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Tag Archives: Aesop’s Fables

“The Frogs Who Desired a King,” a Fable for our Times

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Election, Fables

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aesop's Fables, democracy, EBooks, Jean de La Fontaine

grenouille-demandent-roi-1

Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi (La Fontaine)
The Frogs Asking [for] a King III.4 (La Fontaine)

 

Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi is the fourth fable in book three of La Fontaine’s first volume of Fables (1668) (IX.2). His second volume, containing five books, was published in 1678. The twelfth book was published in 1694, shortly before his death. The same fable is also one of Æsop’s Fables, classified as number 44 in the Perry Index (the classification of Æsop’s Fables).

Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi tells the story of “silly and frightened” frogs who live in a democracy, but, tired of democracy, ask Jupiter for a monarch. Jupiter acquiesces. From the skies descends a peace-loving king who makes a huge noise as he lands. This king is often represented as a beam or log.

Frightened by the din, the frogs go into hiding, only to return slowly to look at the king. The peace-loving king is a beam, which is not very kingly. The frogs start jumping on the beam-king, which the king tolerates as Jupiter grumbles. The beam-king is a kindly monarch, but he does not move.

Dissatisfied, the people go back to Jupiter to ask for a king who moves. So Jupiter sends them a crane that starts eating them up. In Æsop’s telling of this fable, the crane is a stork.

In Phædrus‘ Latin translation of this fable by Æsop, a second king is sent to the frogs. It is a water snake. There is no second king in La Fontaine.

Our silly frogs complain, and Jupiter tells them, first, that they should have kept their government (a democracy), second, that they should have been pleased to be sent a gentleman-king, the beam-king, and, third, to settle for the king they have for fear of encountering a worse one, La Fontaine’s celui-ci (this one) pointing to the voracious crane.

In Æsop, as noted above, the crane is a stork.

KING LOG & KING STORK

The Frogs prayed to Jove for a king:
“Not a log, but a livelier thing.”
Jove sent them a Stork,
Who did royal work,
For he gobbled them up, did their king.

DON’T HAVE KINGS

ranae_et_rex

An art nouveau illustration by Charles Robinson from an 1895 edition
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To read the fable in French, click on Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi
To read the fable in English, click on The Frogs Asking [for] a King

012

The Baby’s Own Aesop by Walter Crane

The Moral

One of the morals of this fable is the eternal “Leave well enough alone,” but we are also reading a “beware-of-your-wishes-as-they-may-come-true” narrative. The moral of this fable is also a defense of the status quo, the state of affairs.

If all is well, a change is not necessary. If forewarned of possible dangers, a change may be dangerous. Knowing there are very real dangers, one does not jump into uncertainty. In a serious election, one cannot say “I’ll give him or her a chance.” Acting in such a manner reflects a somewhat flawed understanding of democracy. As I wrote above, La Fontaine calls the frogs who are not pleased with the good king log, a beam: “gent fort sotte et fort peureuse,” very silly and very frightened people.

We do not know the exact origin of this fable. Æsop retold fables told in the Near East, Middle East and India, including Buddhist tales. The most likely source is the Sanskrit Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma, written in the 3rd century BCE. The storyteller is Pilpay or Bidpai. Bidpai’s stories were translated by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa as Kalīlah wa Dimnah. Moreover, Æsopic fables translated into Latin, by Phædrus, or Greek, by Babrius, were retold several times after Phædrus and Babrius. There are modern references to the Frogs Who Desired a King or King Log & King Stork. Under The Frogs Who desired a King, Wikipedia quotes New Zealand author James K. Baxter who wrote:

A democratic people have elected
King Log, King Stork, King Log, King Stork again.

Because I like a wide and silent pond
I voted Log. That party was defeated.

Howrah Bridge and Other Poems, London, 1961

These words will be my conclusion.

RELATED ARTICLES 

  • La Fontaine’s « Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi » (see Fables by La Fontaine, Pages)
  • Anthromorphism and Zoomorphism (25 August 2013)
  • other posts under revision

Sources and Resources

Wikipedia’s The Frogs Who Desired a King is our best source of information on this fable.

  • La Fontaine’s Fables are Gutenberg’s [eBook #17941]
  • Percy J. Billinghurst, ill. A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine is [EBook #25357]
  • La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane, 2nd Edition (2 September 2014)
  • La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane (25 September 2013)

Æsop’s Fables
Perry Index #44
(a complete classification)

  •  The Æsop for Children, illustrated by Milo Winter, 1919, is Gutenberg’s [eBook #19994]
  • Walter Crane, The Baby’s Own Æsop, 1887, is Gutenberg’s [eBook #25433]
  • Vernon Jones, G. K. Chesterton & Arthur Rackham, ill. Æsop‘s Fables is Gutenberg’s [eBook #11339]
  • Laura Gibbs’ Æsop Fables  mythfolklore.net aesopica  http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/crane/

Ladislas Starevich, 1922

091

Arthur Rackham

© Micheline Walker
12 November 2016
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The Battle of Hastings’ Literary Aftermath

22 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Courtly Love, England, Middle Ages, War

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Aesop's Fables, Anglo-Norman, Bayeux tapestry, Chivalry, courtly love, Marie de France, The Battle of Hastings, Walter of England

lossy-page1-800px-Marie_de_France_1_tifMarie de France, from an illuminated manuscript now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France: BnF, Arsenal Library, Ms. 3142 fol. 256.

It would be difficult to understand some of the plays of William Shakespeare and other works of English or French literature without taking into account such significant events as the Conquest of England, by William, Duke of Normandy, at the Battle of Hastings (1066), and the Hundred Years’ War. In the 12th century, at least two authors, Marie de France and Walter of England wrote in Anglo-Norman, and French would be used at court, and perhaps elsewhere, until the conclusion of the Hundred Years’ War.

Let us go back to the literature that followed the Battle of Hastings, fought on 4 October 1066. On that day, William, Duke of Normandy, defeated England’s King Harold (Harold Godwinson), who was killed in battle. The throne of England had been promised to William, Duke of Normandy, hence the battle. Following the Battle of Hastings, many Normans settled in England, two of whom, discussed later in this post, are important writers who penned their work in Anglo-Norman, a transitional language.

William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, King of England, and became William I, King of England. But England, as a territory, remained as it was. The Normans who settled in England would soon speak a form of English.

Yet Latin and French words had been introduced into English. The word ‘curfew’ is an anglicised form of couvre-feu and jeopardy, an anglicised form of jeu parti a term used in a game resembling chess. It probably meant ‘checkmate’ or ‘échec et mat,’ from the Arabic « al cheikh mat » (see D’où vient …).

800px-Bayeux_Tapestry_scene23_Harold_sacramentum_fecit_Willelmo_duci800px-Harold_dead_bayeux_tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anglo-Norman  Literature 

  • Marie de France
  • Walter of England

The best-known Anglo-Norman author is Marie de France, a 12th-century writer whose portrait, an illumination, is featured above. The second is Walter of England (Gualterus Anglicus). His French name would have been Gaut(h)ier d’Angleterre.

Marie de France, who lived in England but was born in France, is famous for her collection of lais: the lais of Guigemar, Chevrefoil (honeysuckle), Lanval, Yonec, Laustic, and other lais. Marie also wrote a book of Æsopic fables. Her fables were ‘Æsopic,’ but as we have seen in earlier posts, Æsop’s fables originate in the Sanskrit Panchatantra (3rd century BCE); its Arabic retelling, Kalīlah wa Dimnah, by Ibn al-Muqaffa (750 CE), and other sources.

The Lais of Marie de France

  • Arthurian Romances
  • Britanny
  • Courtly Love

The Lais of Marie de France are rooted in the Breton lai, and their themes are love (early courtly love), and chivalry. Breton lais reflect the literature of Ireland and countries where Gaelic is or was spoken. The origin of the word lai has not been ascertained, but whatever the meaning of lai, Marie’s works are examples of courtly love and chivalric literature. Marie de France could well be France’s first major author. 

Inhabiting Marie’s lais are Guinevere, Tristan et Yseult, Lancelot, the Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur. They are products of Arthurian Romances, called “la matière de Bretagne” in French.

The Troubadours

  • Chivalry
  • Courtly Love

Marie’s lais can be associated with the songs of the troubadours whose native land was Provence and whose subject matter, was chivalry and courtly love. Troubadours (langue d’oc) flourished until the Black Death (1346 – 1353), the plague. In northern France, they were called trouvères and spoke langue d’oil.

Guingamor, Guigemar
Guingamor, Guigemar
Lanval
Lanval

Project Gutenberg [EBook #46234]

Walter of England (Gualterus Anglicus)

Walter of England also lived in England in the 12th century, following the Battle of Hastings. He wrote Æsopic fables in Anglo-Norman. The history of fables is shrouded in mystery, so Walter has been considered the ‘anonymous Neveleti,’ the 17th-century fabulist whose collection of fables, the Mythologia Æsopica, in Latin, was used by French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. However, the attribution to an anonymous ‘Neveleti’ has been ruled false. La Fontaine used Isaac Nicholas Nevelet’s Mythologia Æsopica.

The “Romulus”

Nevertheless, Walter of England would be the author of a collection of 62 fables in verse. The “62 fables is more accurately called the verse Romulus.” (See Walter of England [Gualterus Anglicus], Wikipedia).  However, this seems to be another false attribution. There was no Romulus. The medieval Æsop originated in Walter of England’s fables and elsewhere. Could it be that ‘Romulus’ meant Latin, from Rome?

John Lydgate and Robert Henryson

When English fabulist John Lydgate produced his Isopes Fabules, the first fable collection written in English, his source was long believed to be the verse Romulus, which it isn’t. As mentioned above, there was no Romulus. Lydgate’s source would probably be Walter of England’s collection of Æsop’s fables. In other words, John Lydgate’s English-language fables adapted Walter of England’s verse fables. Walter’s “The Cock and the Jewel” was used by Robert Henryson in his 15th-century Morall Fabillis, written in Scots. (See Walter of England [Gualterus Anglicus], Wikipedia).

Conclusion

In short, after the Battle of Hastings, Normandy or France was briefly remembered by Marie de France and Walter of England. In the 12th century, ‘Æsopic’ fables were told in Anglo-Norman, a transitional language but one that has survived in literature.

Gone are knights in shining armour and short fables. From literature written in the Anglo-Norman period, we will glimpse the literary legacy of the Hundred Years’ War, Geoffrey Chaucer. An amused public is reading the lengthy anthropomorphic Roman de Renart, while Chaucer translates at least part of the 22,000-line Roman de la Rose, an allegorical poem epitomising courtly love.

Sources and Resources

  • Four of Marie’s lais are a Project Gutenberg [EBook #46234] EN publication
  • Marie’s Medieval Romances and some lais are a Project Gutenberg [EBook #11417]
  • Works by Marie are also a LibriVox publication EN

With kindest regards to all of you. ♥

© Micheline Walker
22 January 2016
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“Belling the Cat:” more Bells

30 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Animals in Literature, Fables

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abstemius, Aesop's Fables, An Argosy of Fables, Belling the Cat, La Fontaine, Le Conseil tenu pas les rats, Luqman, Perry Index 613, Romulus, Ysopet-Avionnet

John Edwin Noble, 1876-1941 (Photo credit: Bridgeman Images)
John Edwin Noble, 1876-1941 (Photo credit: Bridgeman Images)

John Edwin Noble (Photo credit: Bridgeman Images)

This post is a continuation of recent posts featuring bells.  It also belongs to a series on Fables and other works featuring animals.

Sources and Classification

  • the Perry Index 163
  • Aesop

Aesop (620 and 560 BCE) was a Greek story teller who told Fables. It could be that he also wrote the fables he told, but these appear to have been transmitted orally from generation to generation. They therefore belong to an oral tradition as is the case with fairy tales. It has been claimed Aesop was a  “Levantin,” i.e. from the Middle East,[1] that he was a freed slave, that he was forced to jump to his death or pushed down a cliff, but the truth is that we do not know whether or not there ever lived an Aesop.

Aesop however is not the first Greek story teller to write fables. A “Goose with the Golden Eggs,”entitled  “Une femme et une poule,” is attributed to Luqman (c. 1100 BCE).

Biographies of Aesop

  • Maximus Planudes
  • Jean de La Fontaine

Yet, not only do we have written collections of fables by Aesop, but biographies, hence the information given above. The main biography of Aesop is by Maximus Planudes (c. 1260 – c. 1305), a Greek monk and scholar who lived in Constantinople, the former Byzantium and current Istanbul (Turkey). Planudes was a compiler of the Greek Anthology, yet was also famed for his command of Latin and polished translations of Aesop’s Fables. Planudes published the first annotated collection of Aesop’s Fables.

La Fontaine also wrote a short biography of Aesop entitled La Vie d’Ésope, le Phrygien. It prefaces his first collection of fables, 6 books, published in 1668.

India and the Middle East

La Fontaine’s second collection shows the influence of fables originating in the Sanskrit Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma and versions of Abdullah Ibn Al-Muqaffa‘s Persian Kalīlah wa Dimnah, fables based on the Panchatantra. There are two more renditions of Kalīlah wa Dimnah, but all three are linked to one another and to the Panchatantra because the story-teller within the book is Pilpay, Bidpai, or Bidpaï.

  • Ibn Al-Muqaffa’s Kalīlah wa Dimnah. Ibn Al-Muqaffa (died c. 756-759) was a Muslim Persian scholar;
  • Kalīleh o Demneh (12th century CE; author not specified) Persian;
  • Kashefi’s Anvār-e Soheylī, or “The Lights of Canopus” (15th century) Persian.

Had Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) read Gilbert Gaulmin‘s 1644 Livre des lumières before publishing his first volume of fables, we could suggest a direct oriental influence. I am writing “direct” because India and the Middle East are the birthplace of a substantial number of fables and, in particular, fables featuring animals. Gilbert Gaulmin’s Livre des lumières is probably rooted in Kashefi‘s “The Lights of Canopus.”  Lumières means “lights.”

However, La Fontaine had not read Gaulmin’s Livre des lumières when he wrote his first volume of fables (6 of 12 books). “Le Conseil tenu par les rats” (“The Mice in Council”) is included in La Fontaine’s first of three recueils (collections) of fables, published in 1668, 1678, and shortly before 1695, the year he died.

Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré
J. J. Grandville
J. J. Grandville
Auguste Vimar
Auguste Vimar

Gustave Doré
J. J. Grandville
Auguste Vimar
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Oral and a Learned Tradition

  • Phaedrus 1st century CE (Latin)
  • Babrius 2nd century CE (Greek)
  • Flavius Avianus 5th century CE (Latin)

In the absence of a text, Aesop’s Fables have been considered an example of the oral tradition, fables transmitted orally from generation to generation. It seems Aesop’s Fables did not enter a “learned” tradition until Latin author Phaedrus, who lived in the 1st century CE, published a book of fables attributed to Aesop (Gutenberg [EB #25512]). So did Greek author Babrius (Gabrias), in the second century CE. Babrius may have been a Levantin (from the Middle East).

Collections of fables by Aesop are based on the learned tradition inaugurated by Phaedrus and Babrius. But neither Phaedrus nor Babrius wrote a “Mice in Council.”

A third early translator of Aesop is Flavius Avianus (400 CE/5th century), the author-translator of 42 Aesopic fables. However, “The Mice in Council” is not included in Avianus’ translations.

L’Ysopet-Avionnet

  • Avianus, (Avionnet, 5th century)
  • Walter of England (12th century)

After some reflection, I looked for a copy of the Ysopet-Avionnet on the internet and found “The Mice in Council.” The Ysopet-Avionnet is a collection of fables that was used as a school text from the Middle Ages until the early part of the 20th century. It is an Internet Archive publication, p. 191, printed near the end of the book (please click on Internet Archive). In the Ysopet-Avionnet, “The Mice in Council” is entitled “Des Souris qui firent concile contre le chat”(“De muribus concilium facientibus contra catum”). 

However, the Ysopet-Avionnet’s “The Mice in Council”  or “Belling the Cat” seems to have come out of nowhere. Neither 5th-century Avianus nor 12th-century Anglo-Norman fabulist Walter of England, Gualterus Anglicus, wrote a “Mice in Council.” Yet, the fables published in the Ysopet-Avionnet are by Walter of England for the most part. Walter of England, who wrote in Anglo-Norman, is also known as the “anonymous Neveleti.” The Neveleti we know is Isaac Nicholas Névelet, the Swiss author of a 1610 Mythologia Aesopica, La Fontaine’s main source.[3] 

Consequently, although it was published in the Ysopet-Avionnet, 15th-century Italian fabulist Laurentius Abstemius’ is considered the first writer—i.e. the “learned” as opposed to the oral tradition—of “The Mice in Council.” His Hecatomythium was published in 1495, nearly three centuries after the publication of the Ysopet-Avionnet. (See French site shanaweb.net.)

An English Tradition

  • William Caxton (translator, printer, diplomat) (1484)
  • Sir Roger L‘Estrange‘s Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists (1692) (Abstemius’ Hecatomythium, 1495)
  • Samuel Croxall (c.1690 – 1752), the author of The Fables of Aesop; with Instructive Applications. Aesop’s Fables 100 Cuts

Laurentius Abstemius‘ Hecatomythium (1495) is the source of Sir Roger L’Estrange‘s Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists (1692). A collection of fables by Aesop had been printed and possibly translated by famed English translator and printer William Caxton, in 1484, too early to include Abstemius’ “Mice in Council.” Caxton printed The fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton, in 1484, with those of Avian, Alfonso and Poggio, now again edited and induced. A third English fabulist was Samuel Croxall (c. 1690 – 1752), the author of The Fables of Aesop; with Instructive Applications. Aesop’s Fables 100 Cuts. Croxall was an Anglican churchman. Moralizing would be his chief objective.

Ysopets and Romulus

  • the 12th century
  • Aesop>Ysopet
  • Romulus>a Romulus
  • Marie de France

The 12th century is a turning-point and a culmination. In fact, it has been called a Renaissance. Marie de France lived at the end of the 12th century and Walter of England published his fables a smidgen earlier but in the 12th century. In France, collections of fables by Aesop were by then called Ysopets or Isopets and became textbooks used in schools. An Ysopet could also be called a Romulus. As well, Reynard the Fox was born in 1148-1149 as Reinardus in the Ysengrimus, a beast epic not intended for children.

There may have been a fabulist named Romulus, who wrote Latin prose fables, but he is now considered a legendary figure. However a Romulus could be a collection of prose fables written in Latin and rooted in Phaedrus. (See Romulus, Wikipedia.) We have several and among these:

  • The Romulus Ordinarius (Romulus Vulgaris), 83 tales known in a 9th-century text;
  • The Romulus Roberti;
  • The Romulus of Vienna;
  • The Romulus of Nilant or (Romulus Nilantinus), 45 fables, published in 1709 by Johan Frederik Nilant (Jean-Frédéric Nilant).
  • The Novus Aesopus was put together at the end of the twelfth century by Alexander Neckam

These may have been versified by Walter of England  Gualterus Anglicus, Alexander Neckam (Novus Aesopus), Adémar de Chabannes (c. 989 – 1034; 67 fables), and other translators or fabulists.

French author Marie de France used a Romulus as a source for her collection of 102 fables written in Anglo-Norman. (My copy has 103 fables.) Marie de France is a major author who will be discussed in a later post.

The texts

La Fontaine’s “Le Conseil tenu par les rats” (1.II.2) (full text)
La Fontaine’s “The Council held by the rats” (1.II.2) (full text)

The Mice in Council, Milo Winter
The Mice in Council, Milo Winter
The Mice in Council, Milo Winter
The Mice in Council, Milo Winter

Milo Winter
(Photo credit: The Gutenberg Project [EBook #19994])

Belling the Cat

The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat. At least they wished to find some way of knowing when she was coming, so they might have time to run away. Indeed, something had to be done, for they lived in such constant fear of her claws that they hardly dared stir from their dens by night or day.

Many plans were discussed, but none of them was thought good enough. At last a very young Mouse got up and said:

“I have a plan that seems very simple, but I know it will be successful. All we have to do is to hang a bell about the Cat’s neck. When we hear the bell ringing we will know immediately that our enemy is coming.”

All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before. But in the midst of the rejoicing over their good fortune, an old Mouse arose and said:

“I will say that the plan of the young Mouse is very good. But let me ask one question: Who will bell the Cat?”

It is one thing to say that something should be done, but quite a different matter to do it.

Comments

Prudence or foresight is the moral of nearly all Aesopic fables. One has to think. Prudence makes it unrealistic for a mouse to try to hang a bell down a cat’s neck. In La Fontaine’s fable, the solution to the rats’ main peril, being devoured by the cat, would cause a rat to be devoured, certain death and, therefore, the greater peril. No rat can bell a cat.

In An Argosy of Fables,[4] the translator, Thomas James, has the mice applaud when it occurs to them that they need simply bell the cat. A mouse then gets up and asks the relevant question: Who will bell the cat?

In La Fontaine, we have what he calls a comedy: “[u]ne ample Comédie à cent [one hundred] actes divers.” (“Le bûcheron [the lumberjack] et Mercure” [1.V.1].) The cat is named after François Rabelais‘ Rodilardus (the Latin form of Rodilard [round and fat]). There is, moreover, a reference to the French court, which 1s to be expected from Jean de La Fontaine, whose patron had been Nicolas Fouquet. Courtiers waste time. They are mindless.

In English, the “who will Bell the Cat” is idiomatic. It has entered the English language and is now proverbial. Fables are the illustration of a proverb, but in our fable the illustration has returned to a proverb, which probably means that the illustration, or exemplum is very powerful.

Conclusion

The “Mice in Council” may be difficult to trace and is sometimes confused with “The Cat and the Mice.” However, it was included in the widely-read Ysopet-Avionnet, as well as Laurentius Abstemius’ Hecatomythium (1495). So it appears to date back to the 12th century and the 15th century, except that we do not know who wrote the 12th century “Mice in Council.”

“Belling the Cat” is Jean de La Fontaine’s Le Conseil tenu par les rats, Walter Crane left an image and it is incorporated in the Aesop for Children, exquisitely illustrated by Milo Winter [EBook #19994]. It is also featured in the An Argosy of Fables, 1921, a Wikisource publication where it is attributed to Abstemius. Laura Gibbs has classified it as Aesopic, which makes perfect sense since it is featured in the Aesop for Children, 1919. (See MythFolklore.net.)

It seems to me that Wikipedia’s view of the provenance of “Belling the Cat” is also very sensible.

“In the classificatory system established for the fables by B. E. Perry, it is numbered 613, which is reserved for Mediaeval attributions outside the Aesopic canon.”

The Mice in Council

The Mice in Council by Nora Fry

An Argosy of Fables

An Argosy of Fables, 1921 (Wikisource)

 

Warm greetings to all of you. ♥ 

Sources and Resources

Nora Fry YouTube
The Aesop for Children, Project Gutenberg [EBook #19994] EN
Laura Gibbs, Latina Bestiaria EN
The Fables of Pilpay, Internet Archive EN
Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien; ou la Conduite des rois (Google Books) FR
The Fables of Phaedrus, Project Gutenberg [EBook #25512] EN
Robinson Ellis, The Fables of Phaedrus, Internet Archive EN
Ysopet-Avionnet, Internet Archive, p. 191 Latin FR
Aesop’s Fables by William Caxton, Internet Archive EN
Fables de Loqman le Sage, J. Derembourg, 1850 Internet Archive FR

____________________
[1] Stated in Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien; ou la Conduite des rois. (See Internet Archive FR.)

[2] Avianus is possibly Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, the author of Saturnalia. (See Macrobius, Wikipedia.)

[3] La Fontaine’s main source was Swiss fabulist Neveleti’s who used Avianus. Névelet or the anonymous Neveleti, did not write a “Belling the Cat.”
http://www.shanaweb.net/esope/nevelet/les-fables-esope-selon-nevelet.html
http://www.shanaweb.net/des-rats-tenant-conseil/
http://www.shanaweb.net/origine-des-fables-de-jean-de-la-fontaine/

[4] Frederic Taber Cooper (ed.) and Paul Bransom (illust.), An Argosy of Fables, a Representative Selection from the Fable Literature of every Age and Land (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers, 1921).

Aaron Copland plays “The Cat & the Mouse”

Robinson Ellis, a fabulist

Latin Literature, Spy in Vanity Fair, 1894

© Micheline Walker
29 July 2015
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Dogs, a long time ago

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Aesop's Fables, Arany Zoltán, Ashmole Bestiary, David Badke, Dog - faithful & healer, Illuminated Manuscripts, Jan M. Ziolkowski, King Garamantes, Legendary Animals, Medieval Bestiary, The Physiologus

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 25r

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 25r (Ashmole Bestiary)

Three elegant dogs stand ready. F 25r (folio 25 recto)

Bestiaries

A bestiary is a compendium of beasts most of which have identical characteristics from bestiary to bestiary. In Europe, bestiaries are mostly a product of the Middle Ages, the 12th and 13th centuries in particular. Exceptionally beautiful are the Aberdeen Bestiary  MS 24)  and the Ashmole Bestiary (MS 1462 & MS 1511), both dating back to the late 12th and 13th century.

They are illuminated manuscripts and, in this regard, resemble books of hours. They therefore contain images complemented by superb calligraphy that could vary from bestiary to bestiary, some of which are ancestors to our “fonts.”

Bestiaries were usually transcribed by monks in a scriptorium, a recess in a wall, and were executed on vellum (calfskin) or parchment (calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin). Both the Aberdeen Bestiary (MS 24) and the Ashmole Bestiary MS 1462 (Bodleian Library, Oxford) were written and illuminated on parchment. However, the Ashmole Bestiary MS 1511 (Bodleian Library) was executed on vellum.

Real and Legendary Animals

Not all animals described in bestiaries are real animals. The authors of natural histories often relied on information obtained from individuals who had travelled to the Orient or elsewhere. Thus was born the unicorn. The rhinoceros is a real animal that has one horn, but the unicorn, the monocerus in Greece, is a both an anthropomorphic and zoomorphic animal.

Zoomorphic animals combine the features of several beasts and may be part human and part beast. Such is the case with centaurs and the minotaur. The lower half of a centaur is a horse, the upper, a man. The minotaur’s body is human, but its head is that of a bull.

The Physiologus: the main Source

The best-known “natural history” is the Physiologus (“The Naturalist”), written in Greek in the 2nd century BCE. Authorship of the Physiologus has not been determined, but it was translated into Latin in about 700 CE, our era. It was the main source of information for persons who wrote and illuminated bestiaries.

The Physiologus described an animal, told an anecdote about that animal and then gave the animal moral attributes (See Physiologus, Wikipedia). In the Medieval Bestiary, the anecdote for dogs was “The Dog and Its Reflection.” Natural histories, however, made animals allegorical rather than humans in disguise. The Physiologus is allegorical and emblematic, but in structure, it resembles the fable.

Professor Ziolkowski[i] writes that the

 fable consists of a narrative with a moral, Physiologus of nature observation with moralization.

The most famous copy of the Physiologus is the Bern Physiologus. 

Dogs

In the case of dogs, the Medieval Bestiary (http://bestiary.ca/) describes the animal, tells an anecdote, the “Dog and Its Reflection,” and then informs readers that the dog is the most loyal of animals. The dog may be able to kill but, as the lore goes, it is man’s best friends and therefore emblematic of loyalty. We learn as well that the dog licks wounds.

According to Pliny the Elder (23 BC – 25 August 79 BCE), one of many authors of natural histories, “[t]he domestic animal that is most faithful to man is the dog.” The iconography, images, tells a similar story, but also shows us many greyhounds, as do 20th-century fashion illustrators.

The Gallery

So here are some pictures of faithful dogs who lived in the Middle Ages. The dog featured at the very bottom of this post is about to avenge his master’s murder, but is also a healer. The bestiary in which it is depicted is housed at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. It is an illumination (enluminures) executed on the front page, the folio, of a Bestiary. The front of the folio (the page) is called recto vs verso, the back.

Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 48v
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 48v
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 49r
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 49r
  1. A pair of dogs, possibly greyhounds? F 48v (verso: back)

  2. Two dogs, possibly greyhounds or other hunting dogs. F 49r (recto: front)

Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12v
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12v
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12r
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12r
  1. A dog refuses to leave the side of its dead master. F 12v

  2. King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by has pack of dogs. f 30v

  3. At the top, a dog attacks the man who killed his master, thus pointing out the guilty. At the bottom, the faithful dog refuses to leave the body of its dead master. f 28R

  4. King Garametes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by his dogs. f 12r

Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris, FR)
Bodleian Library (Oxford, UK)
British Library (London, UK)
Morgan Library (New York, US)
Royal Library (Copenhagen, DK) 
 

This is the description given dogs in the Medieval Bestiary

“Dogs are unable to live without men. There are several kinds of dogs: those that guard their master’s property; those that are useful for hunting wild animals or birds; and those that watch over sheep. A dog cures its own wounds by licking, and a young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds. A dog will always return to its vomit. When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.

Several stories are told about the actions of dogs. King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, was rescued by his dogs. When a man was murdered and there were no witnesses to say who did it, the man’s dog pointed out the slayer in the crowd. Jason‘s dog was said to have refused to eat and died of hunger after his master’s death. A Roman dog accompanied his master to prison, and when the man was executed and his body thrown into the Tiber River, the dog tried to hold up the corpse.

A dog that crosses a hyena‘s shadow will lose its voice.

Hungry dogs are used to pull up the deadly mandrake plant.” David Badke[ii]

(“Jason” and “Tiber River” are links I have added)

img9256

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 151, Folio 21v

King Garamantes is kidnapped by enemies; the king’s dogs find him and attack the kidnappers; the king leads his dogs home. F 21v

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r

A dog mourning the murder of its master, and possibly pointing out the murderer. F 18r, or

A young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds

RELATED ARTICLES

  • La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” (10 September 2014)
  • Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism (25 August 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • The Medieval Bestiary: site owned and maintained by David Badke[iii]
  • King Garamantes: scroll down to July 27th, 2014
  • King Garamantes rescued by dogs agefotostock.com
  • King Garamantes and his dogs, the British Library
  • Nothin’ but a Hound Dog, the British Library ♥
  • http://bestiary.ca/ (The Medieval Bestiary)
 
 

Kindest regards to all of you.

_________________________
 

[i] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 34.

[ii] David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary (bestiary.ca) Web.

[iii] David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary (bestiary.ca) Web.

img9140

Arany Zoltán

img190

© Micheline Walker
12 September 2014
WordPress
 
 

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 19r

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La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow”

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fables

≈ Comments Off on La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow”

Tags

Aesop's Fables, an Hitopadesha - the Conduct of Kings, David Badke, Eastern tradition, Emblems, Ibn al-Muqaffa, John Lydgate, Kalīla and Dimna, La Fontaine, The Dog and Its Reflection, The Panchatantra, Western tradition

800px-Dog_and_reflection_kalila_and_dimna

The Dog and Its Reflection,  Arthur Rackham, illustration

The Dog and Its Reflection,
Arthur Rackham, illustrator (Gutenberg [EB #11339]

“The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” is an Æsopic fables. It is #133 in the Perry Index where it is entitled “The Dog and Its Image,” or “The Dog and Its Reflection.” We can trace it back to Phædrus and Babrius who committed to paper fables Æsop had told. Phædrus wrote in Latin and Babrius, in Greek. Later fabulists, European or Western, drew their subject matter from these two sources.

There also existed an Eastern tradition of the same fables. According to the foreword, or avertissement, of a seventeenth-century French translation of Les Fables de Pilpay, Æsop, if there ever was an Æsop, seems to have lived in Greece, but was from the Levant.

les Grecs ont suivi les Orientaux; Je dis ‘suivi,’ puisque les Grecs confessent eux-mêmes qu’ils ont appris cette sorte d’érudition d’Esope, qui estoit Levantin.

“[T]he Greeks followed the Orientals; I say ‘follow,’ because the Greek themselves confess that they acquired this sort of knowledge [cette sorte d’érudition] from Æsop, who was from the Levant (Levantin). (See Les Fables de Pilpay philosophe indien, ou la conduite des roys, the Avertissement, p. 10 approximately). It is an online Google book. Pilpay is the story-teller in Vishnu Sharma‘s Sanskrit Panchatantra.

According to one source, L’Astrée, a lenghty seventeenth-century pastoral novel, written by Honoré d’Urfé‘s (11 February 1568 – 1 June 1625), contains the following sentence: « Ce ne sont, dit Hylas, que les esprits peu sages qui courent après l’ombre du bien, et laissent le bien même. » (Hylas said that only silly minds run after the shadow of a possession leaving behind the possession itself). (See lafontainet.net.)

When Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) chose to rewrite an Æsopic fable, he often used a translation into Latin by Névelet, Mythologia Æsopica Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti, Francfort, 1610. (See lafontaine.net.)

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 3630, Folio 81r The Medieval Bestiary

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 3630, Folio 81r 
The Medieval Bestiary [i]

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 14429, Folio 112v

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 14429, Folio 112v, The Medieval Bestiary

Sources: East and West

West: Phædrus & Babrius
East: The Panchatantra (India), Kalīlah wa Dimna (various)
 

Given that this post features La Fontaine’s fable, I used the Musée de La Fontaine‘s
translation. However, Æsop ‘s version of this fable is told in the Project Gutenberg’s [EB #11339] (V. S. Vernon Jones, trans., G. K. Chesterton, intro, and Arthur Rackham, ill.).

In all likelihood, Vernon Jones used Phædrus (Latin) or Babrius (Greek) as his source. He may also have used another re-teller’s translation of Phædrus and Babrius, the Western tradition.

However, Æsop also told fables belonging to a parallel Oriental tradition. “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” was retold in Arabic by Persian Muslim scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa’. His translation is entitled Kalīlah wa Dimna and dates back to 750 CE. Ibn al-Muqaffa’ used Borzōē‘s or Borzūya‘s Pahlavi‘s translation of the Sanskrit Panchatantra, 3rd century BCE, by Vishnu Sharma. (See Panchatantra – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) The Panchatantra is an online publication. (See Internet Archives.)

The Oral vs the Learned Tradition: literacy

It is therefore possible, perhaps probable, that Æsop, a story-teller whose fables were transmitted to Western Europe, used fables originating in an Eastern and “learned” tradition. The Eastern tradition may have been a “learned” tradition, i.e. written down fables, but the fables, animal fables, were told to people who may not have been able to read or write. Literacy is a key factor in the transmission of fables or tales. It would be my opinion that La Fontaine’s source, Névelet or Neveleti, used Phædrus or Phædrus
retold by other fabulists who may have borrowed elements from Babrius.

A “Learned” Eastern Tradition

In other words, Æsop’s fables were probably transmitted to Western fabulists by Phædus and Babrius, but there is an eastern tradition, a parallel. When La Fontaine wrote his second collection (recueil) of fables, published in 1678, he had read G. Gaulmin’s Livre des lumières ou la conduite des roys (1644) (The Book of Lights or the Conduct of Kings). This book contains Pilpay’s fables. (See Panchatantra, Wikipedia.)

“A New Persian version from the 12th century became known as Kalīleh o Demneh  and this was the basis of Kashefi’s 15th century Anvār-e Soheylī (Persian: The Lights of Canopus). The book in different form is also known as The Fables of Bidpaï (or Pilpai, in various European languages) or The Morall Philosophie of Doni (English, 1570).” (See Panchatantra, Wikipedia)

Our fable is number 17 in La Fontaine’s sixth book of fables, published in 1668 (VI.17). It was written before La Fontaine read Le Livre des lumières, 1644, the fables of Bidpaï.

The Fables of Pilpay or Bidpaï

Le Livre des lumières = Fables de Pilpay
Hitopadesha: the conduct of kings
Æsop was from the Levant
 

Le Livre des lumières is a Google Book. By following the link Livre des lumières, one can see that the stories of Pilpay or Bidpaï, the story-teller in the Panchatantra or Pañcatantra (3rd BCE, perhaps earlier) are also used to teach a prince the conduct of kings. “The Panchatantra is a niti-shastra, or textbook of the niti. The word niti means roughly ‘the wise conduct of life’.” (The Panchatantra, Translator’s Introduction, p. 5).

The Panchatantra inspired a separate Hitopadesha, fables used to prepare a prince for his royal duties. As its title indicates, directions on the conduct of kings are included in the online Les Fables de Pilpay philosophe indien, ou la conduite des roys. 

La Fontaine’s fable reads as follows:

The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow

This world is full of shadow-chasers,
Most easily deceived.
Should I enumerate these racers,
I should not be believed.
I send them all to Aesop’s dog,
Which, crossing water on a log,
Espied the meat he bore, below;
To seize its image, let it go;
Plunged in; to reach the shore was glad,
With neither what he hoped, nor what he’d had.
 

« Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre » 

Chacun se trompe ici-bas.
On voit courir après l’ombre
Tant de fous, qu’on n’en sait pas
La plupart du temps le nombre.
 
Au Chien dont parle Ésope il faut les renvoyer.
Ce Chien, voyant sa proie en l’eau représentée,
La quitta pour l’image, et pensa se noyer ;
La rivière devint tout d’un coup agitée.
À toute peine il regagna les bords,
Et n’eut ni l’ombre ni le corps.
(VI.17)
 

Æsop’s “The Dog and the Shadow”

A Dog was crossing a plank bridge over a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he happened to see his own reflection in the water. He thought it was another dog with a piece of meat twice as big; so he let go his own, and flew at the other dog to get the larger piece. But, of course, all that happened was that he got neither; for one was only a shadow, and the other was carried away by the current. [EB #11339]
 
img188

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 18r The Medieval Bestiary

I have not found “The Dog and its Reflection,” in Les Fables de Pilpay, but Bidpaï wrote a similar story entitled “The Fox and a Piece of Meat.” However, “The Dog and its Reflection” is included in the Arabic Kalīlah wa Dimna.

“The Dog and its Reflection” was incorporated in the 12th-century Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript. (See The Medieval Bestiary, scroll down to Æsop’s Fables.)

In Britain, John Lydgate told this story in his Isopes Fabules. His moral was that “Who all coveteth, oft he loseth all.” The fable is also part of Geoffrey Whitney‘s (c. 1548 – c. 1601) Choice of Emblemes.[ii] Whitney’s moral is “to make use of moderate possessions,”
Mediocribus utere partis. This story was told by several fabulists in many countries. (See The Dog and Its Reflection, Wikipedia.)

In La Fontaine’s “Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre,” the moral precedes the example (it usually follows the fable) and seems to differ from the moral provided by other fabulists. La Fontaine warns that one should not be deceived by appearances, a common moral in seventeenth-century France. However, La Fontaine ends his fable by writing that the dog reached the shore “[w]ith neither what he hoped, nor what he’d had.”

Conclusion

We tell the same stories, east and west, but terrorists in the Levant are killing innocent American journalists. I still hope for a diplomatic resolution to the current conflict. Further bloodshed is not necessary. President Obama is a man of peace, so I am confident that he will do what has to be done.

The oak tree is felled by a terrible wind, but the reed bends and survives.

However, that man who beheaded James Foley and Steven Sotloff in cold blood is a criminal.

RELATED ARTICLE

  • La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane, 2nd Edition (2 September 2014)
  •  “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak Tree and the Reed): the Moral (28 March 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • Digital Books Index
  • The Medieval Bestiary (David Badke)
  • D. L. Ashliman:  Folklore and Mythology Electronic Text
  • Wikipedia: La Fontaine’s Fables (list and links)
  • The Baldwin Project: The Dog and Its Image
  • lafontainet.net
  • the Panchatantra is an online publication for children. EN
  • the Panchatantra is an Internet Archives publication. EN
  • Les Fables de Pilpay philosophe indien, ou la conduite des roys (Google book) FR
  • Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia: The Dog and Its Reflection
  • Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia: John Lydgate (c. 1370 – c. 1451)
  • Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia: Geoffrey Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601)
  • Emblems: see Emblem Book
  • Geoffrey Whitney’s Book of Emblemes.
  • Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, From the French of La Fontaine
    by W. T. Larned, Illustrated by John Rae
    Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108] 
  • Robert Deryck Williams, “Virgil.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 09 Sep. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/629832/Virgil>.
____________________
 
[i] David Badke, The Medieval Bestiary, Web
 
[ii] Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes, 39 (online: Choice of Emblemes (Google book)
 
Henry Purcell: Ground in C Minor; Hanneke van Proosdij, harpsichord – YouTube 
 CHIEN-QUI-LACHE-SA-PROIE-PO
© Micheline Walker
10 September 2014
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Aesop’s “The Boy Bathing”

05 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aesop's Fables, Arthur Rackham, Ben Edwin Perry, G. F. Townsend, Gutenberg #11339, Gutenberg #21, Jan M. Ziolkowski, Jean de La Fontaine, L'Enfant et le maître d'école, Perry Index 211, The Boy Bathing, V. S. Vernon Jones.

 

002

The Boy Bathing Arthur Rackham (Photo credit: [EBook #11339]

The Boy Bathing, V. S. Vernon Jones (translator), G. K. Chesterton (introduction) Arthur Rackham (illustrator), 1912 (Photo credit: Gutenberg [EBook #11339])

The Boy Bathing

A Boy was bathing in a river and got out of his depth, and was in great danger of being drowned. A man who was passing along a road heard his cries for help, and went to the riverside and began to scold him for being so careless as to get into deep water, but made no attempt to help him. “Oh, sir,” cried the Boy, “please help me first and scold me afterwards.”

Give assistance, not advice, in a crisis.

The Boy Bathing

A BOY bathing in a river was in danger of being drowned. He called out to a passing traveler for help, but instead of holding out a helping hand, the man stood by unconcernedly, and scolded the boy for his imprudence. ‘Oh, sir!’ cried the youth, ‘pray help me now and scold me afterwards.’

Counsel without help is useless.

184

The Boy Bathing, G. F. Townsend, translator, Harrison Weir, illustrator, 1867 (Photo credit: Gutenberg [EBook #21])

L'Enfant et le Maître d'école, La Fontaine

L’Enfant et le Maître d’École, Jean de La Fontaine (Photo credit: Musée Jean de La Fontaine)

Æsop’s Fables : c. 620 – 564 BCE

Æsop (c. 620 – 564 BCE)
Phædrus (c. 15 BC – c. 50 CE)
Babrius (c. 2nd century CE)
 

Fables[i] are a source of wisdom and La Fontaine‘s, little jewels. There are several sources of fables, but the above, A Boy Bathing is an Æsopic or Æsopian fable retold by translators of Phædrus (Latin) and Babrius (Greek). Babrius, however, was a Roman.

Æsop, assuming there was an Æsop, was a freed Greek slave who did not write fables. We do not have a manuscript of Æsop’s fables. The fables told by Æsop were therefore transmitted through an oral tradition. They were not written down until Phædrus and Babrius committed them to paper in Latin and in Greek, at which point they entered the learned tradition.[ii]

Doubt lingers as to whether or not there ever lived an Æsop. La Fontaine wrote a life of Æsop and so did other writers. In the case of La Fontaine, writing a biography of Æsop was a way of negating authorship of his own fables.

Under Louis XIV, a friend of Nicolas Fouquet could not chronicle the excesses of his century in a direct manner. To protect himself, La Fontaine borrowed the subject matter of fables and usually featured anthropomorphic animals, humans in disguise. Never would Louis XIV, Sun King, have suggested that he was the lion king of La Fontaine’s Fables.

Ben Edwin Perry (1892–1968) : the Perry Index

There may not have been an Æsop, but there is a body of fables called Æsopic or Æsopian. An index of Æsopic fables was compiled by Ben Edwin Perry (1892 – 1968), a teacher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from 1924 to 1960.

The Wikipedia entry on the Perry Index lists 584 fables, but Wikipedia provides a list of “extended,” fabulists (585, etc.), three of whom are Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon; c. 720s – 13 April probably 799), Odo of Cheriton (c. 1185 – 1246/47), and Romulus FR. 

Characteristics of Fables

  • they usually feature talking animals;
  • in ancient Greece, fables that featured animals were called Æsopic and those that featured humans, Sybaritic;
  • for Isidore of Seville, fables were Æsopic (animals [souls], or “cities, trees, mountains, rocks, and rivers” [no souls]) or Libystic, “Libystic fables are those in which there is a verbal interchange of men with animals or animals with men.”[iii]
  • fables are an example, but there is a genre called Exemplum;
  • the example is the story. Humans remember stories because they illustrate. We are reminded of illuminated manuscripts;
  • the animals used in fables are anthropomorphic. They are humans in disguise, as animals;
  • anthropomorphism both shows and hides human behaviour;
  • children may think that the animals are quite foolish and believe that the manner in which they behave is just fine;
  • many authors have written fables but are not known as fabulists;
  • beast literature overrides genres; &c

Conclusion

I have posted a complete list of the fables discussed on this blog, but there is so much more to say. Fables are very complex and may have several morals.

I must close, but not without saying that I am so sorry we lost Steven Sotloff. His poor family! Next, they will kill a British citizen.

My kindest regards to all of you.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Madame de Sévigné on Vatel’s Death (8 August 2014)
  • La Fontaine’s Fables compiled & Walter Crane (25 September 2013 and 2 September 2014)
  • Vaux-le-Vicomte: Fouquet’s Rise and Fall (20 August 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • Perry Index 211: The Boy bathing in the River (Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia)
  • V. S. Vernon Jones, Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339]
  • John Fyler Townsend 205: The Boy Bathing
  • La Fontaine: L’Enfant le Maître d’École (I.19) FR (I of XII books)
  • La Fontaine: The Boy and the Schoolmaster (I.19) EN
  • I have not found this fable in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther motif index. Antti Aarne was the pioneer. He was followed by Stith Thompson. In 2004, Hans-Jörg Uther published his Types of International Fokltales: A Classification and Biography.
  • Aarne–Thompson classification system – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  • Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia (various links)

____________________

[i] “fable.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 04 Sep. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/199714/fable>.

[ii] Ben Edwin Perry, translator, Babrius and Phædrus, Fables (Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library 436, 1965). (scroll down a little)

[iii] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals, Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 18 -19.

 —ooo—

Bach / Marcello Adagio – Concerto in D minor

Sensitiva, Miquel  Blay

Sensitiva, Miquel
Blay

© Micheline Walker
September 4, 2014
WordPress

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La Fontaine’s “The Raven and the Fox” Updated

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Aarne-Thompson type 57, Aesop's Fables, Arthur Rackam, Gutenberg Project, John Rae, La Fontaine, Milo Winter, Perry Index 104

7,1 

 The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by John Rae [EBook #24108]

Classification:

Perry Index: 104
Aarne-Thompson type 57
Related narratives: Aarne-Thompson
 
Text(e):
Le Corbeau et le Renard (1.I.2) 
The Raven and the Fox (1.I.2) or The Fox and the Crow
 
Images are not to be removed from this post as proper credit may not be given.
Photo credit: John Rae [EBook #24108]; Milo Winter [EBook #19994]; Arthur Rackham [EBook #11339] 
 
The Fox and the Crow by John RaeThe Raven and the Fox,
 illustrated by John Rae
[EBook #24108] 

A definition of Fables

“Fables are among the oldest forms of folk literature. The word “fable” comes from the Latin “fabula” (“little story”). Typically, a fable consists of a narrative and a short moral conclusion at the end. The main characters in most fables are animals. The purpose of these stories is to ridicule negative human qualities.” http://www.worldoftales.com/fables.html

Le Corbeau

The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by Milo Winter [EBook #19994] 

Perched on a lofty oak,
Sir Raven held a lunch of cheese;
Sir Fox, who smelt it in the breeze,
Thus to the holder spoke:
“Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven?
Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one!
So black and glossy, on my word, sir,
With voice to match, you were a bird, sir,
Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.”
Sir Raven, overset with praise,
Must show how musical his croak.
Down fell the luncheon from the oak;
Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke: 
“The flatterer, my good sir,
Aye lives on his listener;
Which lesson, if you please, 
Is doubtless worth the cheese.” 
A bit too late, Sir Raven swore
The rogue should never cheat him more.
 
 

The Moral

“The flatterer, my good sir,
Aye lives on his listener[.]”
(Sir Fox)
 

In this post, I will focus on the moral of this fable. The moral is explicit. Sir Fox is quoted in full.  Flattery, on the part of the fox, fools the raven/crow into singing and, as he sings, he lets go of his piece of cheese. By the way, in European beast literature, animals usually eat cheese, honey and ham.  

However, it so happens that the French translation for blackmail is le chantage. Sir Fox fait chanter le corbeau (makes the raven sing) and manages to convince a rather vain Sir Raven or Crow to sing or to “crow.”  The cheese falls to the ground. Now that cheese was Sir Crow’s dinner. Sir Crow’s loss is therefore significant.

Conclusion

So what we have seen is how a fable can shape a language. Chances are that the word ‘chantage’ is not rooted in our fable (faire chanter), but there is a strong likelihood that it  is. For instance, we now hear people say a “perfect storm,” without referring to the 2000 film based on Sebastian Junger‘s non-fictional account of events. In this case, events were fictionalized into a film and the title of the film is entering the English language and may remain a useful but uninformed English-language metaphor.

Moreover, in Le Poète et le Roi; Jean de La Fontaine en son siècle (Paris: Fallois, 1997), a book about La Fontaine, Marc Fumaroli, the most prominent member of the Académie française, wrote “to know how far one can go too far” (“savoir jusqu’où on peut aller trop loin”), without using quotation marks and without naming his source: Jean Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963). The clever expression is therefore entering the French language and, a few years from now, people might not know who coined the expression.

For those of us who also speak English, the word “crow” is significant. When Sir Raven or Crow opens his mouth, he does not sing, he “crows,” which is not flattering. Could that be rooted in the “Fox and Crow?” To crow suggests a degree of boastfulness. Remember that “Æsopian” fables entered England, at least in part, when printer and translator William Caxton (ca. 1415~1422 – ca. March 1492) printed the Latin fables of Avianus and then translated them, naming his collection The Fables of Avian. Avian’s translation of Æsop’s fables into Latin was a favourite and was rooted in both the Latin and the Greek traditions: Phædrus  (Latin) and Babrius (Greek). (See “The Cock and the Pearl:” La Fontaine cont’d [michelinewalker.com]).

We know that La Fontaine is writing about humans because he calls his protagonists  “Sir” (Maître or Monsieur). Moreover, we may have uncovered the origin of the word chantage as well as an instance of unsuccessful chantage (blackmail), a deceiver-deceived narrative: trompeur trompé.

But I must go!

Kalilah wa Dimna The Fox and the CrowKalilah wa Dimna (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sources

The Fables of Pilpay (online) EN 
Les Fables de Pilpay ou la Conduite des roys (online) FR
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5674720s 
http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/104.htm 
Related narratives: Aarne-Thompson
 

RELATED ARTICLES

  • “The Cock and the Pearl:” La Fontaine cont’d
  • The Fox and Crane, or Stork 
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak and the Reed): the Moral
  • La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane

 

Le Corbeau et le Renard, by Arthur RackhamLe Corbeau et le Renard, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
[EBook #11339] 

Le Corbeau et le Renard

Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l’odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage :
“Et ! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau !
Sans mentir, si votre ramage (the way he talks)
Se rapporte à votre plumage, (your feathers)
Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois. ”
À ces mots, le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie ;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix, (voice)
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le Renard s’en saisit, et dit :
“Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l’écoute
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute. ” 
Le Corbeau honteux et confus
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu’on ne l’y prendrait plus. 
 

Le Renard et le Corbeau, illustrated by John RaeLe Corbeau et le Renard, illustrated by John Rae
[EBook #24108]
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (19 December 1676 – 26 October 1749).
Clérambault wrote music based on La Fontaine’s fables.  The pictures show le Mont-Saint-Michel, France.
 
Magnificat (3 voices & basso continuo)
 
   
7,3
 
© Micheline Walker
24 October 2013
WordPress
 
 
The Raven and the Fox, illustrated by John Rae
[EBook #24108]
 
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 (Fable 2)
“The Raven and the Fox”
[EBook #7241] (1882)
3. The Fables of La Fontaine, Walter Thornbury, transl. Gustave Doré, ill.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50316/50316-h/50316-h.htm
[EBook  #50316] (1886)
4. Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, From the French of La Fontaine
W.T. (William Trowbridge) Larned (transl.), John Rae, ill. 
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24108/24108-h/24108-h.htm 
[EBook #24108] (1918)
image002  
Photo credit: Site officiel
 
1. V. S. Vernon Jones (transl.), G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Rackham (ill.)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm#036
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11339/11339-h/11339-h.htm
“The Fox and the Crow”
[EBook #11339] (1912) 
2. Harrison Weir, John Tenniel and Ernest Griset, illustrators
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18732/18732-h/18732-h.htm
“The Fox and the Crow”
[EBook #18732] 
3. The Æsop for Children, Milo Winter, illustrator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Winter
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19994/19994-h/19994-h.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19994/19994-h/19994-h.htm#Page_101
“The Fox and the Crow”
[EBook #19994] (1919)

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The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fables, Literature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aesop's Fables, Bidpai, carpe diem, Horace, Jean de La Fontaine, Odo of Cheriton, sources, The Baldwin Project, The Project Gutenberg, Walter of England

Town_Mouse_and_the_Country_Mouse_2 
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by Milo Winter, from
The Æsop for Children
(Photo credit: The Gutenberg Project [EBook #19994])
 
Classification  
  • Aesop’s Fable (Perry Index 352)
  • Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 112
  • Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 112 & 113B (Romania)
Texts 
  • Aesop’s Fables: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])
  • Horace: The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace, translated into English verse by John Conington; 4th edition (London: George Bell and Sons, 1874), Satires, book 2, no. 6, pp. 84-86 (scroll down to “One day…). 
  • La Fontaine: The City Rat and the Country Rat (1.I.9) (EN)
  • La Fontaine: Rat de ville et le rat des champs, Le (1.I.9) (FR)
8,1
The Town and Country Mouse, by John Rae
Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks
(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])
 

The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse

Style, rather than Subject Matter

There are folk tellings of this fable (the oral tradition), but when Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) wrote Le Rat de ville et le rat des champs (City Rat and Country Rat I. 9), The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse entered the learned tradition. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, La Fontaine’s Fables “rank among the greatest masterpieces of French literature.”[i]

However, the mostly Aesopic Town Mouse and Country Mouse entered literature long before La Fontaine was introduced to Æsop’s Fables. Horace (8 December 65 BCE – 27 November 8 BCE) could be credited with giving this folktale its literary status. It is one of his Satires (book 2, number 6, lines 77-115) and it resembles La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat (1, 9). Interestingly, La Fontaine’s fable features two rats rather than mice. It would be my opinion that he chose to feature rats to embellish his fable. The word “rat” is shorter (one syllable or pied) than the word “sou-ris” (two syllables). Be that as it may, in both retellings of the narrative, the rustic mouse or rat decides to return to his humble but peaceful country life, when “a sudden banging of the doors” (Horace) forces our fellows to hide. Horace’s country mouse does not want to live in fear.

Then says the rustic: “It may do for you,
This life, but I don’t like it; so adieu:
Give me my hole, secure from all alarms,
I’ll prove that tares and vetches still have charms.”  
Horace (scroll down to “One day…)
 

Sources and Dissemination

There have been many retellings of Aesop’s Fables, beginning with Roman fabulist Phædrus (c. 15 BCE – c. 50 CE).[ii] Aesop was also retold in Greek, by Babrius. As for The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse in particular, it appears we owe its dissemination throughout Europe to 12th-century Anglo-Norman writer Walter of England‘s translation of the fable into Latin.[iii] Fabulist Odo of Cheriton[iv] (c. 1185 – 1246/47, Kent) also contributed to the spread of the fable to various European countries.Spanish author Juan Ruiz inserted a Town Mouse and Country Mouse in his Libro de Buen Amor or Book of Good Love. Walter of England may also have inspired several manuscript collections of Æsop’s fables in Italian, including the Esopi fabulas by Accio Zucca. (See The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Wikipedia)

La Fontaine’s Sources

La Fontaine, however, seems to have drawn his material from Swiss writer Névelet whose Mythologia Æsopica Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti was published in Frankfurt in 1610. Névelet was La Fontaine’s usual source. Moreover, given his knowledge of Latin and resemblances between the two texts, we can assume La Fontaine was familiar with Horace’s The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. In both fables, our two country fellows, a rat and a mouse, flee when they hear “fearful knocking” at the door (La Fontaine).

La Fontaine: Twelve Books of Fables in three Collections (recueils)  

Le rat de ville et le rat des champs is the ninth fable of La Fontaine’s first book of fables (1.I.9) La Fontaine wrote twelve short books of fables which he published in three collections (recueils): 1668 (six books), 1678 (five books), 1694 (twelfth book). His first recueil, or collection, contains mainly Æsopic fables transmitted from generation to generation in an oral tradition until, as mentioned above, Latin author Phaedrus translated Æsop’s fables into Latin and author Babrius, into Greek. Phaedrus’ book of fables is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #25512].

D. L. Alishman gives us a list of retellings of the Æsopic Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

  • Æsop’s: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (oral tradition)
  • Horace: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
  • La Fontaine: The City Rat and the Country Rat (Fables, book I, fable 9.)
  • The Romanian: The Story of the Town Mouse and the Field Mouse (types 112 and 113B.)
  • The Norwegian: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse 
141
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by Arthur Rackham, 1902
(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])
 

La Fontaine’s The City Rat and The Country Rat

A city rat, one night,
Did, with a civil stoop,
A country rat invite
To end a turtle soup.
 
On a Turkey carpet
They found the table spread,
And sure I need not harp it
How well the fellows fed.
 
The entertainment was
A truly noble one;
But some unlucky cause
Disturbed it when begun.
 
It was a slight rat-tat,
That put their joys to rout;
Out ran the city rat;
His guest, too, scampered out.
 
Our rats but fairly quit,
The fearful knocking ceased.
“Return we,” cried the city,
To finish there our feast.
 
“No,” said the rustic rat;
“Tomorrow dine with me.
I’m not offended at
Your feast so grand and free,
 
“For I have no fare resembling;
But then I eat at leisure,
And would not swap, for pleasure
So mixed with fear and trembling.”
La Fontaine (I.ix) or (I.9)
 

Horace’s version can be read by clicking on The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. La Fontaine’s version and translation can also be read by clicking on the appropriate title: Le Rat de ville et le rat des champs, or The City Rat and the Country Rat (1.I.9).

Other Versions

Variants listed above by D. L. Alishman differ from one another. For instance, in some retellings of the Town Mouse and Country Mouse, a cat, rather than dogs or a noise at the door, scares the mice away. But the moral of the fable is almost the same in all its retellings, that moral being that it is best to eat more frugally if the cost of eating finer and more abundant meals is a source of endangerment. Neither the country mouse nor the country rat want to eat watching their back. I like the wording Odo of Cheriton has given the moral of his Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

“I’d rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by emotional fear.”

Philosophical Fables

La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat could be considered as “philosophical,” or meditative, which the word “philosophical” meant in 17th-century France. For example, this fable could describe the fate of aristocrats under absolutism. After the Fronde (1648-1653), Court was no longer a “natural” environment for aristocrats who nevertheless spent a great deal of money to keep a house and carriage near Versailles. They hoped to be noticed and, consequently, be invited to attend the king’s lever (getting out of bed) and coucher (getting into bed). But Louis XIV feared aristocrats and would not give them power.  Therefore, their best option was to return to their home away from Versailles and its intrigues, which they seldom did.

However, as told by La Fontaine, the fable does not reflect in any direct way the circumstances of French aristocrats after the Fronde (1648 and 1653).

But his chief and most comprehensive theme remains that of the traditional fable: the fundamental, everyday moral experience of mankind throughout the ages, exhibited in a profusion of typical characters, emotions, attitudes, and situations.[v]

Horace: a Carpe Diem

Horace’s telling of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse is more overtly “philosophical” than La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat (1: 9).For instance, Horace, who coined the term carpe diem, has included a “gather ye roses while ye may” in his Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

Come down, go home with me: remember, all
Who live on earth are mortal, great or small:
Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short, ’twere wrong to lose a day.
Horace, Satires, book 2, no. 6, pp. 84-86            
 

Conclusion

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse can be read at several levels.It is a palimpsest.  Surprisingly, fables often possess an unsuspected depth, especially if they have an Eastern origin, which is the case with many of Aesop’s fables and fables published in La Fontaine’s second collection of fables (1678). According to Wikipedia’s entry on The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, it resembles a fable by Bidpai entitled The Lean Cat and the Fat Cat (The Baldwin Project). La Fontaine’s second collection of fables (1678) was written after he had read the Fables of Bidpai, published in France as the Livre des lumières ou la Conduite des roys, 1644). La Fontaine’s second collection, five short books, therefore reflects an Eastern source.

However, La Fontaine’s one wish was to create little comedies.

But the predominant note is that of la gaieté, which, as he says in the preface to the first collection, he deliberately sought to introduce into his Fables. “Gaiety,” he explains, is not that which provokes laughter but is “a certain charm . . . that can be given to any kind of subject, even the most serious.”[vi]

La Fontaine was a loyal friend, but he was not a crusader. He knew from experience that “might is right.” He had been a protégé of disgraced Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661. Consequently, although La Fontaine’s fables have depth, the language he uses is light-hearted.

To the grace, ease, and delicate perfection of the best of the Fables, even close textual commentary cannot hope to do full justice. They represent the quintessence of a century of experiments in prosody and poetic diction in France.[vii]

Tiny Gallery

Gustave Doré (6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Milo Winter (7 August 1888 – 15 August 1956) 
(The Project Gutenberg [EBook #19994])
 
476px-Rat-ville-champs-2 zpage018
zpage058zpage060
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
(Photo credit: The Baldwin Project)  
 

Sources

The Baldwin Project (excellent) 
Gutenberg (EBook #11339], Æsop’s Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones, introduction by G. K. Chesterton, illustrations by Arthur Rackham  
Gutenberg [EBook #19994], The Æsop for Children, adapted by W. T. (William Trowbridge) Larned, illustrated by Milo Winter
Gutenberg [EBook #24108] Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, adapted by W.T. (William Trowbridge) Larned, illustrated by John Rae 
Joseph Jacob‘s translation
Névelet: Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti’s (Frankfurt, 1610)
Townsend, George Fyler: (Gutenberg [EBook #21]), 2013 [2007]
Victoria and Albert Museum, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”
 
_________________________
[i] “Jean de La Fontaine“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 16 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/326307/Jean-de-La-Fontaine>.
[ii] The Fables of Phaedrus are a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #25512] (2008)
[iii] Gualterus Anglicus is Walter of England’s Latin name.  
[iv] Odo of Cheriton‘s fables are an online publication.  The “House Mouse and the Field Mouse” is number 26, p. 87.
[v] “Jean de La Fontaine“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 17 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/326307/Jean-de-La-Fontaine>.
[vi] Britannica, loc. cit.
[vii] Britannica, loc. cit.
 
8,6
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by John Rae
(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])
 
Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880)
Jacqueline’s Tears
Jacqueline Dupré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987), cello
 
8,4The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by John Rae
(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
17 August 2013 
WordPress
 
 
 
 

Micheline's Blog

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“The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman,” by Jean de La Fontaine (II.18)

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Aarne-Thompson-Uther, Aesop's Fables, folklore, Horace, La Fontaine, metamorphoses, motif, Nature will out, Perry Index, Venus

RP496_1L

La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (II.18)

Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 2031
The Perry Index (#050)
Æsop’s Fables: Venus and the Cat (The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])
Fables d’Ésope: La Chatte et Aphrodite 
La Fontaine: La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (II. 18)
La Fontaine: The Cat Metamorphoses into a Woman (II. 18)
Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #25433], p. 46
 
 

Metamorphoses: Ovid, Horace, Apuleius and Æsop

According to the editors[i] of my collection of La Fontaine‘s Fables, the moral this fable (Book II: 18), The Cat Memorphosed into a Woman  (La Chatte métamorphosée en femme), finds its roots in Horace‘s (8 December 65 BCE – 27 November 8 BCE) Epistles, Book I. ii, lines 69-71.[ii] The moral is Horatian, but the source of La Fontaine’s fable is an Æsopic fable entitled Venus and the Cat and Æsop‘s (c. 620 – 564 BCE) Fables predate Horace’s Epistles. However, metamorphoses are a theme linked with Ovid (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), the author of Pygmalion, one of the metamorphoses, and with Lucius Apuleius (c. 125 – c. 180 CE), the author of The Golden Ass, an entertaining story, which contains the Tale of Cupid and Psyche. 

Interestingly, in Jean de La Fontaine’s La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (II. 18), a metamorphosis is used to show that metamorphoses are not possible, at least not altogether. In other words, in The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman, La Fontaine uses a metamorphosis, his exemplum, to  demonstrate that nature is mostly immutable. A cat is cat and remains a cat, despite appearances, and a woman is a woman and remains a woman, despite appearances.

Seventeenth-Century France

In seventeenth-century France, particularly after the Fronde, the aristocrats and honnêtes hommes[iii] who gathered in the salons of refined women gave free rein to fantasy and would eventually create children’s literature, but nature reigned supreme, not to mention Cartesian reason and absolutism. Absolutism had taken their power away from the highest- ranked aristocrats. It was a time when one had to heed Horace’s advice: “Limit your desires” (Epistles, Book I, ii, lines 55–71), but the cast of our fable seems not to have known Horace.

La Fontaine’s fable, entitled La Chatte métamorphosée en femme (II. 18), is about a metamorphosis — a cat is “successfully” transformed into a woman — the purpose of which, i.e. the metamorphosis, is to tell that a metamorphosis is not possible, which is somewhat paradoxical. The metamorphosis that has occurred goes amiss. In other words, the exemplum shows that, if taken away, what nature has ordained, le naturel, will always return. As the French proverb goes: Chassez [chase away] le naturel, il revient au galop [it comes galloping back]. So our cat has been turned into a woman, but the woman’s instincts, the core, are those of a cat. Let us read the fables.

La Fontaine: The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman

In The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman (simply click on the title to read the fable) (La Chatte métamorphosée en femme II. 18), a man so loves his cat that he wants to transform her into a woman using every trick: from tears and prayers, to charms and magic. This man succeeds in transforming his cat into a woman, but the moment she hears mice, our newly fashioned woman is crawling on the floor chasing them, but without instilling fear in the mice. Our former cat looks like a woman, so the mice have no reason to fear her in the least. Appearances are deceptive.

La Fontaine, however, does not tell us the rest of the story, i.e. what happens to the cat-woman. He simply writes a moral according to which one cannot change: “Old habits die hard.” It is as Horace wrote:

Limit your desires (Horace, Epistles, Book I, ii, lines 55-71)
A jar will long retain the odor of what it was
Dipped in when new.
(lines 69-70)
 
The Delights of Nature (Horace, Epistles, Book I. x, lines 1-25)
Drive Nature off with a pitchfork, she’ll still press back,
And secretly burst in triumph through your sad disdain.
(lines 24-25)
 

Æsop: Venus and the Cat

La Fontaine’s narrative resembles its source, Æsop‘s fable entitled Venus and the Cat or The Cat and Venus. This time, however, the cat herself wishes to be metamorphosed into a woman because she is in love with a man. Roles have therefore been reversed: the man is a cat. Consequently, La Fontaine’s fable is a mirror image of its sources which would be, first, Névelet or Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti’s Mythologia Æsopica (Frankfurt, 1610), a retelling of Æsop, and, second, Æsop’s own Venus and the Cat.

In Venus and the Cat, our enamoured cat so wishes to become a woman that she asks Venus, the goddess of love, called Aphrodite in Roman mythology, to turn her into a woman. The goddess Venus obliges but, when night falls or “one day,” curiosity leads her to the bride’s chamber where she places a mouse in the middle of the room. The woman leaps out of bed and goes chasing after the mouse. Contrary to La Fontaine, Æsop provides a full narrative, leaving little to the imagination. A disappointed Venus turns the woman back into a cat, which seems a form of punishment. V. S. Vernon Jones’ translation of Venus and the Cat is as follows:

Æsop: Venus and the Cat 

Gutenberg (EBook #11339) 
V. S. Vernon Jones, Translator
G. K. Chesterton, Introduction
Arthur Rackham, Illustrator
 
“A Cat fell in love with a handsome young man, and begged the goddess Venus to change her into a woman. Venus was very gracious about it, and changed her at once into a beautiful maiden, whom the young man fell in love with at first sight and shortly afterwards married. One day Venus thought she would like to see whether the Cat had changed her habits as well as her form; so she let a mouse run loose in the room where they were. Forgetting everything, the young woman had no sooner seen the mouse than up she jumped and was after it like a shot: at which the goddess was so disgusted that she changed her back again into a Cat.”
Æsop (c. 620–564 BCE)
 

La Fontaine’s Moral: Horace, Epistles Book I. x, 1-25

The editor of my copy of La Fontaine, Fables et Contes is quite right. The moral of La Fontaine’s fable is linked with Horace’s first book of Epistles or Letters. However, it is related to both Book I, ii, 55-71, and Book 1, x, 1-25. We may in fact have a translation for “Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop[,]” which would be: “Drive Nature off with a pitchfork, she’ll still press[.]” (Horace Epistles, Book I, x, line 24). The two relevant morals are the above-mentioned Horatian:

A jar will long retain the odor of what it was
Dipped in when new.
 
Drive Nature off with a pitchfork, she’ll still press back,
And secretly burst in triumph through your sad disdain.
 

Æsop’s Moral: “Nature will out”

In La Fontaine’s version of Æsop’s Venus and the Cat or The Cat and Venus, the moral is largely implicit, yet clear. However, some translations of Æsop’s version and the source of La Fontaine’s fable end with an explicit moral. As he concludes his 1887 Cat and Venus, author-translator George Fyler Townsend writes that “Nature exceeds nurture.” Similarly, Joseph Jacobs‘ 1894 The Cat-Maiden ends on the proverbial: “Nature will out.”[iv]

Aarne-Thompson type 2031C

Alishman does not include La Fontaine’s Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman in his list of fables classified as Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 2031. Type 2031’s chief fable is The Mouse Who Was to Marry the Sun. La Fontaine’s cat is changed into a woman and the mouse, into a woman, but this motif is that of another fable by entitled The Mouse metamorphosed into a Girl (IV.7), published in La Fontaine’s 1678 collection of fables, his second volume of fables a volume that reflects the influence of Le Livre des lumières ou la conduite des roys (The Book of Enlightenment or the Conduct of Kings), a French translation of fables by Bidpai, originating in the Sanskrit Panchatantra (Pañcatantra) and Arabic Kalīlah wa Dimnah, written by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muquaffa’. This one fable is in fact taking us all the way to Japan.  

______________________________
[i] René Groos et Jacques Schiffrin, La Fontaine, Fables et Contes (Paris: Gallimard, collection La Pléiade, 1954), p. 688.
[ii] Epistles are letters. Horace was born on 8 December 65 BCE and died on 27 November 8 BCE. 
[iii] “honnête homme.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 27 Jul. 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/271056/honnete-homme>.
[iv] To read other translations of Æsop’s fable, click on The Cat and Venus.
 
Arthur Rackham (19 September 1867 – 6 September 1939)    
002tBook cover, 1912 edition, by Arthur Rackham
Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg
 
© Micheline Walker
17 July 2013
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The Cat and the Fox Revisited

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 2 Comments

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Aesop's Fables, Château Thierry, intertextualité, Jean de La Fontaine, John Fyler Townsend, John Rae, Milo Winter, Robert Thomson, The Cat and the Fox, W. T. Larned

The Cat and the Fox,  by John Rae
The Cat and the Fox, by John Ray

Gutenberg’s Æsop: EBook #19994

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.”

Le Chat et le Renard, by Milo Winter

Le Chat et le Renard, by Milo Winter

Gutenberg’s Jean de La Fontaine: EBook #24108

The Gutenberg project is preparing an EBook edition of Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables in French: EBook #17941.  However, its current translation of fables by La Fontaine is Gutenberg EBook #24108, translated by William Trowbridge Larned and its illustrator is John Ray‘s.  EBook #24108 is entitled Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, from the French of La Fontaine and it is a selection of La Fontaine’s fables.  One can read W. T. Larned’s translation of Le Chat et le Renard (IX, 14, 1678) by clicking 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.

3,23,33,4

La Fontaine translated by Robert Thomson

William Trowbridge Larned translated Gutenberg’s EBook #24108, a selection of Jean de La Fontaine’s fables and this selection includes the ‟The Cat and the Fox,” by La Fontaine.  However, there are several translations on La Fontaine’s fables one of which is by Robert Thomson (19th century).  One can access Thomson’s translation of 10 of La Fontaine 12 books of fables by using the Château Thierry site, named after La Fontaine’s house: http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/fablanglais.htm and the lafontaine.net: http://www.lafontaine.net/index.php are excellent sources of information on La Fontaine: the fables, the illustrators, the translators, etc.

Retellings and Translations of La Fontaine

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.

An Instance of Intertextuality (EN)

The term may seem daunting, but intertextualité (FR) occurs when 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.

______________________________

[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.

EBook #19994 Æsop The Cat and the Fox (EN)
EBook #24108 La Fontaine The Cat and the Fox (EN)
http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/fablanglais.htm Robert Thomson (EN)
http://www.lafontaine.net/index.php La Fontaine (FR)
http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/ is my main Æsopica site
The image below is by Milo Winter 
 
title_thMicheline Walker©
May 12, 2013
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Beethoven
Für Elise
Ivo Pogorelić (piano) 
 
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