The Fables of La Fontaine
most of these narratives of that brevity which may be styled the very
soul of the art of story-telling, since without it a tale necessarily
becomes tame and languid. This opinion could only have been expressed
by a man of exquisite taste, and I will merely ask of him that he
will in some degree relax it, and will admit that the Lacedemonian
graces are not so entirely opposed to the French language, that it is
impossible to make them accord.
After all, I have but followed the example, I will not say of the
ancients, which would not affect me in this case, but that of the
moderns. In every age, amongst every poetical people, Parnassus has
deemed this species of composition its own. Æsop's fables had scarcely
seen the light, when Socrates[3] thought proper to dress them in
the livery of the Muses; and what Plato says on this subject is so
pleasant, that I cannot refrain from making it one of the ornaments
of this Preface. He says, then, that Socrates having been condemned
to death, his punishment was respited on account of the occurrence
of certain fêtes. Cébès went to see him on the day of his death, and
Socrates then told him that the gods had several times warned him by
dreams that he should devote himself to music before he died. He did
not at first understand the signification of these dreams; for, as
music does not improve a man's moral nature, of what use could it be to
him?[4] It was evident, however, that there was some mystery involved,
for the gods never ceased to give him the same warning, and it had come
to him again on the occasion of one of the fêtes to which I have above
alluded. At length, after having deeply reflected on what it might be
that Heaven intended him to do, he concluded that as music and poetry
are so closely allied, it probably meant him to turn his attention to
the latter. There can be no good poetry without harmony; but to good
poetry fiction is also equally necessary, and Socrates only knew how
to tell the truth. At length, however, he discovered a compromise;
selecting such fables as those of Æsop, which always contain something
of truth in them, he employed the last moments of his life in rendering
them into verse.
Socrates is not the only one who has regarded fables and poetry as
sisters. Phædrus has also declared that he held this opinion, and
by the excellence of his work we are able to judge of that of the
philosopher. After Phædrus, Avienus treated the same subject in the
same way; finally, the moderns have also followed their example,
and we find instances of this not only amongst foreign nations, but
in our own. It is true, that when our own countrymen devoted their
attention to this species of composition, the French language was so
different from what it now is, that we may regard them in this case
as foreigners. This has not deterred me from my enterprise. On the
contrary, I have flattered myself with the hope that, if I did not
pursue this career with success, I should at least earn the credit of
having opened the road.
It may possibly happen that my labours will induce others to continue
the work; and, indeed, there is no reason why this species of
composition should be exhausted until there shall remain no fresh
fables to put in verse. I have selected the best; that is to say, those
which seem to me to be so; but, in addition to the fact that I may
have erred in my selection, it will be by no means a difficult thing
for others to give a different rendering even to those which I have
selected; and if their renderings should be briefer than mine, they
will doubtless be more approved. In any case, some praise will always
be due to me, either because my rashness has had a happy result, and
that I have not departed too far from the right path, or, at least,
because I shall have instigated others to do better.
I think that I have sufficiently justified my design. As regards the
execution, I shall leave the public to be the judge. There will not be
found in my renderings the elegance and extreme brevity which are the
charms of Phædrus, for these qualities are beyond my powers; and that
being the case, I have thought it right to give more ornament to my
work than he has done. I do not blame him for having restricted himself
in length, for the Latin language enabled him to be brief; and, indeed,
if we take the trouble to examine closely, we shall find in this author
all the genuine characteristics and genius of Terence. The simplicity
of these great men is magnificent; but, not possessing the powers
of language of these authors, I cannot attain their heights. I have
striven, therefore, to compensate in some degree for my failings in
this respect, and I have done this with all the more boldness because
Quintilian has said that one can never deviate too much in narrative.
It is not necessary in this place to prove whether this be true or not;
it is sufficient that Quintilian has made the statement.[5]
I have also considered that, as these fables are already known to all
the world, I should have done nothing if I had not rendered them in
some degree new, by clothing them with certain fresh characteristics.
I have endeavoured to meet the wants of the day, which are novelty and
gaiety; and by gaiety I do not mean merely that which excites laughter,
but a certain charm, an agreeable air, which may be given to every
species of subject, even the most serious.
It is not, however, by the outward form which I have given it that
the value of my work should be alone judged, but by the quality of
the matter of which it is composed, and by its utility. For what is
there that is worthy of praise in the productions of the mind which is
not to be found in the apologue? There is something so grand in this
species of composition, that many of the ancients have attributed the
greater part of these fables to Socrates; selecting as their author
that individual amongst mortals who was most directly in communication
with the gods. I am rather surprised that they have not maintained
that these fables descended direct from heaven,[6] or that they have
not attributed their guardianship to some one special deity, as they
have done in the case of poetry and eloquence. And what I say is not
altogether without foundation, since, if I may venture to speak of that
which is most sacred in our eyes in the same breath with the errors of
the ancients, we find that Truth has spoken to men in parables; and
is the parable anything else than a fable? that is to say, a feigned
example of some truth, which has by so much the more force and effect
as it is the more common and familiar?
It is for these reasons that Plato, having banished Homer from his
Republic, has given a very honourable place in it to Æsop. He maintains
that infants suck in fables with their mothers' milk, and recommends
nurses to teach them to them, since it is impossible that children
should be accustomed at too early an age to the accents of wisdom and
virtue. If we would not have to endure the pain of correcting our
habits, we should take care to render them good whilst as yet they are
neither good nor bad. And what better aids can we have in this work
than fables? Tell a child that Crassus, when he waged war against the
Parthians, entered their country without considering how he should
be able to get out of it again, and that this was the cause of the
destruction of himself and his whole army, and how great an effort will
the infant have to make to remember the fact! But tell the same child
that the fox and the he-goat descended to the bottom of a well for the
purpose of quenching their thirst, and that the fox got out of it by
making use of the shoulders and horns of his companion as a ladder, but
that the goat remained there in consequence of not having had so much
foresight, and that, consequently, we should always consider what is
likely to be the result of what we do,--tell a child these two stories,
I say, and which will make the most impression on his mind? Is it not
certain that he will cling to the latter version as more conformable
and less disproportioned than the other to the tenderness of his brain?
It is useless for you to reply that the ideas of childhood are in
themselves sufficiently infantine, without filling them with a heap of
fresh trifles. These trifles, as you may please to call them, are only
trifles in appearance; in reality, they are full of solid sense. And as
by the definition of the point, the line, the surface, and the other
well-known elements of form, we obtain a knowledge which enables us to
measure not only the earth but the universe, in the same manner, by
the aid of the truths involved in fables, we finally become enabled to
form correct opinions of what is right and what is wrong, and to take a
foremost place in the ranks of life.
The fables which are included in this collection are not merely moral,
but are, to a certain extent, an encyclopædia of the qualities and
characteristics of animals, and, consequently, of our own; since we men
are, in fact, but a summary of all that is good and bad in the lower
ranks of creatures. When Prometheus determined upon creating man, he
took the dominant characteristic of each beast, and of these various
characteristics composed the human species. It follows, therefore,
that in these fables, in which beasts play so great a part, we may
each of us find some feature which we may recognise as our own. The
old may find in them a confirmation of their experiences, and the
young may learn from them that which they ought to know. As the latter
are but strangers in the world, they are as yet unacquainted with its
inhabitants; they are even unacquainted with themselves. They ought
not to be left in this ignorance, but should be instructed as to the
qualities of the lion, the fox, and so forth, and as to the why and
the wherefore a man is sometimes compared to the said lion and fox. To
effect this instruction is the object of these fables.
I have already overstepped the ordinary limits of a Preface, but I have
still a few remarks to make on the principles on which the present work
has been constructed.
The fable proper is composed of two parts, of which one may be termed
the body, and the other the soul. The body is the subject-matter of
the fable, and the soul is the moral. Aristotle will admit none but
animals into the domain of fabledom, and rigorously excludes from it
both men and plants. This rule, however, cannot be strictly necessary,
since neither Æsop, Phædrus, nor any of the fabulists[7] have observed
it; but, on the other hand, a moral is to a fable an indispensable
adjunct, and if I have in any instances omitted it, it is only in those
cases in which it could not be gracefully introduced, or in which it
was so obvious that the reader could deduce it for himself. The great
rule in France is to value only that which pleases, and I have thought
it no crime, therefore, to cancel ancient customs when they would not
harmonise with modern ones. In Æsop's time the fable was first related
as a simple story, and then supplemented by a moral which was distinct
in itself. Next Phædrus came, who was so far from complying with this
rule, that he sometimes transposed the moral from the end to the
commencement. For my own part, I have never failed to follow Æsop's
rule, except when it was necessary to observe a no less important one
laid down by Horace, to the effect that no writer should obstinately
struggle against the natural bent of his mind or the capabilities of
his subject. A man, he asserts, who wishes to succeed will never pursue
such a course, but will at once abandon a subject when he finds that he
cannot mould it into a creditable shape:
"Et quæ
Desperat tractata intescere posse, relinquit."[8]