Tag Archives: Jan M. Ziolkowski

The Bear and the Gardener

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Animals in Literature, Fables, Jean de La Fontaine

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800px-8-10-lours-et-lamateur-de-jardins

L’Ours et l’Amateur des jardins by J. J. Granville, 1838-1840 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1586
La Fontaine (VIII.10)
Perry Index of Æsop’s Fables 525 (The Bald Man and the Fly)
Æsop’s The Bald Man and the Fly
D. L. Alishman‘s The Foolish Man (ATU 1586)
Laura Gibbs’ Bestiaria Latina (mythfolklore.net/aesopica)
Nītiśāstra Oxford Reference

—ooo—

This fable by Jean de la Fontaine, was published in 1678, ten years after the publication of his first collection (recueil) of fables, 1668. His third and final collection was published in 1694, shortly before his death in 1695. We therefore have three collections (trois recueils) of fables by La Fontaine.

La Fontaine’s first collection of fables (6 books) reflects Æsop. Æsop did not write fables; he told fables. His fables therefore belong to an oral tradition and did not enter literature until Roman and Greek writers: Phædrus (1st century CE) and Babrius (2nd century CE) wrote his fables in Latin and Greek respectively. Future collections of Æsopic fables are rooted in Phædrus’ Latin publication or Babrius’ Greek publication and were rewritten several times by various European fabulists of whom there have been a large number. La Fontaine differs from other fabulists because of the manner in which he used the story. For La Fontaine, the story is truly skeletal. As a French author, La Fontaine is second only to Victor Hugo.

La Fontaine’s second collection of fables differs of his first collection in that it reflects the influence of Le Livre des Lumières or “Le Livre des lumières ou la Conduite des rois, composé par le sage Pilpay, Indien (1644) : lettres persanes et fables françaises,” The Book of Lights or the Conduct of Kings, by Pilpay: Persian Letters and French Fables, by the wise Bidpai.

Nītiśāstra: the Conduct of Kings

The Hitopadesha is a collection of Sanskrit fables, dated 1373, but it finds its roots in Vishnu Sharma‘s Sanskrit Panchatantra (3rd century BCE) and its Arabic translation by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa’ (d. 756-759), entitled Kalīla wa Dimna. In both the Panchatantra and Kalīla wa Dimna, the sage Bidpai/Pilpay tells fables concerning the conduct, or the behaviour, of kings (la conduite des rois).

Bidpai is the story teller, not Vishnu Sharma, the author of the Panchatantra, nor Ibn al- Muqaffa’, the translator into Persian of the Panchatantra entitled Kalīla wa Dimna. Therefore, stories are told within a frame story. Moreover, the Panchatantra, Kalīla wa Dimna, and the Hitopadesha contain fables that are lessons for a future king (see nītiśāstra, Oxford Reference).

rumi_bear_and_sufi-1

A 1663 Indian miniature of the story from Rumi’s “Mas̱navī” (Walters Art Museum)

 

The Fly by Arthur Rackham
The Bald Man by Arthur Rackham

The Bald Man and the Fly[1]

A fly settled on the head of a bald man and bit him. In his eagerness to kill it, he hit himself a smart slap.

But the fly escaped, and said to him in derision, “You tried to kill me for just one little bit; what will you do to yourself now, for the heavy smack you have just given yourself?”

“Oh, for that blow I bear no grudge,” he replied, “for I never intended myself any harm: but as for you, you contemptible insect, who live by sucking human blood, I’d born a good deal more than that for the satisfaction of dashing the life out of you!”

Translated by V. S. Vernon Jones in Gutenberg [EBook #11339]

Variants: Rumi’s “Mas̱navī”

Wikipedia’s entry on La Fontaine’s “L’Ours et l’amateur des jardins” (See The Bear and the Gardener) mentions other variants. The most immediate would be Rumi‘s 13th-century poem Masnavi. Rumi was a Persian Sufi poet.

La Fontaine’s “L’Ours et l’amateur des jardins,” (The Bear and the Amateur of Gardens juxtaposes a human being and an animal. Animal fables are the better-known fables. Fables feature animals and nature in general: the wind, trees, mountains, stone, etc., all of which are anthropomorphic. Anthropomorphism, humans in disguise, is a form of obliqueness and, in the case of fables, an indirect lesson. Fables flourish when speaking directly is dangerous. For instance, La Fontaine lived under Louis XIV. His lion is king, but Louis was not a lion.

Our story is about an older man and a bear called Bruin, as in Reynard the Fox. Both the older gentleman, a garden lover, and the bear are very lonely. They meet and start keeping one another company. The gardener tends to his garden and the bear goes hunting. All is well until the bear uses a large stone (un pavé) to kill a fly that lands on the nose of his friend, the gardener. He kills the gardener.

La Fontaine’s moral is:

Rien n’est si dangereux qu’un ignorant ami ;
Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi.
(2.VIII.10)

A foolish friend may cause more woe
Than could, indeed, the wisest foe.
(2.VIII.10)
[2]

Morals

Several morals can be associated with the Bear and the Garden Lover.  La Fontaine’s moral is that a foolish friend is worse than an enemy. One could add that it is necessary to consider the consequence of one’s actions (ill-considered actions), a common moral. The moral also reflects the “Stoic” moderation in everything. (See The Bear and the Gardener, Wikipedia.)

The chief moral, however, is that we can hurt ourselves, and our friends, when we mean no harm. Bruin the bear kills the gardener who was his very best friend. Such was not his intention.

Anthropomorphism: a Twist

However, the moral can also be that animals differ from human beings, which is ironic because it seems a negation of anthropomorphism, or animals as humans in disguise. The bear cannot tell that the gardener is a human being that is not in disguise. The bear, however, is anthropomorphic. In this fable, the moral could be that humans are humans and beasts are beasts and the two shan’t mix, which is an ironic twist on the concept of anthropomorphism. Fables featuring human beings interacting with animals are called Libystic.[3]

androcles_peruzzi

“We used to see Androcles with the lion attached to a slender leash, making the rounds of the city”, a pen and wash drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi, 1530 (Hermitage Museum) (Androcles, Wikipedia)

Variants

Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov
Robert Dodsley‘s Select fables of Esop and other fabulists (1764), entitled “The Hermit and the Bear”
“The Seven Wise Men of Buneyr”
Androcles and the Lion
Mary Anne Davis’ Fables in Verse: by Æsop, La Fontaine, and others, first published about 1818
Jefferys Taylor’s Æsop in Rhyme (1820)
“The Seven Wise Men of Buneyr”
The Wise Men of Gotham
Giufà (Italy)
Foolish Hans (Austria)
Giovanni Francesco Straparola‘s tale of Fortunio in Facetious Nights (13.4), written about 1550
and others
(See The Bear and the Gardener, Wikipedia.)

Conclusion

One finds a different savour to La Fontaine’s second collection (recueil) of Fables.  He had not abandoned his Æsopic source, but he had read Gilbert Gaulmin’s Le Livre des Lumières ou La Conduite des roys, a translation of Pilpay /Bidpai, published in 1644, as well as Rumi‘s Mas̱navī, a poem. Æsop told his fables in Greek, but if there ever lived an Æsop, he is called a Levantin and therefore originated from the Levant. Much of our worldly-wisdom is derived from the East.

Love to everyone ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources 

_______________
[1] Gutenberg [EBook #11339]
[2] Gutenberg [EBook #50316]
[3] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 18.

Saint-Saëns – The Carnival of the Animals – XIV. Finale
Fledermaus1990

ours-amateur-de-jardins

L’Ours et l’amateur des jardins, 1786

© Micheline Walker
28 February 2017
WordPress

 

 

 

Animal Lore, or “Beasts override Genre”

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Art, Beast Literature, Fables

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Physiologus Cambrai, vers 1270-1275 Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 711, fol. 17

Physiologus, Adam nomme les animaux (Adam names the animals)
Cambrai, vers 1270-1275
Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 711, fol. 17 (Photo credit: BnF) (click)

The Fable

One particular collection of fables, the Ysopet-Avionnet, was used in the schools of medieval France and continued to be published for centuries (see “The Cock and the Pearl,” La Fontaine cont’d). The word “Ysopet,”[1] was a diminutive for “a collection of fables by Ésope,” or Æsop. The term Ysopet, or Isopet, was first used to describe a collection of 102 fables by Marie de France (late 12th century), written in Anglo-Norman in octosyllabic couplets. As for the word Avionnet, it was derived from Avianus (c. 400 CE), the name of a Latin writer of fables whose fables belong to the Babrius (Greek) tradition and “identified as a pagan.” (See Avianus, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia). The goal of fabulists was the Horatian “to inform or delight.” Horace advocated a mixture of both: information and pleasure.

Beast Literature and Christianity

Medieval Bestiaries
the Moral
legendary or mythical animals
St. Augustine
 

Bestiaries differ from fables in that they contain a Christian moral/ allegory, but like fables, they are a form of instruction. The fox is the devil, and the lamb, Christ, etc. However, Bestiaries closely resemble fables because both genres feature animals and are more or less a form of teaching. The presence of animals sets a distance between the reader and the teaching provided by a fable or a bestiary. The moral is instructive in both genres, but not directly. The animal functions as a buffer.

Moreover, as we have seen, the attributes of animals were defined by “universal popular consent.” Such was particularly the case with Medieval Bestiaries. Animals dwelling in fables and Bestiaires are neither zoological animals, nor humans in disguise. They are allegorical and most are zoomorphic, especially Christian Medieval Bestiaires. (See The Medieval Bestiary, David Badke, ed.)

Interestingly, Medieval Bestiaries feature a large number of legendary or mythical animals. The better-known are the Unicorn, the Dragon, the Griffin and the Phoenix, but Christian Medieval Bestiaries featured several other fantastical beasts, now mostly forgotten. It would be my opinion that Christianity had its prerogatives and that the relatively new Church needed several animals to exemplify human and sinful conduct.

Moreover, many Natural Historians were Christians. At any rate, the Bonnacon shown below was not exactly real and its manners were questionable.

img155

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 10r

“A beast like a bull, that uses its dung as a weapon.” (F 10r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

St. Augustine and Truth

Allow me to quote Book 21, Chapter 5 of  Augustine of Hippo‘s City of God. Augustine of Hippo was St. Augustine and he writes “[t]hat There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are Nevertheless True.” Augustine of Hippo published his City of God in 426 CE. (See City of God, Wikipedia.)

This kind of truth is what I have grown to describe as “poetical” truth (my term).

Bestiaires d’amour

However, some Medieval Bestiaries were love Bestiaries and were therefore associated with courtly love and the very popular  Roman de la Rose. The Roman de la Rose, authored by Guillaume de Lorris (c. 1200 – c. 1240) and Jean the Meun(g) (c. 1240 – c. 1305), was allegorical:

“At various times in the poem, the “Rose” of the title is seen as the name of the lady, and as a symbol of female sexuality in general. Likewise, the other characters’ names function both as regular names and as abstractions illustrating the various factors that are involved in a love affair.” (See Roman de la Rose, Wikipedia.)

In my last post, I featured a lion belonging to a Bestiaire d’amour. It was breathing life into dead offspring. This is what a lady was to do to revive a man after lovemaking, or “petite mort.” Petite mort is an orgasm. The symbolism attached to Beasts dwelling in Love Bestiaries (Bestiaires d’amour) was, therefore, less Christian than the symbolism of animals inhabiting other Bestiaries. The most famous Love Bestiary is Richard de Fournival‘s (1201 – ?1260).

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r (Richard de Fournival)

“‘le lyon [above] qui fait revivre ses lyonciaus’ – The lion revives its dead cubs. In the Bestiaire d’amour the man says that in the same way the woman can revive him from his love-death.” (fol. 18r) (Photo credit: BnF)

The courtly love traditional therefore incorporated animal lore, just as it included the lyrical poems of troubadours, trouvères, the Minnesingers, and lyric poets associated with movements such as trobadorismo or trovarismo. By the way, there were women troubadours: the Trobairitz.

Troubadours (Berlin) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Vilém9

William IX of Aquitaine portrayed as a knight, who first composed poetry on returning from the Crusade of 1101. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Animal Lore

Jan M. Ziolkowski writes that “beasts override genre.”[2] He does so on page 1 of his Introduction to Talking Animals). Professor Ziolkowski is perfectly right. In Medieval Bestiaries, beasts were mostly the same from genre to genre: fables, Medieval Bestiaries and the satirical Roman de Renart. Beasts even override paganism and Christianity as well as the Old and the New Testaments. After all, Christmas replaced the pagan Roman Saturnalia. There had to be a feast on the day of the longest night.

To return to “beast literature” (Ziolkowski, p. 1), “The Dog and its Reflection” is included in the Æsopic corpus (Perry Index 133)[3] and is also a fable told in Kalīlah wa Dimnah, and, according to one source, it is included in Le Livre des Lumières or Les Fables de Pilpay, philosophe indien, ou la conduite des rois (a 1698 edition [1644]), Æsop was a Levantin, i.e. from the Levant. With respect to fables, West meets East.

Kalīlah wa Dimnah is an Arabic rendition, by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa’, of the Sanskrit Panchatantra and Jean de La Fontaine, the author of Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre  (1.VI.17), read fables by Pilpay. Yet, the Christian Medieval Bestiary tells that dogs leave the prey they have caught for a prey they may not catch. It may be a mere shadow.

When I was assigned a course on best literature, I divided my material in the following the following genres, roughly speaking:

  • fables (Æsop and retellers),
  • beast epics (Reynard the Fox and fabliaux),
  • the Medieval Bestiaries (The Ashmole Bestiary, etc.),
  • and Natural Histories (The Physiologus, etc.), yet to be listed.

However, I had to mention mythological beasts, lycanthropes, and also discussed children’s literature.  Kenneth Grahame created a “reluctant dragon,” and the use of a toad as the protagonist of The Wind in the Willows made for an upside-down-world, a mundus inversus.

Moreover Æsop, who lived in Greece, was a “Levantin.” There is an Eastern tradition to Æsop’s fables even though, according to some sources, there never lived an Æsop. I was on sabbatical writing a book on Molière when I was assigned a course on Beast literature. I could not refuse to teach it. I therefore joined the International Reynard Society and gave a paper at the forthcoming meeting of the Society, in Hull, England.

A Dutch colleague steered me in the right direction, but the course nevertheless ended my career as a teacher. Would that I could have changed the course into animals in Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma mère l’Oye and Madame de Villeneuve’s La Belle et la Bête, but someone else was teaching a course on fairy tales. Beast literature includes fairy tales.

My  kindest regards to all of you. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

—ooo—

[1] “Ysopet”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 29 sept. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/654299/Ysopet>.

[2] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 1.

[3] Ben Edwin Perry (1892–1968) catalogued Æsop’s fables.

E, Dame Jolie & Douce Dame Jolie
Love song 13th-14th century
Chanson d’amour du Moyen-Âge.

Vilém9
 
© Micheline Walker
30 September 2014
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The Fox, by “Universal Popular Consent”

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Art, Beast Literature, Bestiaries

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img4499

British Library, Sloane MS 278, Folio 53r

“A fox [above] pretends to be dead to deceive two birds into coming close enough to catch.” (fol. 53r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary) (Aarne-Thompson Classification Index, 56A)[1]

“The lion’s cubs [below] are born dead; after three days the father comes and roars over them, and brings them to life.” (fol. 96v) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 308, Folio 96v

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 308, Folio 96v

In his Preface to Æsop’s Fables, its translator, George Fyler Townsend,[2] states that “[t]he introduction [in fables] of the animals or fictitious characters should be marked with an unexceptionable care and attention to their natural attributes, and to the qualities attributed to them by universal popular consent. The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass patient.” (Bold characters are mine.)

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 366, Folio 71v

Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 366, Folio 71v

“A fox [above] runs off with a cock, while a woman carrying a distaff gestures angrily.” (fol. 71v) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

Medieval Animal Lore

The Fox as the Devil, etc.

Townsend’s statement reflects an anthropomorphic vision of animals (humans in disguise), as in George Orwell‘s 1945 Animal Farm). In fables and in beast epics, such as Le Roman de Renart, animals are anthropomorphic. But Townsend’s comment also reflects a will to stereotype animals and transform them into allegorical creatures. In Medieval Bestiaries, they are symbols.

Medieval writers were fond of allegories, hence the questionable, but poetical, qualities bestowed on medieval beasts. The Lion is God and the Lamb, Jesus Christ. Only a virgin can catch the legendary or mythical Unicorn. (See Unicorn, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia). The Beaver[3] eats its own testicles to avoid being caught by hunters. The fox is not only devious, but the devil himself:

“The fox represents the devil, who pretends to be dead to those who retain their worldly ways, and only reveals himself when he has them in his jaws. To those with perfect faith, the devil is truly dead.” (See David Badke or The Medieval Bestiary [bestiary.ca].)

British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 9r

British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 9r

“Hunted [above] for its testicles, it castrates itself to escape from the hunter.” (fol. 9r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

Exceptions to the lore, but…

There are exceptions to the lore. The real Dog is a very loyal animal. It can sniff out nearly anything or anyone. However, a real Dog does not let go of the prey it holds for the prey it might catch. In other words, the fanciful and the fantastic suffuse Medieval Bestiaries, such as the Aberdeen Bestiary or the Ashmole Bestiary (or Bestiaries). The same is true of several extraordinary medieval beasts, not to mention qualities attributed to birds, stones, and other aspects of nature. The merveilleux FR characterizes more than a thousand years of Natural Histories. It is often called le merveilleux chrétien, a Christian magical realism (the fantastic).

Writers of Medieval Bestiaries used Natural Histories such as Claudius Alienus‘ (170 CE – 235 CE) On the Nature of Animals (17 books) as their reference. Yet, these works were rooted in earlier texts, such as Herodotus‘ Histories and Pliny the Elder‘s (c. 23 CE –  24 or 25 August 79 CE) Historia Naturalis.[4] However, as we have seen, the preferred source of writers of Medieval Bestiaries was the anonymous Physiologus, which cannot be considered “scientific.” (See Manuscript shelf.)

The Naming of Reinardus/Renart

This depiction of animals seems all the more anthropomorphic when the animal is given a name. In the Ysengrimus, the Fox is called Reinardus, a Latin form of Renart, the Fox’s name in the Roman de Renart, and La Fontaine’s Renard, the current spelling. The Fox is all too human. Professor Jan M. Ziolkowski[5] writes that animals featured in the Roman de Renart are

so highly individualized that they have names, like human beings.

This comment reminds me of T. S. Eliot‘s “The Naming of Cats,” Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939). “The Naming of Cats” was a source for Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s   immensely successful musical entitled Cats (1981). (See Cats, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia.)

Reinardus and Renart

The naming of the Roman de Renart‘s animal cast begins with the Ysengrimus (1148-1149), the birthplace of Reinardus (Latin) who becomes Renart beginning in 1274-1275, when the first “branches” of the Roman de Renart, written in “Roman,” the vernacular, were published. Animals in the Medieval Bestiary are seldom presented with animal attributes, with the probable exception of illuminations (enluminures FR).

Intertextualité

In other words, beasts inhabiting the Medieval Bestiary are stereotypes, or archetypes. Deviousness is the Fox’s main attribute, but it is a literary attribute, by “universal popular consent.” In fact, Medieval Beast literature is an example of intertextuality EN, a term coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966. Intertextuality is a theory according to which texts are rooted in an earlier text or earlier texts. One could also use the word palimpsest.

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Folio 21r
British Library, Royal MS 12 C. xix, Folio 6r

“Bear cubs are born as shapeless lumps of flesh, so their mother has to lick them into their proper shape.” (fol. 21r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

“The lion is the king of beasts.” (fol. 6r) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, Folio 22v

Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, Folio 22v

“Bear cubs are born as formless lumps of flesh; here [above] the mother is licking the cub into shape.” (fol. 22v) (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 15r

British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 15r

“A mother bear [above] licks her cub into shape.” (Photo credit: The Medieval Bestiary)

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 1951, Folio 18r

“‘le lyon [above] qui fait revivre ses lyonciaus’ – The lion revives its dead cubs. In the Bestiaire d’amour the man says that in the same way the woman can revive him from his love-death.” (fol. 18r) (Photo credit: BnF)

The Fox: “Licking into Shape”

natural histories
licking into shape (Pliny the Elder)
 

Pliny the Elder

In fables and the Reynard the Fox cycle, Renart’s main fictitious characteristic is his devious nature, an attribute bestowed upon him by humans and which he possesses in fables, beast epics, medieval bestiaries, and in Natural Histories, by “universal popular consent.”

Licking into Shape

Pliny the Elder, however, does not mention deviousness with respect to the fox. What Pliny reveals is the birth of incomplete offspring that have to be licked into shape. I have yet to find an image of the Fox licking its offspring into shape, but Bears and Lions also lick their incomplete progeny into shape. (See Fox, in The Medieval Bestiary.) Although this characteristic, i.e. licking into shape, was noted in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, or Natural History (published c. 77– 79 CE), it may have entered animal lore long before Pliny was born.

As noted above, I have not found an image of the Fox licking unfinished foxes into shape, but I have found images of Bears licking their cubs into shape and Lions breathing life into lions born dead.

fr_1580_048

Le Roman de Renart, Renart et Tiécelin le corbeau (Reynard and Tiécelin the crow), br.II, Bibliothèque nationale de France (you may click this link)

The Fox Playing Dead to Obtain Food

Renart et les anguilles (br. III) (Reynard and the eels)
Æsop’s “The Dog and the Fox Who Played Dead” (ATU 56A)
Laurentius Abstemius 146 
 

Animal “lore” also presents a second image of the Fox. We have seen that in “The Crow and Fox” (« Le Renard et le Corbeau, » (La Fontaine I.3) the fox flatters the crow into singing and dropping its dinner. But the literary fox also plays dead to catch food, which is yet another manifestation of the fox’s deceptive literary “nature.” The theft of fish is motif number 1 in the Aarne-Thompson-Üther classification system.

Previously, Isidore of Seville (7th century CE) had written about foxes that they were “deceptive animals.” As for Bartholomeus Anglicus (13th century), he had described the fox as “a false beast and deceiving” that “makes believe it is dead in order to catch food.” (ATU 105)

The fox also plays dead in Laura Gibbs’ Bestiaria Latina:

On Abstemius

Abstemius is the author of the Hecatomythium (A Hundred Fables). Abstemius’ real name was Lorenzo Bevilaqua. He was a professor of literature at Urbino in the 15th century. He published the Hecatomythium, (A Hundred Fables) in 1495, followed by 97 fables, the content of his 1499 Hecatomythium Secundum, published in Venice in 1499. Hecatomythium is a Greek word, but Abstemius wrote in Latin. (See Laurentius Abstemius, Wikipedia – the free Encyclopedia.)

Conclusion

Several Natural Histories were written in Greco-Roman Antiquity, going back to Herodotus‘ Histories. Herodotus described the crocodile, the hippopotamus and phoenix. Many Natural Histories were also published in the early Middle Ages.

However, animals dwelling in

  1. fables;
  2. in beast epics, such as the Reynard the Fox cycle;
  3. in Medieval Bestiaries;
  4. and in Natural Histories are not zoological creatures, but the denizens of literature.

They possess qualities attributed to them “by universal popular consent,” which, in the Middle Ages, may have been the consent of Christian “naturalists,” some of whom were monks and scribes.

The fox, a beloved rascal, was the devil himself. Besides, we owe fox “lore” at least two English expressions: to “lick into shape” and “sour grapes.”

I apologize for my tardiness and send all of you my kindest regards. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

____________________

[1] The Aarne-Thomson classification system (motif index) was modified by Hans Jorge Üther, hence the initials ATU.

[2] George Fyler Townsend, Æsop’s Fables, Project Gutenberg [EBook #21]. Third paragraph.

[3] Æsop’s fables have been indexed by Ben Edwin Perry (1892–1968). “The Beaver” is Perry Index 118.

[4]  Pliny the Elder died in the eruption of Vesuvius.

[5] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 3.

Museum Meermanno, MMW, 10 B 25, Folio 13v

Museum Meermanno, MMW, 10 B 25, Folio 13v

© Micheline Walker
25 September 2014
WordPress

Dogs, a long time ago

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Beast Literature, Bestiaries

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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 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
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
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)

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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

Sources and Resources

 
 

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.

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Arany Zoltán

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© Micheline Walker
12 September 2014
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Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 19r

Aesop’s “The Boy Bathing”

05 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Fables

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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.

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

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

Sources and Resources

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[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
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Reynard the Fox: the Judgement

25 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

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In an earlier post, I mentioned a favourite version of the Sick Lion tale, but I could not find where I had read this version. Destiny was kind. There it was in Jan M. Ziolkowski’s Talking Animals.[1] Professor Ziolkowski teaches at Harvard University and he has been my best guide through a maze of beast stories.  It would appear that the Sick Lion tale may go back to “an ancient Babylonian tale.” (p. 63)

Jan M. Ziolkowski writes that the

 “The Sick Lion” is not content merely to tell a straightforward fable and to tack onto it the usual sort of moral. […] it approaches being a riddle because it rests its claim to value and attention on a hidden meaning.  But a poem that begins with the “Once upon a time” quality of a fairy tale (“Ægrum fama fuit quondam …”) should not be racked to fit a Procrustean bed of historical allegory. (p. 66)

In the meantime, monks are not only transcribing beast poems and beast stories, they are also writing their own. They may have drawn their material from Roman Antiquity, but some were poets in their own right. According to Jean Dufournet, transcribing and writing beast poems and beast stories was entertainment for monks:  “un divertissement [entertainment] de Clercs.”[2]

—ooo—

But let’s go back to our scoundrel. We know he travels to Georgia (US), but, in the
meantime, in Europe, he is branching out in many ways. Machiavelli would like his prince to be like a fox. But from the Roman de Renart also emerges inspiration for two of Molière’s plays:  Dom Juan but, particularly, Tartuffe.  In both cases, false piety is the tool used to deceive those who wish to be deceived. Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1606) is also a Renart.

Bruin the Bear goes to Maupertuis

This is a tool they have inherited from Reynard. Our fellow rapes Hersent, Ysengrin the wolf’s wife, when she gets caught in a hole in one of the walls of her house, hind side exposed. Ysengrin being a connetable or a baron, as is Reynard, at the Lion’s court, he must seek “justice.” The Lion, Noble, first sends Bruin, the bear, to fetch Reynard.  However, Reynard tricks the bear into believing there is honey inside a log. Bruin believes Reynard and nearly loses his muzzle when ‘vilains’ (peasants) had put wedges at both ends of the log, which they remove. Bruin returns to court in a sorry state.

Grimbert the Badger goes to Maupertuis

So the King turns to Grimbert the badger, Reynard’s cousin, and asks him to go to Maupertuis, Reynard’s fortress.  Through entreaties Grimbert is successful in bringing the fox to court, the King’s court and a judicial court. The decision to hang him has already been made, but given Reynard’s rank and his willingness to present himself at court, Grimbert feels he deserves a trial. However, despite his barat (talkativeness), Reynard is condemned to be hanged. All the animals he has tricked into various predicaments are so outraged that Noble, the Lion, decides that Reynard must die.

Reynard talks himself out of the death-penalty

But, as Reynard is about to climb the stairs to the gallows, the clever character starts expressing remorse for the evil tricks he has performed. He claims he wishes to atone for his sins and will leave for the Crusades if he is not executed. Fière, the Lion’s wife, is so touched that having used his barat , Reynard is released and instead of leaving for the Crusades, he returns to Maupertuis.

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[1] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals:  Medieval Latin Beast Poetry 750-1150 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1993), pp. 61-66 and Appendix 26, pp. 295-297.

[2] Jean Dufournet and Andrée Mélina, translators and editors, Le Roman de Renart (Paris : Garnier Flammarion, 1985), p. 7.

 

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© Micheline Walker
25 Octobre 2011
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