writers have often depicted love as an illness.
The remedy that will heal the prince is not the skin of a wolf Ysengrim’s age, but a cake Donkey-Skin has baked. She therefore bakes the cake and inserts her ring into the batter. So we now remember the foot-that-fits-the-shoe ‘motif,’ Cinderella’s foot. The prince goes in search of the woman whose finger fits the ring and finds her. Donkey-Skin is returned to her regal self.
Réunion de dames, by Abraham Bosse* 17th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
At the time Perrault wrote his Tales of Mother Goose(Contes de ma mère l’Oye), children’s literature was in its infancy. Charles Perrault was an habitué (a regular) of Salons and fairy tales are associated with Préciosité‘s main objectives: the refinement of language and manners, and the ”Querelle des Femmes,” the French 17th-century debate about women. Women considered themselves as “précieuses.” At first sight, it therefore seems puzzling that the story of a princess resisting the incestuous advances of her father should be accepted in literature befitting fine gathering places. Such is not the case.
The Debate about women and Perrault’s Style
According to the Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, Donkey-Skin is, indeed, part of the “Querelle des femmes,” the debate about women. Donkey-Skin exposes an abuse against women, which may explain its acceptability. Salonniers and salonnières also enjoyed the suspense. The tale also owes its acceptability in that readers know that Donkey-Skin’s plight will end. Fairy tales have a happy ending. However, I should think that the manner in which the tale is told is its matter. Peau d’Âne is an exquisite versified tale, which makes it fine Salon literature.
In other words, although Donkey-Skin is pursued by an incestuous father, the tale is told by an excellent writer. Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was born to a wealthy bourgeois family and elected to the Académie française, in 1671. For two decades, he worked at court as Jean-Baptiste Colbert‘s secretary. He mingled in Salons with other honnêtes hommes,[i]gentlemen who, by and large, were as they seem[ii], quite an achievement in 17th-century France. Finally, at the close of the 17th century, Perrault would lead the Modernes in the famous Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes.[iii]
Yet, in Aarne-Thompson, Donkey-Skin’s is listed as type 510, i.e. unnatural love, rather than a type that could be called the flayed animal, such as Curing a Sick Lion (AT 50). The incestuous love of a father for his daughter does not seem appropriate entertainment for small children or the audience of Salons. We have seen, however, that it is acceptable. Moreover it mirrors other ‘motifs.’
The Flayed Wolf
Let’s recall Reynard the Fox, rooted in the Sick-Lion tale or Curing a Sick Lion (AT 50). Reynard has overheard Ysengrim the wolf tell the king that Reynard has failed to join other courtiers who are at their sick king’s, the lion, bedside. Reynard overhears the wolf and visits him later to tell Noble that he has travelled everywhere in search of a cure. To be cured, the king must wrap himself into the skin of a wolf, the age of Ysengrim.
It would therefore seem reasonable to link tales where a character is covered in the skin of another animal with the tale Aarne-Thompson have listed as AT 50: curing a sick lion. However, tales intersect and may include more than one motif. Although the Aarne-Thompson index classifies Donkey-Skin under its unnatural love category, Peau d’Âne does mirror the flayed-animal motif, under any name. In fact, it also mirrors Cinderella‘s foot-that-fits-the-shoe motif, the shoe in Peau d’Âne, being the ring the prince finds in the cake. Donkey-Skin also mirrors The Goose who laid golden eggs (Æsop’ Fables, Perry Index 87) and Jean de La Fontaine‘s “La Poule aux œufs d’or” (V. 13). Like the goose, the king’s donkey is “aurifère,” an endless source of gold.
Traditions populaires
Also at play is tradition. Perrault’s Donkey-Skin is perhaps ageless. It was probably transmitted through an oral tradition and too widely known to be left aside. Before Peau d’Âne entered a learned tradition, i.e. a written form, a fairy tale was sometimes referred to as a “Peau d’Âne.”[iv]Molière alludes to Peau d’Âne in hisMalade imaginaire (II, 8), his last play (1673). Moreover, Jean de La Fontaine expressed his love of Peau d’Âne in a fable published in 1678, in his second recueil, or collection, of fables:
Si Peau d’Âne m’était conté,
J’y prendrais un plaisir extrême.
Le Pouvoir des Fables (VIII, 4)
(If Peau d’Âne were told to me
It would give me extreme delight.)
According to Marc Soriano,[v] Perrault used many sources before writing his Peau d’Âne in perfect verse. The tale is not altogether a rewriting of Giambattista Basile‘s (c. 1575 – 23 February 1632) l‘Orsa IT (The Bear), (Il cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille [The Tale of Tales or Entertaiment for Little Ones]), or Pentamerone. Nor is it a polished version of a tale by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (c. 1575 – 23 February 1632), the author of the Facetious Nights or Piacevoli Notti. It is Perrault‘s Donkey-Skin and one of the first fairy tales belonging to children’s literature. Perrault’s, the Moderne, has set the tone. He has become the model.
Conclusion
So, eloquence and tradition have redeemed unnatural love. That would be my first conclusion. As suggested above, folktales enjoy a degree of immunity, not only as fiction but as part of a cultural heritage that has profound roots and crosses borders. Peau d’Âne is not altogether cleansed: the donkey is still “aurifère,” i.e. it defecates gold, and Peau d’Âne’s father’s love remains a transgression. However, even in the most refined social circles, one does indulge, occasionally, in a soupçon, i.e. a tad, of scatological humour, told correctly. Moreover, by the time Perrault wrote his fairy tales, Préciosité was no longer the ridiculous fashion represented in Molière‘s Les Précieuses ridicules(1659). Finally, not only does Perrault’s Donkey-Skin mirror many texts, but it is pared down and presented in verses, not the easier prose. Style transcends “unnatural love.”
However, I will end this post by introducing a new element. Let me quote Donkey-Skin’s fairy godmother, her marraine fée, who suggests that Donkey-Skin not contradict her father while refusing him: “Mais sans le contredire on peut le refuser,” which is what Donkey-Skin does, thereby displaying that, with a little advice, worldly wisdom, she can negotiate her way out of her father’s incestuous requests. Her fairy godmother tells Peau d’Âne that incest, without naming it, is a “great wrong,” (une faute bien grande), but her entire statement reads as follows:
Écouter sa folle demande
Serait une faute bien grande,
Mais sans le contredire on peut le refuser.
Listening to his mad request
Would be a great wrong,
But without contradicting him, one can refuse him.
One is therefore reminded of Puss in Boots, a fairy tale in which a very clever cat takes his master from rags to riches using his savoir-faire, amore natural recourse than magic. Donkey-Skin will oppose her father “sans le contredire,” without contradicting him, which is also savoir-faire, not to mention empowerment.
_________________________[i]The term sprezzatura used by Baldassare Castiglione in the Cortegiano (c. 1528) conveys behaviour that does not necessarily go beyond mere appearances. It suggests nonchalance
“Partly because of the influence of the salons and partly as a result of disillusionment at the failure of the Fronde, the heroic ideal was gradually replaced in the 1650s by the concept of honnêteté. The word does not connote “honesty” in its modern sense but refers rather to an ideal aristocratic moral and social mode of behaviour, a sincere refinement of tastes and manners.” (honnête homme, Britannica)
[ii] “honnête homme”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 23 May. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/271056/honnete-homme>.
[iii] According to the Modernes, the literature of France had reached an apex and could now serve as a model. The Anciens, led by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, who, with François de Malherbe, shaped French classicism, versification in particular, did not share this view.
[iv] See G. Rouger, ed. Contes de Perrault (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1967), p. 153.[v] Marc Soriano, Les Contes de Perrault, culture savante et traditions populaires (Paris: Gallimard, coll. ‘Tel’, 1977 [1968]), 113-124.
composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764)
piece: Tambourins and Chaconne from “Dardanus” (1739)
performers: Musica Pacifica, at the Berkeley Early Music Festival main stage, June 2012.
Portrait of Charles Perrault (detail), by Philippe Lallemand,* 1672 (Photo credit: Wikipedia.)
Un Épisode de l’affaire de Quibéron, 1795, by Paul-Émile Boutigny (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Portrait of the Three Consuls, from left to right, Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles-François Lebrun* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On 21 March 1804, aged 31, His Serene Highness, The Duke of Enghien, born on 2 August 1772, was executed by single firearm. He was an émigré but dragoons captured him and brought him to Strasbourg on 15 March 1804. He was the grand-son of Louis XIV, by Madame de Montespan, and the son of Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d’Orléans, the Duke of Orléans’ sister. Philippe duc d’Orléans, or Philippe Égalité, the duc d’Enghien’s uncle, voted in favour of his brother’s, Louis XVI, execution, by guillotine.
The Duc d’Enghien was a prince of the blood (Prince du Sang) and, therefore, a possible heir to the throne of France. He was accused of participating in a Royalist plot (Cadoudal-Pichegru) to defeat the Consulate (18 Brumaire [9 November] 1799 -1804), part of the Napoleonic era (c. 1795-1815 [Congress of Vienna]). He was tried for the sake of appearances, Napoleon having decided he had to be eliminated. D’Enghien had been the commander of a corps of émigrés during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), but he had not played a role in the above-mentioned 1804 conspiracy. By the time the duke was captured, he had married Charlotte de Rohan (25 October 1767 – 1 May 1841), privately and in near secrecy, and the couple lived in Ettenheim, in Baden, on the Rhine. (See Duc d’Enghien, Wikipedia.)
Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d’Enghien (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There were of course many Royalists among the French during the French Revolution (1789-1794). Particularly noteworthy is a failed invasion of France called l’affaire Quibéron portrayed above by artist Paul-Émile Boutigny (1853 -1929). On 23 June 1795, émigrés landed at Quibéron to lend support to the Vendéens, who had long fought Revolutionary forces, and the chouannerie, royalist uprisings. The émigrés hoped they could raise support in western France, end the French Revolution and re-establish the monarchy. By 21 July 1795, they had been routed.
As for the duke, nothing could be done to save him. If Joséphine de Beauharnais,[i]Napoléon I‘s first wife, could not dissuade her husband, born Napoleone Buonaparte, no one could. Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d’Otrante(known as the Duke of Otranto), Napoleon’s chief of police, said of the execution that “it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake:” “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute.” The crime, for it was a crime, was imputed, probably wrongly, to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, one of history’s foremost survivors. However, if the murder of the young duc d’Enghien is remembered to this day, it is as an obvious injustice, one that lingered in the mind of great writers.
The “Chouans” and the Duke in literature: Balzac, Dumas and Leo Tolstoy
In Les Chouans, a 1829 novel, French writer Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) immortalized the royalistchouannerie, uprisings in western France and, by the same token, the royalist Vendéan insurrection. For his part, the duc d’Enghien was bestowed life eternal by Leo Tolstoy (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. In the first book of War and Peace, Tolstoy has the vicomte de Mortemart, a French émigré, say that:
“‘[a]fter the murder of the duc, even the most partial ceased to regard [Buonaparte] as a hero. If to some people he ever was a hero, after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth.’ The vicomte said that the duc d’Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.”
There is an anecdote according to which, during one of his fainting spells,[ii] Napoléon was at the mercy of the duke of Enghien who spared him. The execution of the duc d’Enghien might well have been Napoléon’s brief but personal French Revolution. He needed to kill an aristocrat.
Alexandre Dumas, père (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) featured the duc d’Enghien in his The Last Cavalier (Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine), unfinished at the time of Dumas’ death, but now published and translated into English:
“[T]he dominant sentiment in Bonaparte’s mind at that moment was neither fear nor vengeance, but rather the desire for all of France to realise that Bourbon blood, so sacred to Royalist partisans, was no more sacred to him than the blood of any other citizen in the Republic.
‘Well, then’, asked Cambacérès,[iii] ‘what have you decided?’
‘It’s simple’, said Napoleon, ‘We shall kidnap the Duc d’Enghien and be done with it.’”[iv]
Let these words be the conclusion of this post. The duc d’Enghien was a scapegoat.
Henri de La Rochejacquelein* at the Battle of Cholet in 1793, by Paul-Émile Boutigny (10 March 1853 – 27 June 1929), Musée d’art et d’histoire de Cholet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
[i] Napoleon divorced Joséphine in 1810 so he could marry Marie Louise d’Autriche, the future Duchess of Parma, who gave him a son. Napoléon wanted un ventre, a fertile woman.
[ii] Napoleon had epileptic seizures. One of Talleyrand’s duties was to remove Napoléon from public sight when seizures occurred.
Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869)
Grande Messe des morts, “Dies Irae” (from the Requiem)
London Symphony Orchestra
Wandsworth School Boys’ Choir & the London Symphony Chorus
Crop of a carte de visite photo of Hector Berlioz by Franck, Paris, c. 1855 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here is a lovely little song. The music is by Italian composerGiovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 March 1736). My translation is mostly literal. So, please do not expect a beautiful poem. I wanted to translate the words. This song is a very simple pastoral.
Why am I not the fern/ Where, towards the end of a beautiful day,/ My shepherdess rests/ And love watches over her?/ Why am I not the gentle breeze,/ That refreshes her charms,/ The air her mouth breathes,/ The flower born under her steps.
Que ne suis-je l’onde pure
Qui la reçoit dans son sein ?
Que ne suis-je la parure
Qui la couvre après le bain ?
Que ne suis-je cette glace,
Où son minois répété
Offre à nos yeux une grâce
Qui sourit à la beauté ?
Why am I not the pure mist/ That receives her into its bosom/ Why am I not the ornament/ That covers her after her bath?/ Why am I not that mirror,/ Where her sweet little face repeats itself/ Offeringto our gaze a grace/ That smiles at beauty?
Why am I not, as in a dream,/ Holding her heart bewitched?/ And why can I not from a lie/ Go on to the truth?/ The gods who gave me life/ Made me too ambitious,/ For I would like to be/ All that pleases her eyes!
Re: Short Post About Moments I Hold Dear In My Heart - -
OP-ED by John Liming - -
On July 14, 2012 it looked to me like a whole helluva lot of hard-core Right Wingers were all over "Twitter" poking fun at President Obama for what they were calling his "Failed" first term.
My purpose is to show images. Two are by Milo Winter (The Æsop for Children, EBook #19994) and one is the work of Ferdinand Hodler, perhaps the finest Swiss artist of the 19th century. I would like to show you more of his work.
Ferdinand Hodler (14 March 1853 – 19 May 1918) was born in Berne, Switzerland. He was soon the only surviving member of his family. All died of tuberculosis. This experience coloured his life. For instance, Hodler painted several portraits of his mistress and former model Valentine Godé-Darel during the years she was dying of cancer. The video I am inserting in this post documents her “disintegration” Interestingly, Hodler also painted some 20 portraits of himself. These may be a chronicle of the gradual metamorphosis that characterizes human life.
After Ferdinand Hodler’s father died, his mother married a decorative artist. This may explain Hodler’s career as illustrator. He apprenticed at Thun and then moved to Geneva. He is associated with many movements: from realism to expressionism, including symbolism and Art Nouveau (see “Adoration III” at the bottom of this post). We have seen the work of Alphonse Mucha (24 July 1860 – Prague, 14 July 1939) who was a Czech Art Nouveau artist.
In order to improve his skills, Hodler travelled so he could study the work of other artists. He was particularly interested in the art of Hans Holbein.
Hodler painted several landscapes and portraits. Favourite subjects were women and people going about their daily activities, genre painting. However he was also an illustrator.
In the Aarne-Thompson classification index, The miller, his son and the donkey is motif 1215 and bears many names. For the time being, we will call it The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey.[ii] By clicking on this title, we will see tales related to AT 1215.
I used La Fontaine’s version of this fable, entitled Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne FR, but it is also an Æsopic fable Themiller, his son andthe donkey, Perry Index 721, AT 1205 (English). Given that Greek playwright Aristophane‘s (450 BC) alluded to our story in The Frogs; given, moreover, that it also belongs to the Æsopic corpus, The miller, his son and the donkey is a very old fable. However, it would appear La Fontaine used as immediate model, a Racan retelling and the last fable in a collection of fables by Gabriele Faerno (1510 [Cremona], 17 November 1561 [Rome]), entitled Centum fabulae(A Hundred Fables). The moral of Faërne’s (FR) fable is that, if one tries to please everyone, one pleases very few individuals, or none at all.
According to Wikipedia, La Fontaine was also influenced by Poggio Bracciolini,[iii] called Poggio (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), who included the story in his Facetiæ (1450). It is the opening poem of Giovanni Maria Verdizotti‘s Cento favole morali (1570) (One Hundred Moral Tales). However, “[t]he oldest documented occurrence of the actual story is in the work of the historian, geographer and poet Ibn Said (1213-1286), born and educated in Al-Andalus[,]” in Islamic Iberia, now Spain and Portugal. The story is also told in the Forty Vezirs, translated from Arabic into Turkish by Sheykh Zada. It is one of the stories told in the Arab world’s Goha.
The story was also written in the 17th century by Ottoman Turkish Nasreddin, who, according to Wikipedia, “dealt in concepts that have a certain timelessness” (Wikipedia). His advice to his son (son fils) is:
“If you ever should come into the possession of a donkey, never trim its tail in the presence of other people. Some will say that you have cut off too much, and others that you have cut off too little. If you want to please everyone, in the end your donkey will have no tail at all.” (Nasreddin Hodja)
In the 13th century, Jacques de Vitry translated the tale and inserted it in his Tabula exemplorum.[iv] It was also translated by Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena (5 May 1282 – 13 June 1348). The story, entitled “What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,” is included in the Tales of Count Lucanor (1335). It can be found in Shakespeare’s Jest Book (c. 1530), in German meistersingerHans Sachs, who created it as a broadsheet, in 1531. It is also part of German author Joachim Camerarius‘ Asinus Vulgi. This version was used by the Dane Niels Heldvad (1563-1634) in his translation of the fable. It was then told by French seventeenth-century Racan, a disciple of French poet Malherbe, who is largely responsible for the development of the poetic rules of French “Classicism.”
We therefore see it in Greece (Aristophanes and Æsop), in the Arab World, in the Ottoman Empire, in Italian city-states, in Spain and Portugal, in England, in Germany and in France.
A 17th century miniature of Nasreddin, currently in the Topkapi Palace* Museum Library. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The miller, his son and the donkey is an old story. In all likelihood, it dates back to Æsop, if there ever lived a Æsop. If so he was a reteller. In the case of La Fontaine’s Le Meunier, son fils et l’âne, we know his immediate sources: Racan and Gabriele Faerno.
In my earlier post, I point to a moral underlying the moral. The people who give advice to the miller and his son are judgmental. But the fable could also be linked to analysis paralysis. We often need to seek advice, professional advice in particularly, but we can’t let others stifle our inner voices. I believe that instinct is often one’s best guide. When in doubt, abstain! (Dans le doute, abstiens-toi.)
I will close by noting, first, that The miller, his son and the donkey is an example of shared wisdom: the Greeks, Islamic Iberia, the Arab world, Ottoman Turks and various European cultures. Second, tales we call “folktales” have a wide range of listeners, readers and writers. Not only are stories delightful, but they also override rank and constitute a testimonial to pluralism.
Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf, by Granville (Photo credit: lafontaine.net)
The Quarrel about the Soul of Animals: Descartes
The Quarrel about the Soul of Animals, may not have been of great interest to writers, but it was important to philosophers and it has endured. The deeper quarrel concerned ‟reason” versus ‟instinct.” According to René Descartes, (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), the author of the Discours sur la méthode (The Discourse on Method), published in 1637, reason was the way to knowledge (epistemology).
Darwinism, the transmutation of species or evolution, can also be associated with the ‟quarrel about the soul of animals,” but from a different point of view. Darwinism gives the human race animal ancestry, as does totemism.
According to Descartes, animals do not think. They are machines, or ‟un ressort,” a clock one winds up. La Fontaine writes that Descartes ‟goes further and claims that beasts do not think at all: ‛nullement’ ‟ (‟Descartes va plus loin, et soutient nettement// Qu’elle [la bête] ne pense nullement. (IX, 20)” An English translation of the entire fable can be accessed by clicking on the following link: Discours à Madame de La Sablière. La Fontaine was Madame de La Sablière’s house guest from 1673 until 1693. He called her Iris.
La Fontaine would not and did not state that animals had a soul. However, his position was that necessity (the mother of invention) had given animals all the wit they needed to survive. According to Jean de La Fontaine, animals haven’t the soul humans have, but they are not mere machines. He therefore closes his Discours à [Address to] Madame de la Sablière, by telling the story of two smart rats, a fox and an egg.
Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf
In Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf (FR) or The Two Rats, Fox and Egg (EN), La Fontaine uses a cast of three and an egg. The fox is not very near the rats, but they know of his presence and cannot sit and eat the egg they have found without moving the egg away from the snooper (l’écornifleur). They think and think. Should they package the egg and carry it with their front paws? Should they roll it or drag it? It was impossible and very dangerous: chose hasardeuse.
The rats having pondered the problem, one of the two turns upside down and puts the egg between his four paws, while the other rat pulls him by the tail. Necessity, or the instinct of self-preservation, has rescued our likeable little fellows. Instinct is something we share with animals. Yet, there does not seem to be a quarrel about this bond between humans and animals.
souls: Middle-Souls
Therefore, La Fontaine thinks in terms of middle-souls: L’un [trésor] cette âme pareille en tous tant que nous sommes, //Sages, fous, enfants, idiots, //Hôtes (guests) de l’univers sous le nom d’animaux; //L’autre encore une autre âme, entre nous et les anges.
One we share with all things alive: /the wise, madmen, children, idiots //The universe’s guests under the name of animals; //And still another shared between us and angels.
Conclusion
The key-word is indeed nécessité: ‟Nécessité l’ingénieuse /Leur fournit une invention.” (Ingenuous necessity /Provided them with an invention.)Moreover, La Fontaine’s idea could be compared to a vertical line. He is thinking of gradation. It could be that Darwinism would give us a horizontal line, but a line that would no doubt have branches. As for classification according to motifs, it would appear this fable has escaped that particular exercise. It seems part of the ‟querelle” about the soul of beasts.
However, it did elicit comments in the classroom. My students always had dozens of stories demonstrating how intelligent their dog was. I would tell them that it could be dogs dit not know they would die, but that I had met Einsteins among dogs, not to mention very clever cats galore. As Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) wrote, “The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.” In Beast literature, animals are considered superior to humans.
[i] See LaFontaine.net. Granville, pseudonym for Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (1603 – 1647)
[ii] Officially, the quarrel opposed authors and literati (persons interested in literature) who believed literature in French had come of age and those who felt the Græco-Latin models had not been surpassed. Charles Perrault led one camp, supporters of the Moderns. Boileau championed the Ancients, as did his friend La Fontaine.
The translation I used for Jean de La Fontaine‘s (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) ‟The Cat and the Fox,” is Gutenberg’s EBook #19994 entitled The Æsop for Children and illustrated by Milo Winter (7 August 1888 – 1956). I made a mistake. I scrolled down to page 88 and found a fable entitled ‟The Cat and the Fox.” Usually, Æsop’s cat and fox fable is entitled ‟The Fox and the Cat.” I have not found the name of the translator of Gutenberg’s The Æsop for Children, but the correct illustration is the following by Milo Winter. In order to read Gutenberg’s translation of Æsop, click on ‟The Cat and the Fox.”
I have corrected the blog I posted on 10 May 2013, but have posted the semicircular picture again, at the top of this post, giving credit to its illustrator: John Ray. However, there are three more illustrations by John Ray, the last of which is Reynard the Fox‘s tombstone.
Retelling and translating La Fontaine is a major endeavour. According to Wikipedia, with respect to mastery of the French language, Jean de La Fontaine has only been surpassed by Victor Hugo, but barely. There may be simplified and more modern retellings of La Fontaine’s fables, but I know of none. I would have to access a catalogue of current children’s literature rooted in La Fontaine. But I will not investigate the matter.
As for translating La Fontaine, it is also very difficult. A literal translation is almost impossible. One has to rewrite La Fontaine. Moreover, one is faced with instances of intertextualité. These are difficulties Robert Thomson encountered when he translated The Cat and the Fox.
The term may seem daunting, but intertextualité (FR) occurswhen a text refers to another text. For instance, La Fontaine calls both the cat and the fox ‟Tartufs” and ‟archipatelins.” The name ‟archipatelins” is a reference to the anonymous Farce de Maître Pierre Pathelin. Maître Pierre Pathelin is a lawyer. La Fontaine was not very kind to lawyers.
As for Tartuffe, shortened in La Fontaine so a syllable could be removed[i], it is the title of a play by Molière (baptised January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673), first performed in 1664. After Tartuffe premiered, further performances were cancelled by Louis XIV, a supporter and friend of Molière. In all likelihood, Louis was following the advice of the Archbishop of Paris, Paul Philippe Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe. It was written and performed in 1667, but the dévots, probably members of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, remained hostile. There was a third and final revision of Tartuffe, performed in 1669. The full title of the play is Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur:the Impostor.
The world has many impostors, but Tartuffe, the eponymous main character of the play, uses false devotion to defraud a tyrannical pater familias. This is the mask, the faux-dévot, Renart uses to escape a death sentence. In William Trowbridge Larned‘s translation, Gutenberg’s EBook #24108, the fox is called Reynard. It is also called Reynard in Robert Thomson’s translation. As for La Fontaine, his fox is ‟le renard” spelled with a ‘d’ rather than a ‘t,’ as in the Roman de Renart, but his cat and fox are like ‟nice little saints,” going on a ‟pilgrimage.” (‟Comme beaux petits saints, S’en allaient en pèlerinage”.) The translators give us an indication of the popularity of Reynard the Fox. But there is filiation between Renart, who pretends he is leaving for the Crusades, and our cat and fox, ‟nice little saints” off on a ‟pilgrimage.”
So our Gutenberg’s EBook #24108, is a translation and adaptation, by W. T. Larned, of a selection of fables written by La Fontaine and illustrated by John Ray. To read the text, click on The Cat and the Fox.
As for our EBook #19994,it seems an anonymous translation and adaptation of fables by Æsop. However the translator could be G. F. Townsend. There is or will be a Gutenberg publication of Æsop by Townsend, but it isn’t EBook #19994. My own Æsop is a translation and adaptation by G. F. Townsend.
Fortunately, the mistake I made did not affect my brief interpretation of the fable about the cat and the fox. However, it had to be corrected and my readers had to know the post was as accurate as it could be.
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[i](C’é/ taient/ deux/ vrais/ Tar/ tufs,// deux/ ar/ chi/ pa/ te/ lins.) = 12 feet (pieds). We have an alexandrin with a césure // after 6 pieds. Alexandrine verses have twelve pieds.
The Cat’s only trick is classified as AT 105 in the Aarne-Thompson motif index.[i] In the Perry Index, it is Æsopic fable number 605.
This motif goes back to the Panchatantra and does not always feature the same cast, i.e. a Cat and a Fox. In Æsop, the “Cat’s only trick” is usually entitled “The Fox and the Cat,” but in La Fontaine the title is “The Cat and the Fox,” “Le Chat et le Renard.” We therefore have a reverse image, which is appropriate since the Cat, not the Fox, manages to get out of harm’s way.
A Fox was boasting to a Cat of its clever devices for escaping its enemies. “I have a whole bag of tricks,” he said, “which contains a hundred ways of escaping my enemies.”
“I have only one,” said the Cat; “but I can generally manage with that.” Just at that moment they heard the cry of a pack of hounds coming towards them, and the Cat immediately scampered up a tree and hid herself in the boughs. “This is my plan,” said the Cat. “What are you going to do?” The Fox thought first of one way, then of another, and while he was debating the hounds came nearer and nearer, and at last the Fox in his confusion was caught up by the hounds and soon killed by the huntsmen. Miss Puss, who had been looking on, said:
“Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” (translated by G. F. Townsend)
Once a Cat and a Fox were traveling together. As they went along, picking up provisions on the way—a stray mouse here, a fat chicken there—they began an argument to while away the time between bites. And, as usually happens when comrades argue, the talk began to get personal.
“You think you are extremely clever, don’t you?” said the Fox. “Do you pretend to know more than I? Why, I know a whole sackful of tricks!”
“Well,” retorted the Cat, “I admit I know one trick only, but that one, let me tell you, is worth a thousand of yours!”
Just then, close by, they heard a hunter’s horn and the yelping of a pack of hounds. In an instant the Cat was up a tree, hiding among the leaves.
“This is my trick,” he called to the Fox. “Now let me see what yours are worth.”
But the Fox had so many plans for escape he could not decide which one to try first. He dodged here and there with the hounds at his heels. He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen burrows,—but all in vain. The hounds caught him, and soon put an end to the boaster and all his tricks.
Common sense is always worth more than cunning. (Gutenberg’s The Cat and the Fox)
La Fontaine’s The Cat and the Fox or Le Chat et le Renard
Townsend’s and Gutenberg’s Æsop’s fables are slightly different from one another. G. F. Townsend’s Æsopic cat is a female. As for Gutenberg and La Fontaine’s cat, it is a male and, although the fox is trapped by the dogs, in Gutenberg’s The Cat and the Fox and in La Fontaine’s Le Chat et le Renard, the fox is not killed by huntsmen. There are no hunters in Guntenberg and La Fontaine’s “The Cat and the Fox.” In La Fontaine, the dogs strangle their prey.
However banal this fable may seem, it has been considered an instance of analysis paralysis (see the Blue Inkwell, “Are you the Fox or the Cat?” and The Fox and the Cat, Analysis Paralysis, Rob Clarke‘s post). However, in my earlier readings of this fable, it did not occur to me that the Fox was paralysed by his own potential for survival. I simply reflected that cats were fortunate to have claws that allowed them to climb trees and that our Fox had done the best he could without claws.
In Wikipedia’s entry on The Cat and the Fox, I read that there is a proverb attributed to ancient Greek poet Archilochus according to which “the fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” which presupposes that our cat may have been a hedgehog. I also read that the Panchatantra(Book 5) illustrates the dangers of being too clever. Two clever fish, Satabuddhi (hundred-wit) and Sahasrabuddhi (thousand-wit), are told by a frog, named Ekabuddhi (single-wit), not to worry if the fishermen who have visited and plan to return do come back. He, Ekabuddhi (single-wit), will protect them. But Ekabuddhi escapes as quickly as he can, and when the fishermen return, the clever fish are caught. (See The Fish That Were Too Clever.)
Kalila wa Dimna has a related story. Three fish, wise, clever and stupid, hear fishermen. The wise fish flees. The clever fish “plays dead” (AT 56) and the stupid fish is caught by the fishermen. Writing in the thirteenth century, Persian writer Rūmī used this story in Book IV of his Masnavi.In Rūmī’s opinion, one who does not have “perfect wisdom” had better play dead.
Three Fish, Kalila wa Dimna
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wikipedia’s entry goes on to list the various animals who, in Eastern and Western Europe, have the “cat’s only trick” that makes them defeat a boastful fox or other animal. According to the author of the Wikipedia entry, La Fontaine finishes his fable with a practical moral. “Too many expedients may spoil the business.” (« Le trop d’expédients peut gâter une affaire. »)
Conclusion
It is quite true that having too many options may slow a person down; making a decision is difficult.
However, it would seem that we do not have a level playing field. The Cat has claws, and claws are what an animal needs to climb a tree. As for the Fox, however clever he may be, he does not have claws. There is not much the Fox can do except enter a foxhole. We can compare three fish, but a cat is a cat and a fox is a fox. We are dealing with different animals and different abilities.
So “The Cat and the Fox” is probably, first and foremost, about limitations. Both the Cat and the Fox have limitations, but it so happens that, in this particular fable, claws are needed. Therefore circumstances favor the Cat rather than the Fox.
Moreover, the Fox makes a terrible mistake. He boasts about his cunning tricks. Fables are comic texts where the deceiver is deceived. Had the Fox not boasted, he and the cat may not have been attacked by a pack of dogs.
