Æsop | Micheline's Blog

In an earlier post on the “The Oak and the Reed,” I commented on this line, the moral of the “The Oak and Reed:” ‘Je plie, et ne romps pas.’ (‘I bend, and do not break.’) This line illustrates La Fontaine’s uncanny ability to tell what he is not telling (dire-sans-dire). In fact, it was long believed that this fable expounded the importance of humility and little else:

“Written in the autocratic time of Louis XIV of France, this was so successfully achieved that it appeared to teach the value of humility at the same time as suggesting that rulers may not be as powerful as they think themselves.” (“The Oak and the Reed” [I.22], Wikipedia)

La Fontaine as a Protégé of Nicolas Fouquet

La Fontaine had been a protégé of Nicolas Fouquet/Foucquet (January 27, 1615 – March 23, 1680), the Superintendant of Finances, from 1653 until 1661, the year Louis XIV became King of France. After 17 August 1661, the day Louis XIV attended a fête at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Fouquet’s magnificent castle, Louis XIV accused Fouquet of embezzlement. Fouquet was convicted and condemned to banishment, a sentence Louis XIV himself, then aged 22, commuted to life imprisonment, at Pignerol (now Pinerolo, Italy), a sadder fate than banishment. La Fontaine had written his “Élégie aux Nymphes de Vaux,” in the vain hope of obtaining a degree of clemency towards his former patron, Nicolas Fouquet. He also wrote “Le Songe de Vaux.”

The Oak and the Reed

(Photo credit: oldbookillustrations.com)

The Moral of “The Oak and the Reed”

As a university teacher, I often taught La Fontaine’s “Chêne et Roseau” and would ask my students to provide a moral for La Fontaine’s fable. What did “Je plie, et ne romps pas” (I bend, and do not break) mean?

At first, they saw a fable about “the value of humility.”
They also said that it was about the mighty. They could break.
Third, they commented on the underlying structure of fables and farcical comic texts, the formulaic “deceiver deceived” (“le trompeur trompé”). People who allow themselves to boast, even moderately, are punished.

However, they did not see that “The Oak and the Reed” was about human behaviour and, in particular, about the importance of flexibility. He who bends does not break. The meaning of La Fontaine’s fables does not jump off the page.

“Je plie, et ne romps pas.” (I bend, and do not break)

Earlier in the history of this fable, this moral, “I bend but do not break,” was expressed more explicitly. According to Wikipedia, such was the moral of Avianus‘ (400 CE) telling of this fable, and the moral of earlier Greek retellings. It is the moral expressed in Geoffrey Chaucer‘s (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) Troilus and Criseyde, (II.1387-9) [EBook #257].

A reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall.

In footnote 28 of Gutenberg’s version of La Fontaine’s Fables, classified as [EBook #7241], American translator Elizur Wright and J. W. M. Gibbs, editor, state that “[t]he groundwork of this fable is in Æsop, and also in the Fables of Avianus.” Flavius Avianus lived in the 5th century CE (the 400s) and translated 42 Æsopic fables. Famous translator and printer William Caxton (ca. 1415~1422 – ca. March 1492), translated “The Fables of Avian” into “Englyshe.”[i]

Two Traditions: Phædrus and Babrius

Phædrus (Latin) and Babrius (Greek)

Yet, it should be pointed out that, although Flavius Avianus‘ translation was in Latin verse, his main source had been Babrius who translated Æsop’s Fables into Greek. It could be, therefore, that Babrius’ moral was more explicit. European sources of Æsopic fables were either the Latin translation by Phædrus‘ (c. 15 BCE – c. 50 CE) or Babrius‘ Æsop’s Fables. In fact, Avianus became a source to fable writers as did Névelet, whose Latin translation of Æsopic fables La Fontaine used, the Mythologia Æsopica Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti, Frankfurt, 1610. (See lafontaine.net.)

According to Wikipedia’s entry on “The Oak and the Reed,” flexibility was the teaching of the Rabbinic Talmud and the moral of earlier versions of “The Oak and the Reed,” all of which are rooted in “Near Eastern dispute poems.” The Talmud‘s “Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar” is attributed to Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar. The same moral is expressed in a Chinese proverb “A tree that is unbending is easily broken,” and the saying goes back to the Tao Te Ching. (See The Oak and the Reed, Wikipedia.)

(Photo credit: Gutenberg (EBook #25357]

Percy J. Billinghurst)

“L’Honnête Homme”

Moreover, this moral, “[h]e who bends does not break,” could be associated with a French seventeenth-century ideal, that of l’honnête homme. “L’honnête homme” or the concept of “honnêteté” was first described in Baldassare Castiglione‘s Il Cortegiano (1528), The Book of the Courtier, but Castiglione’s courtier underwent changes in Paris salons and in the works of the Chevalier de Méré, Nicolas Faret and Guez de Balzac.

In France, l’honnête homme is the perfect gentleman and courtier and he is, furthermore, as he seems. There is very little, if any, sprezzatura, a form of studied carelessness, about “l’honnête homme.” “Honnêteté,” in its literal sense, that of “honesty,” militates against the idea of a mere façade. I should think there were exceptions, but, in theory, l’honnête homme was well-educated (but not pedantic), had fine manners, dressed well, spoke well, never boasted and avoided all extremes, favouring modération.[ii]

Bernard Salomon‘s woodcut of “The olive tree and the reed” from a French collection of Æsop’s Fables in rhyme (Lyon 1547)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Oak, the Cedar and the Olive tree

Trees have been rigid for a very long time, but they have not been oak trees consistently. The Talmud features a cedar and fabulists Gilles Corrozet (1547), Gabriele Faerno (1564) Giovanni Maria Verdizotti used an olive tree. As for Swabian translator Heinrich Steinhöwel, he also used an olive tree. His 1480 translation of Æsopic fables is rooted in Avianus, Babrius (Greek) and Romulus (a 5th-century Latin-language fabulist). Romulus may be a legendary figure, which may also be the case with respect to Æsop himself.

Conclusion

I must close, but the above illustrates the depth of “The Oak and the Reed,” its age, not to mention its universality. It is not only about the doomed pride of the mighty, but also about the flexibility humans require to function in society, under Louis XIV especially. As for the ambiguity of its moral, it illustrates La Fontaine’s mute eloquence and may point to the Latin source of this fable. However talkative animals, trees and willows can be in literature, they do not speak. La Fontaine himself gave everyone the impression he was absent-minded and he was often referred to as a “bonhomme.” After Vaux-le-Vicomte, the fall of Nicolas Fouquet, he let animals, trees, willows and, at times, humans retell a fable that had been told for centuries and, perhaps, millennia.

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[i] [EBook #7241], Elizur Wright (translator), J. W. M. Gibbs (editor)

28. The groundwork of this fable is in Æsop, and also in the Fables of Avianus. Flavius Avianus lived in the 5th century. His Æsopic Fables were written in Latin verse. Caxton printed “The Fables of Avian, translated into Englyshe” at the end of his edition of Æsop.
29. This fable and “The Animals Sick of the Plague” [I.7] are generally deemed La Fontaine’s two best fables. “The Oak and the Reed” is held to be the perfection of classical fable, while “The Animals Sick of the Plague” is esteemed for its fine poetic feeling conjoined with its excellent moral teaching. [EBook #7241]

[ii] If you can read French, you may wish to visit Larousse’s site: honnête homme.

Sources

Recent studies

Patrick Dandrey, (2nd edition) La Fabrique des Fables (FR) (Paris: Klincksieck, 1992).

Marc Fumaroli, Le Poète et le Roi. Jean de La Fontaine en son siècle (FR) (Paris: Le Fallois, 1997).

Jürgen Grimm (various articles)

Texts

MythFolklore.Æsopica

etc.

Translations (Gutenberg)

La Fontaine’s Fables

1. A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine, Percy J. Billinghurst

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25357/25357-h/25357-h.htm

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25357/25357-h/25357-h.htm#Page_60

[EBook #25357]

2. The Fables of La Fontaine, Elizur Wright, J. W. M. Gibbs, 1882 [1841]

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8ffab10h.htm

[EBook #7241]

3. The Fables of La Fontaine, Walter Thornbury, Gustave Doré

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50316/50316-h/50316-h.htm

[EBook #50316]

4. Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, From the French of La Fontaine

John Rae & W.T. (William Trowbridge) Larned

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24108/24108-h/24108-h.htm

Æsop’s Fables

1. V. S. Vernon Jones, (tr) G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Rackham (ill)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm#030-2

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm#THE_OAK_AND_THE_REEDS

[EBook #11339]

2. George Fyler Townsend, translator

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21/21-h/21-h.htm#link2H_4_0210

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21/21-h/21-h.htm#link2H_4_0128 (The Oak and the Reeds)

[EBook #21]

3. Harrison Weir, John Tenniel and Ernest Griset, illustrators

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18732/18732-h/18732-h.htm

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18732/18732-h/18732-h.htm (The Oak and the Reeds)

[EBook #18732]

4. Milo Winter (illustrator)

The Æsop for Children

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19994/19994-h/19994-h.htm

[EBook #19994]

5. The Baldwin Project: The Tree and the Reeds

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=baldwin&book=fables&story=tree

The Reed and the Oak Tree

Maëlle Doliveux

28 September 2013

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Tags

anthropomorphism, AT 298, Gutenberg [EBook #19994], La Fontaine VI.3, Milo Winter, Phébus et Borée Vl.3

The North Wind and the Sun, Æsop’s Fables

Illustrated by Milo Winter (7 August 1888 – 15 August 1956)

Gutenberg [EBook #19994] (p. 109)

La Fontaine: Phoebus and Boreas; Phébus et Borée (VI.3)

Photo credit: Wikipedia and Gutenberg

Perry Index 46 (Æsop’s Fables)

Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 298 (Wind and Sun)

or ATU type 298

Alishman: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0298.html

Milo Winter

(Photo credit: Gutenberg)

The Wind and the Sun: Æsop

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Kindness effects more than severity.[i]

Gentleness does more than Violence

This seems a very innocent fable to which La Fontaine has given a lovely moral: “Plus fait douceur que violence.” (“Gentleness does more than violence.”)

“The North Wind and the Sun” is not so innocent a fable and it constitutes good advice to parents, to individuals who interact with other individuals, i.e. all of us, and to nations. It is the diplomatic approach. According to Wikipedia, South Korea’s Sunshine Policy was rooted in this Æsopic fable. I rather like Walter Crane‘s “True strength is not bluster.” (See The North Wind and the Sun, Wikipedia)

But in Wikipedia, one can also read a story according to which Sophocles (497/6 BC – winter 406/5 BC) asked a boy to have sexual intercourse with him. The boy did as he was told. He laid on his cloak but, after the act, he fled with Sophocles’ cloak which Sophocles had used to cover himself and the boy.[ii] Euripides (c. 480 – 406 BC), who had also engaged in sexual intercourse with the same boy, made a joke out of this event. The joke reached Sophocles who ridiculed Euripides in an epigram mentioning Euripides’ indiscretions with a woman other than his wife and alluding to the North Wind (Borée FR), and the Sun (Phébus FR).

It was the Sun, and not a boy, whose heat stripped me naked;

As for you, Euripides, when you were kissing someone else’s wife

The North Wind screwed you. You are unwise, you who sow

In another’s field, to accuse Eros of being a snatch-thief.[iii]

The above story is probably apocryphal. But given that Sophocles and Euripides, two dramatists, lived in the 5th century BCE, we know that “The North Wind and the Sun” is an old fable. Æsop lived in c. 620–564 BCE. This fable is probably of Eurasian provenance.

As for the illustrations, they provide us with a good example of anthropomorphism. The elements, the wind and the sun, are humans in disguise. They speak.

Phébus et Borée, by Jean-Baptiste Oudry

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Professor D. L. Alishman lists five tellings of this fable, under Wind and Sun (ATU type 298)

The Wind and the Sun (Æsop)
Phœbus and Boreas (Jean de La Fontaine) Phébus et Borée (VI. 3) or The North Wind and the Sun (VI.3)
The Wind and the Sun (India) Folklore of the Santal Parganas
The North Wind and the Sun, in Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), p. 181.
Brer Rabbit Treats the Creatures to a Race (Joel Chandler Harris, The Tales of Uncle Remus)

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[i] Joseph Jacobs, translator, The Fables of Æsop (London and New York: Macmillan and Company, 1894), no. 60, pp. 142-143.
[ii] See Greek Love, Wikipedia.

[iii] Eros is the Greek god of love and Cupid, the Roman god of desire. Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty.

The North Wind and the Sun:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/north_wind_and_sun_fable_by_aesop/

23 August 2013

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