“Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak and the Reed): the Moral

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

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

La Fontaine as a Protégé of Nicolas Fouquet

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

The Oak and the Reed

(Photo credit: oldbookillustrations.com)

The Moral of “The Oak and the Reed”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Traditions: Phædrus and Babrius

Phædrus (Latin) and Babrius (Greek)

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

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

(Photo credit: Gutenberg (EBook #25357]

Percy J. Billinghurst)

“L’Honnête Homme”

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

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

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

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Oak, the Cedar and the Olive tree

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

Conclusion

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

RELATED ARTICLES

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

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

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

Sources

Recent studies

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

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

Jürgen Grimm (various articles)

Texts

MythFolklore.Æsopica

etc.

Translations (Gutenberg)

La Fontaine’s Fables

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

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

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

[EBook #25357]

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

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

[EBook #7241]

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

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

[EBook #50316]

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

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

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

Æsop’s Fables

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

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

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

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

[EBook #11339]

2. George Fyler Townsend, translator

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

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

[EBook #21]

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

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

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

[EBook #18732]

4. Milo Winter (illustrator)

The Æsop for Children

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

[EBook #19994]

5. The Baldwin Project: The Tree and the Reeds

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

The Reed and the Oak Tree

Maëlle Doliveux

28 September 2013

WordPress

“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

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)

Book cover, 1912 edition, by Arthur Rackham

Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg

17 July 2013

WordPress

The Miller, his Son and the Donkey: quite a Tale

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Æsop, Gabriele Faerno, Giovanni Maria Verdizotti, La Fontaine, Nazreddine et son fils, Perry Index, Tales of Count Lucanor

Walter Crane‘s composite illustration of all the events in the tale for the limerick retelling of the fables, Baby’s Own Æsop.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Le Meunier, son fils et l’âne FR
The Miller, his Son and the Ass EN

I have revised a post published in 2012. The pictures are now clearer. To view the post, simply click on the following link (the first link):

You can’t please everyone, Æsop retold (michelinewalker.com)[i]
The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey (classification)
The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey (text)

In the Aarne-Thompson classification index, The Miller, his Son and the Donkey is motif 1215 and bears many names. For the time being, we will call it The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey.[ii] By clicking on this title, we will see tales related to AT 1215.

I used La Fontaine’s version of this fable, entitled Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne FR, but it is also an Æsopic fable The Miller, his Son and the Donkey, Perry Index 721, AT 1205 (English). Given that Greek playwright Aristophane‘s (450 BC) alluded to our story in The Frogs; given, moreover, that it also belongs to the Æsopic corpus, The Miller, his Son and the Donkey is a very old fable. However, it would appear La Fontaine used as immediate model, a Racan retelling and the last fable in a collection of fables by Gabriele Faerno (1510 [Cremona], 17 November 1561 [Rome]), entitled Centum fabulae (A Hundred Fables). The moral of Faërne’s (FR) fable is that, if one tries to please everyone, one pleases very few individuals, or none at all.

Wikipedia’s The Miller, his Son and the Donkey

Nasreddin and other retellers

According to Wikipedia, La Fontaine was also influenced by Poggio Bracciolini,[iii] called Poggio (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), who included the story in his Facetiæ (1450). It is the opening poem of Giovanni Maria Verdizotti‘s Cento favole morali (1570) (One Hundred Moral Tales). However, “[t]he oldest documented occurrence of the actual story is in the work of the historian, geographer and poet Ibn Said (1213-1286), born and educated in Al-Andalus[,]” in Islamic Iberia, now Spain and Portugal. The story is also told in the Forty Vezirs, translated from Arabic into Turkish by Sheykh Zada. It is one of the stories told in the Arab world’s Goha.

The story was also written in the 17th century by Ottoman Turkish Nasreddin, who, according to Wikipedia, “dealt in concepts that have a certain timelessness” (Wikipedia). His advice to his son (son fils) is:

“If you ever should come into the possession of a donkey, never trim its tail in the presence of other people. Some will say that you have cut off too much, and others that you have cut off too little. If you want to please everyone, in the end your donkey will have no tail at all.” (Nasreddin Hodja)

Nasreddine et son fils

Photo credit: Google Images

In the 13th century, Jacques de Vitry translated the tale and inserted it in his Tabula exemplorum.[iv] It was also translated by Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena (5 May 1282 – 13 June 1348). The story, entitled “What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,” is included in the Tales of Count Lucanor (1335). It can be found in Shakespeare’s Jest Book (c. 1530), in German meistersinger Hans Sachs, who created it as a broadsheet, in 1531. It is also part of German author Joachim Camerarius‘ Asinus Vulgi. This version was used by the Dane Niels Heldvad (1563-1634) in his translation of the fable. It was then told by French seventeenth-century Racan, a disciple of French poet Malherbe, who is largely responsible for the development of the poetic rules of French “Classicism.”

We therefore see it in Greece (Aristophanes and Æsop), in the Arab World, in the Ottoman Empire, in Italian city-states, in Spain and Portugal, in England, in Germany and in France.

A 17th-century miniature of Nasreddin, currently in the Topkapi Palace* Museum Library. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*Topkapi Palace (Istanbul, Turkey) was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624-year reign. (See Topkapi Palace, Wikipedia and Nasreddin, Wikipedia.)[v]

Conclusion

The miller, his son and the donkey is an old story. In all likelihood, it dates back to Æsop, if there ever lived a Æsop. If so he was a reteller. In the case of La Fontaine’s Le Meunier, son fils et l’âne, we know his immediate sources: Racan and Gabriele Faerno.

In my earlier post, I point to a moral underlying the moral. The people who give advice to the miller and his son are judgmental. But the fable could also be linked to analysis paralysis. We often need to seek advice, professional advice in particularly, but we can’t let others stifle our inner voices. I believe that instinct is often one’s best guide. When in doubt, abstain! (Dans le doute, abstiens-toi.)

I will close by noting, first, that The miller, his son and the donkey is an example of shared wisdom: the Greeks, Islamic Iberia, the Arab world, Ottoman Turks and various European cultures. Second, tales we call “folktales” have a wide range of listeners, readers and writers. Not only are stories delightful, but they also override rank and constitute a testimonial to pluralism.

______________________________

[i] https://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/21/you-cant-please-everyone-aesop-retold/

[ii] Poggio discovered the only manuscript of Lucretius‘s De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things).

[iii] http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1215.html (classification)

[iv] See Exemplum, Wikipedia

[v] “Ottoman Empire”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 16 May. 2013

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/434996/Ottoman-Empire/44376/Restoration-of-the-Ottoman-Empire-1402-81>.

Ottoman Turkish Music from 17th century

Nikriz Peşrev by Ali Ufki Bey

16 May 2013

WordPress

Nasreddin

Fables: La Fontaine’s “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak Tree and the Reed)

16 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Æsop, fables, Ibn al-Muqaffa, Jean de La Fontaine, l'honnête homme, Louis XIV, lybistic fables, Perry Index, Samos, The Oak and the Reed, Vishnu Sharma, wordly-wisdom

Le Chêne et le Roseau, by Achille-Etna Michallon (1816)

Achille-Etna Michallon (1796-1822, aged 26)

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Jean de la Fontaine (I.22)

The Oak Tree and the Reed (Æsop, No. 70, Perry Index)

Under the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715), the Sun-King, Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695) published twelve books of fables. The first book was published in 1668; the second, in 1678; and a collection, in the 1690s, shortly before La Fontaine’s death.

Fables, as you know, date back to Antiquity. Let us mention, first, Vishnu Sharma‘s Sanskrit Panchatantra (Pañcatantra [Five Principles]), 3rd century BCE or much earlier times: 1200 BCE. Its Arabic version, entitled Kalīla wa Dimnah (750 CE), was written by Persian scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa. For most most of us, however, fables are Æsop’s Fables (c. 620-564 BCE) and they belong to an oral tradition. Æsop, if there ever lived an Æsop, was probably a freed slave from Samos, Greece.

Fables are usually looked upon as children’s literature because most feature animal protagonists. Some fables may be intended for children, but others encompass the wordly-wisdom a prince should acquire. Moreover, fables may feature plants or human beings speaking with animals. The latter are called libystic fables.

When reading “Le Chêne et le Roseau,” one may be reminded of Virgil’s Georgics (1^stcentury BCE), but this fable is mostly a La Fontaine fable. As mentioned above, it was published in 1668 and is the last fable (number XXII) of La Fontaine’s first book of Fables. La Fontaine published a second book of Fables in 1678-1679, and a third book, in 1694 or somewhat earlier.

In “Le Chêne et le Roseau,” the Oak tree boasts to the Reed that he is strong and could protect the humble Reed from powerful winds. The Reed’s response is that “he bends” in the wind, “and does not break:” “Je plie, et ne romps pas.” As the two, the Oak tree and the Reed, are conversing, a devastating wind fells the Oak tree. As for the Reed, he is whipped back and forth by this ferocious wind, but survives.

Fables are lessons presented in Horatian (Horace, 1^stcentury BCE) fashion: “Prodesse et delectareˮ (To Delight and to Instruct, or plaire et instruire). So, a lesson or lessons can be drawn from “The Oak and the Reed,” (La Fontaine [I.22]) lessons for the prince.

Usually, my students would respond that the oak tree is punished for boasting, which is a correct answer. Destiny being fickle and life, fragile, one should not boast.

I would then remind them of the Roseau ’s statement: “Je plie, et ne romps pas.ˮ Not all of them could grasp readily that La Fontaine’s fable contained another lesson, one that could be useful for the prince or the man at court.

The lesson is simple. If one is flexible, chances are one might survive and perhaps blossom in the ruthless halls of the power.[i] It could be that nothing has changed, that one must still accept compromises or otherwise be totally ineffective and unhappy in any office to which he or she is elected, or has chosen.

Ideally, the prince acts according to a set of principles. He knows, for instance, that he must serve his people, so he listens. He also knows how to serve his people. But, rigidity is an extreme that precludes listening and militates against both reasoned and reasonable leadership.

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[i] This lesson is obvious in Æsop’s “The Oak and the Reeds” [EBook #11339], Perry Index 70, but not in La Fontaine’s “Chêne et Roseau” (“The Oak and the Reed”)

16 August 2011

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