By Jean de La Fontaine
Two mules were bearing on their backs,
One, oats; the other, silver of the tax.
The latter glorying in his load,
Marched proudly forward on the road;
And, from the jingle of his bell,
It was plain he liked his burden well.
But in a wild-wood glen
A band of robber men
Rushed forth on the twain.
Well with the silver pleased,
They by the bridle seized
The treasure-mule so vain.
Poor mule! in struggling to repel
His ruthless foes, he fell
Stabbed through; and with a bitter sighing,
He cried, "Is this the lot they promised me?
My humble friend from danger free,
While, weltering in my gore, I'm dying?"
"My friend," his fellow-mule replied,
"It is not well to have one's work too high.
If you had been a miller's drudge, as I,
You would not thus have died."
Notes
The silver of the tax.—An allusion to the French gabelle, or old salt tax, which, like all taxes levied on the mass of the people, was a very productive one. Its collection caused several peasants' insurrections.
Wednesday 30 May 2018
Friday 25 May 2018
The Frog That Wished to Be As Big As the Ox
By Jean de La Fontaine
The tenant of a bog,
An envious little frog,
Not bigger than an egg,
A stately bullock spies,
And, smitten with his size,
Attempts to be as big.
With earnestness and pains,
She stretches, swells, and strains,
And says, "Sister Frog, look here! see me!
Is this enough?" "No, no."
"Well, then, is this?" "Poh! poh!
Enough! you don't begin to be."
And thus the reptile sits,
Enlarging till she splits.
The world is full of folks
Of just such wisdom;—
The lordly dome provokes
The cit to build his dome;
And, really, there is no telling
How much great men set little ones a-swelling.
Notes
The story of this fable is given in Horace, Satires, 2. 3, Phaedrus and Corrozet have also versions of it. Gilles Corrozet was one of the French fabulists immediately preceding La Fontaine. He was a Parisian bookseller-author who lived between 1516 and 1568.
The tenant of a bog,
An envious little frog,
Not bigger than an egg,
A stately bullock spies,
And, smitten with his size,
Attempts to be as big.
With earnestness and pains,
She stretches, swells, and strains,
And says, "Sister Frog, look here! see me!
Is this enough?" "No, no."
"Well, then, is this?" "Poh! poh!
Enough! you don't begin to be."
And thus the reptile sits,
Enlarging till she splits.
The world is full of folks
Of just such wisdom;—
The lordly dome provokes
The cit to build his dome;
And, really, there is no telling
How much great men set little ones a-swelling.
Notes
The story of this fable is given in Horace, Satires, 2. 3, Phaedrus and Corrozet have also versions of it. Gilles Corrozet was one of the French fabulists immediately preceding La Fontaine. He was a Parisian bookseller-author who lived between 1516 and 1568.
Sunday 20 May 2018
The Raven and the Fox
By Jean de La Fontaine
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.
Notes
Both Aesop and Phaedrus have a version of this fable.
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.
Notes
Both Aesop and Phaedrus have a version of this fable.
Tuesday 15 May 2018
The Grasshopper and the Ant
By Jean de La Fontaine
A grasshopper gay
Sang the summer away,
And found herself poor
By the winter's first roar.
Of meat or of bread,
Not a morsel she had!
So begging she went,
To her neighbour the ant,
For the loan of some wheat,
Which would serve her to eat,
Till the season came round.
"I will pay you," she says,
"On an animal's faith,
Double weight in the pound
Before the harvest is bound."
The ant is a friend
(And here she might mend)
Little given to lend.
"How did you spend the summer?"
Said she, looking shame
At the borrowing dame.
"Night and day to each comer
I sang, if you please."
"You sang! I'm at ease;
For it's plain at a glance,
Now, ma'am, you must dance."
Notes
For the story of this fable, as for the stories of so many of the fables which follow, especially in the first six books, La Fontaine is indebted to Aesop.
A grasshopper gay
Sang the summer away,
And found herself poor
By the winter's first roar.
Of meat or of bread,
Not a morsel she had!
So begging she went,
To her neighbour the ant,
For the loan of some wheat,
Which would serve her to eat,
Till the season came round.
"I will pay you," she says,
"On an animal's faith,
Double weight in the pound
Before the harvest is bound."
The ant is a friend
(And here she might mend)
Little given to lend.
"How did you spend the summer?"
Said she, looking shame
At the borrowing dame.
"Night and day to each comer
I sang, if you please."
"You sang! I'm at ease;
For it's plain at a glance,
Now, ma'am, you must dance."
Notes
For the story of this fable, as for the stories of so many of the fables which follow, especially in the first six books, La Fontaine is indebted to Aesop.
Classic Fables of the World
Hello Dear Reader or Fabulist!
My name is Charles and I like to write fables. You can read some of my fables at Korovia.com, under the topic Korovian Fables. It is something I do for fun. I also write fantasy books, poetry books, and someday perhaps a book of fables.
As part of my practice of writing fables, I also like researching fables and placing them here - a library of fables.
I find it is useful to learn about the history of writing fables, what other famous fabulists wrote about, and the rather unique spin that fabulists put into their work, often turning political commentary into allegories.
One such fabulist that you have probably already read previously (or heard some of his stories) is Jean de La Fontaine. More than likely you have already read or heard his work before without knowing who the author was. Some of Fontaine's work is derived from earlier fabulists, and other fabulists have also derived their work from Fontaine's. Fabulists it seems like to pastiche one another's work quite often.
Myself, I like to avoid accidentally copying the work of others, so to me, studying the work of other fabulists is way of preventing myself from accidentally copying their work, but at the same time learning how other fabulists created their stories in their own unusual way.
After I have exhausted all of Jean de La Fontaine's fables I will choose a different fabulist and begin posting their work.
For the month of May 2018 I am only posting 1 new fable every 5 days. Just to get it started.
However, my long term goal with "Classic Fables of the World" is to post 1 new fable every 3 days, plus a bonus fable on the 1st day of every month. So there should be 11 fables per month, with the exception of February which will have only 10 fables. I will do this by scheduling the posts 3 days apart ahead of time.
So for example today I scheduled 3 more fables for May (spread 5 days apart), 11 fables for June, and another 7 fables for July. Sometime in the next month or two I will hopefully schedule another 20 or more fables for July and August, etc. If I remember to keep adding to this, eventually a whole year of fables should be scheduled in advance.
What am I hoping you the reader will do?
Subscribe! Come to this Library of Classic Fables from time to time and read the new fables as they appear every 3 days.
My goal is to eventually have a giant library of fables for people to read. Hundreds of them. At a rate of 131 fables per year we could potentially post 1,000 fables in less than 8 years.
Want to help?
If you love fables like I do, I could always use some help. Email charlesmoffat@charlesmoffat.com and let me know you are interested in joining "Classic Fables of the World", and perhaps we can post even more than that. It would be awesome to get up to 1 fable every 2 days, or even 1 fable per day.
I don't know how much time I will have to devote to this new blog, but I am hoping I will make an effort. I am hoping other people will enjoy what I am doing and possibly want to help too.
My name is Charles and I like to write fables. You can read some of my fables at Korovia.com, under the topic Korovian Fables. It is something I do for fun. I also write fantasy books, poetry books, and someday perhaps a book of fables.
As part of my practice of writing fables, I also like researching fables and placing them here - a library of fables.
I find it is useful to learn about the history of writing fables, what other famous fabulists wrote about, and the rather unique spin that fabulists put into their work, often turning political commentary into allegories.
One such fabulist that you have probably already read previously (or heard some of his stories) is Jean de La Fontaine. More than likely you have already read or heard his work before without knowing who the author was. Some of Fontaine's work is derived from earlier fabulists, and other fabulists have also derived their work from Fontaine's. Fabulists it seems like to pastiche one another's work quite often.
Myself, I like to avoid accidentally copying the work of others, so to me, studying the work of other fabulists is way of preventing myself from accidentally copying their work, but at the same time learning how other fabulists created their stories in their own unusual way.
After I have exhausted all of Jean de La Fontaine's fables I will choose a different fabulist and begin posting their work.
For the month of May 2018 I am only posting 1 new fable every 5 days. Just to get it started.
However, my long term goal with "Classic Fables of the World" is to post 1 new fable every 3 days, plus a bonus fable on the 1st day of every month. So there should be 11 fables per month, with the exception of February which will have only 10 fables. I will do this by scheduling the posts 3 days apart ahead of time.
So for example today I scheduled 3 more fables for May (spread 5 days apart), 11 fables for June, and another 7 fables for July. Sometime in the next month or two I will hopefully schedule another 20 or more fables for July and August, etc. If I remember to keep adding to this, eventually a whole year of fables should be scheduled in advance.
What am I hoping you the reader will do?
Subscribe! Come to this Library of Classic Fables from time to time and read the new fables as they appear every 3 days.
My goal is to eventually have a giant library of fables for people to read. Hundreds of them. At a rate of 131 fables per year we could potentially post 1,000 fables in less than 8 years.
Want to help?
If you love fables like I do, I could always use some help. Email charlesmoffat@charlesmoffat.com and let me know you are interested in joining "Classic Fables of the World", and perhaps we can post even more than that. It would be awesome to get up to 1 fable every 2 days, or even 1 fable per day.
I don't know how much time I will have to devote to this new blog, but I am hoping I will make an effort. I am hoping other people will enjoy what I am doing and possibly want to help too.
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