Fables of La Fontaine Part 2

Forty-one of the unadorned and disconnected fables of Aesop were also translated into Arabic at a period somewhat more recent than the Hegira, and pa.s.sed by the name of the "Fables of Lokman." Their want of poetical ornament prevented them from acquiring much popularity with the Arabians; but they became well known in Europe, as furnishing a convenient text-book in the study of Arabic.

The _Hitopadesa_, the fountain of poetic fables, with its innumerable translations and modifications, seems to have had the greatest charms for the Orientals. As it pa.s.sed down the stream of time, version after version, the ornament and machinery outgrew the moral instruction, till it gave birth, at last, to such works of mere amus.e.m.e.nt as the "Thousand and One Nights."

Fable slept, with other things, in the dark ages of Europe. Abridgments took the place of the large collections, and probably occasioned the entire loss of some of them. As literature revived, fable was resuscitated. The crusades had brought European mind in contact with the Indian works which we have already described, in their Arabic dress.

Translations and imitations in the European tongues were speedily multiplied. The "Romance of the Fox," the work of Perrot de Saint Cloud, one of the most successful of these imitations, dates back to the thirteenth century. It found its way into most of the northern languages, and became a household book. It undoubtedly had great influence over the taste of succeeding ages, shedding upon the severe and satirical wit of the Greek and Roman literature the rich, mellow light of Asiatic poetry.

The poets of that age were not confined, however, to fables from the Hindoo source. Marie de France, also, in the thirteenth century, versified one hundred of the fables of Aesop, translating from an English collection, which does not now appear to be extant. Her work is ent.i.tled the _Ysopet_, or "Little Aesop." Other versions, with the same t.i.tle, were subsequently written. It was in 1447 that Planudes, already referred to, wrote in Greek prose a collection of fables, prefacing it with a life of Aesop, which, for a long time, pa.s.sed for the veritable work of that ancient. In the next century, Abstemius wrote two hundred fables in Latin prose, partly of modern, but chiefly of ancient invention. At this time, the vulgar languages had undergone so great changes, that works in them of two or three centuries old could not be understood, and, consequently, the Latin became the favourite language of authors. Many collections of fables were written in it, both in prose and verse. By the art of printing these works were greatly multiplied; and again the poets undertook the task of translating them into the language of the people. The French led the way in this species of literature, their language seeming to present some great advantages for it. One hundred years before La Fontaine, Corrozet, Guillaume Gueroult, and Philibert Hegemon, had written beautiful fables in verse, which it is supposed La Fontaine must have read and profited by, although they had become nearly obsolete in his time. It is a remarkable fact, that these poetical fables should so soon have been forgotten. It was soon after their appearance that the languages of Europe attained their full development; and, at this epoch, prose seems to have been universally preferred to poetry. So strong was this preference, that Ogilby, the Scotch fabulist, who had written a collection of fables in English verse, reduced them to prose on the occasion of publishing a more splendid edition in 1668. It seems to have been the settled opinion of the critics of that age, as it has, indeed, been stoutly maintained since, that the ornaments of poetry only impair the force of the fable--that the Muses, by becoming the handmaids of old Aesop, part with their own dignity without conferring any on him. La Fontaine has made such an opinion almost heretical. In his manner there is a perfect originality, and an immortality every way equal to that of the matter which he gathered up from all parts of the great storehouse of human experience. His fables are like pure gold enveloped in solid rock-crystal. In English, a few of the fables of Gay, of Moore, and of Cowper, may be compared with them in some respects, but we have nothing resembling them as a whole. Gay, who has done more than any other, though he has displayed great power of invention, and has given his verse a flow worthy of his master, Pope, has yet fallen far behind La Fontaine in the general management of his materials. His fables are all beautiful poems, but few of them are beautiful fables. His animal speakers do not sufficiently preserve their animal characters. It is quite otherwise with La Fontaine. His beasts are made most nicely to observe all the proprieties not only of the scene in which they are called to speak, but of the great drama into which they are from time to time introduced. His work const.i.tutes an harmonious whole. To those who read it in the original, it is one of the few which never cloy the appet.i.te. As in the poetry of Burns, you are apt to think the last verse you read of him the best.

But the main object of this Preface was to give a few traces of the life and literary career of our poet. A remarkable poet cannot but have been a remarkable man. Suppose we take a man with native benevolence amounting almost to folly; but little cunning, caution, or veneration; good perceptive, but better reflective faculties; and a dominant love of the beautiful;--and toss him into the focus of civilization in the age of Louis XIV. It is an interesting problem to find out what will become of him. Such is the problem worked out in the life of JEAN DE LA FONTAINE, born on the eighth of July, 1621, at Chateau-Thierry. His father, a man of some substance and station, committed two blunders in disposing of his son. First, he encouraged him to seek an education for ecclesiastical life, which was evidently unsuited to his disposition. Second, he brought about his marriage with a woman who was unfitted to secure his affections, or to manage his domestic affairs. In one other point he was not so much mistaken: he laboured unremittingly to make his son a poet.

Jean was a backward boy, and showed not the least spark of poetical genius till his twenty-second year. His poetical genius did not ripen till long after that time. But his father lived to see him all, and more than all, that he had ever hoped.[4]

[4] The Translator in his sixth edition replaced the next paragraph by the following remarks:--"The case is apparently, and only apparently, an exception to the old rule _Poeta nascitur, orator fit_--the poet is born, the orator is made. The truth is, without exception, that every poet is born such; and many are born such of whose poetry the world knows nothing. Every known poet is also somewhat an orator; and as to this part of his character, he is made. And many are known as poets who are altogether made; they are mere second-hand, or orator poets, and are quite intolerable unless exceedingly well made, which is, unfortunately, seldom the case. It would be wise in them to busy themselves as mere translators. Every one who is born with propensities to love and wonder too strong and deep to be worn off by repet.i.tion or continuance,--in other words, who is born to be always young,--is born a poet. The other requisites he has of course. Upon him the making will never be lost.

The richest gems do most honour to their polishing. But they are gems without any. So there are men who pa.s.s through the world with their souls full of poetry, who would not believe you if you were to tell them so. Happy for them is their ignorance, perhaps. La Fontaine came near being one of them. All that is artificial in poetry to him came late and with difficulty. Yet it resulted from his keen relish of nature, that he was never satisfied with his art of verse till he had brought it to the confines of perfection. He did not philosophize over the animals; he sympathized with them. A philosopher would not have lost a fashionable dinner in his admiration of a common ant-hill. La Fontaine did so once, because the well-known little community was engaged in what he took to be a funeral. He could not in decency leave them till it was over.

Verse-making out of the question, this was to be a genuine poet, though, with commonplace mortals, it was also to be a fool."

But we will first, in few words, despatch the worst--for there is a very bad part--of his life. It was not specially _his_ life; it was the life of the age in which he lived. The man of strong amorous propensities, in that age and country, who was, nevertheless, faithful to vows of either marriage or celibacy,--the latter vows then proved sadly dangerous to the former,--may be regarded as a miracle. La Fontaine, without any agency of his own affections, found himself married at the age of twenty-six, while yet as immature as most men are at sixteen. The upshot was, that his patrimony dwindled; and, though he lived many years with his wife, and had a son, he neglected her more and more, till at last he forgot that he had been married, though he unfortunately did not forget that there were other women in the world besides his wife. His genius and benevolence gained him friends everywhere with both s.e.xes, who never suffered him to want, and who had never cause to complain of his ingrat.i.tude. But he was always the special favourite of the Aspasias who ruled France and her kings. To please them, he wrote a great deal of fine poetry, much of which deserves to be everlastingly forgotten. It must be said for him, that his vice became conspicuous only in the light of one of his virtues. His frankness would never allow concealment. He scandalized his friends Boileau and Racine; still, it is matter of doubt whether they did not excel him rather in prudence than in purity. But, whatever may be said in palliation, it is lamentable to think that a heaven-lighted genius should have been made, in any way, to minister to a h.e.l.l-envenomed vice, which has caused unutterable woes to France and the world. Some time before he died, he repented bitterly of this part of his course, and laboured, no doubt sincerely, to repair the mischiefs he had done.

As we have already said, Jean was a backward boy. But, under a dull exterior, the mental machinery was working splendidly within. He lacked all that outside care and prudence,--that constant looking out for breakers,--which obstruct the growth and ripening of the reflective faculties. The vulgar, by a queer mistake, call a man _absent-minded_, when his mind shuts the door, pulls in the latch-string, and is wholly at home. La Fontaine's mind was exceedingly domestic. It was nowhere but at home when, riding from Paris to Chateau-Thierry, a bundle of papers fell from his saddle-bow without his perceiving it. The mail-carrier, coming behind him, picked it up, and overtaking La Fontaine, asked him if he had lost anything. "Certainly not," he replied, looking about him with great surprise. "Well, I have just picked up these papers," rejoined the other. "Ah! they are mine," cried La Fontaine; "they involve my whole estate." And he eagerly reached to take them. On another occasion he was equally at home. Stopping on a journey, he ordered dinner at an hotel, and then took a ramble about the town. On his return, he entered another hotel, and, pa.s.sing through into the garden, took from his pocket a copy of Livy, in which he quietly set himself to read till his dinner should be ready. The book made him forget his appet.i.te, till a servant informed him of his mistake, and he returned to his hotel just in time to pay his bill and proceed on his journey.

It will be perceived that he took the world quietly, and his doing so undoubtedly had important bearings on his style. We give another anecdote, which ill.u.s.trates this peculiarity of his mind as well as the superlative folly of duelling. Not long after his marriage, with all his indifference to his wife, he was persuaded into a fit of singular jealousy. He was intimate with an ex-captain of dragoons, by name Poignant, who had retired to Chateau-Thierry; a frank, open-hearted man, but of extremely little gallantry. Whenever Poignant was not at his inn, he was at La Fontaine's, and consequently with his wife, when he himself was not at home. Some person took it in his head to ask La Fontaine why he suffered these constant visits. "And why," said La Fontaine, "should I not? He is my best friend." "The public think otherwise," was the reply; "they say that he comes for the sake of Madame La Fontaine." "The public is mistaken; but what must I do in the case?" said the poet. "You must demand satisfaction, sword in hand, of one who has dishonoured you."

"Very well," said La Fontaine, "I will demand it." The next day he called on Poignant, at four o'clock in the morning, and found him in bed.

"Rise," said he, "and come out with me!" His friend asked him what was the matter, and what pressing business had brought him so early in the morning. "I shall let you know," replied La Fontaine, "when we get abroad." Poignant, in great astonishment, rose, followed him out, and asked whither he was leading. "You shall know by-and-by," replied La Fontaine; and at last, when they had reached a retired place, he said, "My friend, we must fight." Poignant, still more surprised, sought to know in what he had offended him, and moreover represented to him that they were not on equal terms. "I am a man of war," said he, "while, as for you, you have never drawn a sword." "No matter," said La Fontaine; "the public requires that I should fight you." Poignant, after having resisted in vain, at last drew his sword, and, having easily made himself master of La Fontaine's, demanded the cause of the quarrel. "The public maintains," said La Fontaine, "that you come to my house daily, not for my sake, but my wife's." "Ah! my friend," replied the other, "I should never have suspected that was the cause of your displeasure, and I protest I will never again put a foot within your doors." "On the contrary," replied La Fontaine, seizing him by the hand, "I have satisfied the public, and now you must come to my house, every day, or I will fight you again." The two antagonists returned, and breakfasted together in good-humour.

It was not, as we have said, till his twenty-second year, that La Fontaine showed any taste for poetry. The occasion was this:--An officer, in winter-quarters at Chateau-Thierry, one day read to him, with great spirit, an ode of Malherbe, beginning thus--

Que direz-vous, races futures, Si quelquefois un vrai discours Vous recite les aventures De nos abominables jours?

Or, as we might paraphrase it,--

What will ye say, ye future days, If I, for once, in honest rhymes, Recount to you the deeds and ways Of our abominable times?

La Fontaine listened with involuntary transports of joy, admiration, and astonishment, as if a man born with a genius for music, but brought up in a desert, had for the first time heard a well-played instrument. He set himself immediately to reading Malherbe, pa.s.sed his nights in learning his verses by heart, and his days in declaiming them in solitary places.

He also read Voiture, and began to write verses in imitation. Happily, at this period, a relative named Pintrel directed his attention to ancient literature, and advised him to make himself familiar with Horace, Homer, Virgil, Terence, and Quinctilian. He accepted this counsel. M. de Maucroix, another of his friends, who cultivated poetry with success, also contributed to confirm his taste for the ancient models. His great delight, however, was to read Plato and Plutarch, which he did only through translations. The copies which he used are said to bear his ma.n.u.script notes on almost every page, and these notes are the maxims which are to be found in his fables. Returning from this study of the ancients, he read the moderns with more discrimination. His favourites, besides Malherbe, were Corneille, Rabelais, and Marot. In Italian, he read Ariosto, Boccaccio, and Machiavel. In 1654 he published his first work, a translation of the _Eunuch_ of Terence. It met with no success. But this does not seem at all to have disturbed its author. He cultivated verse-making with as much ardour and good-humour as ever; and his verses soon began to be admired in the circle of his friends. No man had ever more devoted friends. Verses that have cost thought are not relished without thought. When a genius appears, it takes some little time for the world to educate itself to a knowledge of the fact. By one of his friends, La Fontaine was introduced to Fouquet, the minister of finance, a man of great power, and who rivalled his sovereign in wealth and luxury. It was his pride to be the patron of literary men, and he was pleased to make La Fontaine his poet, settling on him a pension of one thousand francs per annum, on condition that he should produce a piece in verse each quarter,--a condition which was exactly complied with till the fall of the minister.

Fouquet was a most splendid villain, and positively, though perhaps not comparatively, deserved to fall. But it was enough for La Fontaine that Fouquet had done him a kindness. He took the part of the disgraced minister, without counting the cost. His "Elegy to the nymphs of Vaux"

was a shield to the fallen man, and turned popular hatred into sympathy.

The good-hearted poet rejoiced exceedingly in its success. _Bon-homme_ was the appellation which his friends pleasantly gave him, and by which he became known everywhere;--and never did a man better deserve it in its best sense. He was good by nature--not by the calculation of consequences. Indeed it does not seem ever to have occurred to him that kindness, grat.i.tude, and truth, could have any other than good consequences. He was truly a Frenchman without guile, and possessed to perfection that comfortable trait,--in which French character is commonly allowed to excel the English,--_good-humour_ with the whole world.

La Fontaine was the intimate friend of Moliere, Boileau, and Racine.

Moliere had already established a reputation; but the others became known to the world at the same time. Boileau hired a small chamber in the Faubourg Saint Germain, where they all met several times a week; for La Fontaine, at the age of forty-four, had left Chateau-Thierry, and become a citizen of Paris. Here they discussed all sorts of topics, admitting to their society Chapelle, a man of less genius, but of greater conversational powers, than either of them--a sort of connecting link between them and the world. Four poets, or four men, could hardly have been more unlike. Boileau was bl.u.s.tering, blunt, peremptory, but honest and frank; Racine, of a pleasant and tranquil gaiety, but mischievous and sarcastic; Moliere was naturally considerate, pensive, and melancholy; La Fontaine was often absent-minded, but sometimes exceedingly jovial, delighting with his sallies, his witty _navetes_, and his arch simplicity. These meetings, which no doubt had a great influence upon French literature, La Fontaine, in one of his prefaces, thus describes:--"Four friends, whose acquaintance had begun at the foot of Parna.s.sus, held a sort of society, which I should call an Academy, if their number had been sufficiently great, and if they had had as much regard for the Muses as for pleasure. The first thing which they did was to banish from among them all rules of conversation, and everything which savours of the academic conference. When they met, and had sufficiently discussed their amus.e.m.e.nts, if chance threw them upon any point of science or belles-lettres, they profited by the occasion; it was, however, without dwelling too long on the same subject, flitting from one thing to another like the bees that meet divers sorts of flowers on their way. Neither envy, malice, nor cabal, had any voice among them. They adored the works of the ancients, never refused due praise to those of the moderns, spoke modestly of their own, and gave each other sincere counsel, when any one of them--which rarely happened--fell into the malady of the age, and published a book."

The absent-mindedness of our fabulist not unfrequently created much amus.e.m.e.nt on these occasions, and made him the object of mirthful conspiracies. So keenly was the game pursued by Boileau and Racine, that the more considerate Moliere felt obliged sometimes to expose and rebuke them. Once, after having done so, he privately told a stranger, who was present with them, the wits would have worried themselves in vain; they could not have obliterated the _bon-homme_.

La Fontaine, as we have said, was an admirer of Rabelais;--to what a pitch, the following anecdote may show. At one of the meetings at Boileau's were present Racine, Valincourt, and a brother of Boileau's, a doctor of the Sorbonne. The latter took it upon him to set forth the merits of St. Augustin in a pompous eulogium. La Fontaine, plunged in one of his habitual reveries, listened without hearing. At last, rousing himself as if from a profound sleep, to prove that the conversation had not been lost upon him, he asked the doctor, with a very serious air, whether he thought St. Augustin had as much wit as Rabelais. The divine, surprised, looked at him from head to foot, and only replied, "Take care, Monsieur La Fontaine;--you have put one of your stockings on wrong side outwards"--which was the fact.

It was in 1668 that La Fontaine published his first collection of fables, under the modest t.i.tle _Fables Choisies, mises en Vers_, in a quarto volume, with figures designed and engraved by Chauveau. It contained six books, and was dedicated to the Dauphin. Many of the fables had already been published in a separate form. The success of this collection was so great, that it was reprinted the same year in a smaller size. Fables had come to be regarded as beneath poetry; La Fontaine established them at once on the top of Parna.s.sus. The ablest poets of his age did not think it beneath them to enter the lists with him; and it is needless to say they came off second best.

One of the fables of the first book is addressed to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and was the consequence of a friendship between La Fontaine and the author of the celebrated "Maxims." Connected with the duke was Madame La Fayette, one of the most learned and ingenious women of her age, who consequently became the admirer and friend of the fabulist. To her he wrote verses abundantly, as he did to all who made him the object of their kind regard. Indeed, notwithstanding his avowed indolence, or rather pa.s.sion for quiet and sleep, his pen was very productive. In 1669, he published "Psyche," a romance in prose and verse, which he dedicated to the d.u.c.h.ess de Bouillon, in grat.i.tude for many kindnesses. The prose is said to be better than the verse; but this can hardly be true in respect to the following lines, in which the poet under the apt name of Polyphile, in a hymn addressed to Pleasure, undoubtedly sketches himself:--

Volupte, Volupte, qui fus jadis maitresse Du plus bel esprit de la Grece, Ne me dedaigne pas; viens-t'en loger chez moi: Tu n'y seras pas sans emploi: J'aime le jeu, l'amour, les livres, la musique, La ville et la campagne, enfin tout; il n'est rien Qui ne me soit souverain bien, Jusqu'au sombre plaisir d'un coeur melancolique.

Viens donc....

The characteristic grace and playfulness of this seem to defy translation. To the mere English reader, the sense may be roughly given thus:--

Delight, Delight, who didst as mistress hold The finest wit of Grecian mould, Disdain not me; but come, And make my house thy home.

Thou shalt not be without employ: In play, love, music, books, I joy, In town and country; and, indeed, there's nought, E'en to the luxury of sober thought,-- The sombre, melancholy mood,-- But brings to me the sovereign good.

Come, then, &c.

The same Polyphile, in recounting his adventures on a visit to the infernal regions, tells us that he saw, in the hands of the cruel Eumenides,

------Les auteurs de maint hymen force L'amant chiche, et la dame au coeur interesse; La troupe des censeurs, peuple a l'Amour rebelle; Ceux enfin dont les vers ont noirci quelque belle.

------Artificers of many a loveless match, And lovers who but sought the pence to catch; The crew censorious, rebels against Love; And those whose verses soiled the fair above.

To be "rebels against Love" was quite unpardonable with La Fontaine; and to bring about a "_hymen force_" was a crime, of which he probably spoke with some personal feeling. The great popularity of "Psyche"

encouraged the author to publish two volumes of poems and tales in 1671, in which were contained several new fables. The celebrated Madame de Sevigne thus speaks of these fables, in one of her letters to her daughter:--"But have you not admired the beauty of the five or six fables of La Fontaine contained in one of the volumes which I sent you? We were charmed with them the other day at M. de la Rochefoucauld's: we got by art that of the Monkey and the Cat." Then, quoting some lines, she adds,--"This is painting! And the Pumpkin--and the Nightingale--they are worthy of the first volume!" It was in his stories that La Fontaine excelled; and Madame de Sevigne expresses a wish to invent a fable which would impress upon him the folly of leaving his peculiar province. He seemed himself not insensible where his strength lay, and seldom ventured upon any other ground, except at the instance of his friends. With all his lightness, he felt a deep veneration for religion--the most spiritual and rigid which came within the circle of his immediate acquaintance. He admired Jansenius and the Port Royalists, and heartily loved Racine, who was of their faith. Count Henri-Louis de Lomenie, of Brienne,--who, after being secretary of state, had retired to the Oratoire,--was engaged in bringing out a better collection of Christian lyrics. To this work he pressed La Fontaine, whom he called his particular friend, to lend his name and contributions. Thus the author of "Psyche," "Adonis," and "Joconde," was led to the composition of pious hymns, and versifications of the Psalms of David. Gifted by nature with the utmost frankness of disposition, he sympathized fully with Arnauld and Pascal in the war against the Jesuits; and it would seem, from his _Ballade sur Escobar_, that he had read and relished the "Provincial Letters." This ballad, as it may be a curiosity to many, shall be given entire:--

BALLADE SUR ESCOBAR.

C'est a bon droit que l'on cond.a.m.ne a Rome L'eveque d'Ypre [5], auteur de vains debats; Ses sectateurs nous defendent en somme Tous les plaisirs que l'on goute ici-bas.

En paradis allant au pet.i.t pas, On y parvient, quoi qu'ARNAULD [6] nous en die: La volupte sans cause il a bannie.

Veut-on monter sur les celestes tours, Chemin pierreux est grande reverie, ESCOBAR [7] sait un chemin de velours.

Il ne dit pas qu'on peut tuer un homme Qui sans raison nous tient en altercas Pour un fetu ou bien pour une pomme; Mais qu'on le peut pour quatre ou cinq ducats.

Meme il soutient qu'on peut en certains cas Faire un serment plein de supercherie, S'abandonner aux douceurs de la vie, S'il est besoin conserver ses amours.

Ne faut-il pas apres cela qu'on crie: ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours?

Au nom de Dieu, lisez-moi quelque somme De ces ecrits don't chez lui l'on fait cas.

Qu'est-il besoin qu'a present je les nomme?

II en est tant qu'on ne les connoit pas.

De leurs avis servez-vous pour compas; N'admettez qu'eux en votre librairie; Brulez ARNAULD avec sa coterie, Pres d'ESCOBAR ce ne sont qu'esprits lourds.

Je vous le dis: ce n'est point raillerie, ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours.

ENVOI.

Toi, que l'orgueil poussa dans la voirie, Qui tiens la-bas noire conciergerie, Lucifer, chef des infernales cours, Pour eviter les traits de ta furie, ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours.

[5] _Corneille Jansenius_,--the originator of the sect called Jansenists. Though he was bishop of Ypres, his chief work, "Augustinus," and his doctrines generally, were condemned by Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent X., as heretical (1641 and 1653).--Ed.

[6] _Arnauld_.--This was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, and one of the Arnaulds famous among the Port Royalists, who were Jansenists in opposition to the Jesuits. He was born in 1612, and died a voluntary exile in Belgium, 1694. Boileau wrote his epitaph.--Ed.

[7] _Escobar_.--A Spanish Jesuit, who flourished mostly in France, and wrote against the Jansenists. Pascal, as well as La Fontaine, ridiculed his convenient principles of morality, he "chemin de velours," as La Fontaine puts it. His chief work in moral theology was published in seven vols., folio, at Lyons, 1652-1663. He died in 1669.--Ed.

Thus does the _Bon-homme_ treat the subtle Escobar, the prince and prototype of the moralists of _expediency_. To translate his artless and delicate irony is hardly possible. The writer of this hasty Preface offers the following only as an attempted imitation:--

BALLAD UPON ESCOBAR.

Good cause has Rome to reprobate The bishop who disputes her so; His followers reject and hate All pleasures that we taste below.