The Original Fables of La Fontaine Part 5

(BOOK VIII.--No. 15)

An uncommonly small rat was watching an uncommonly big elephant and sneering at the slowness of his steps.

The enormous animal was heavily laden. On his back rose a three-storied howdah, wherein were accommodated a celebrated sultana, her dog, her cat, her monkey, her parrot, her old servant, and all her household.

They were going upon a pilgrimage.

The rat wondered why all the people should express astonishment at seeing this enormous bulk--"As if the fact of occupying more or less s.p.a.ce implied that one was the more or less important accordingly! What is it you admire in him, you men? If it is only the weight of his body which fills the children with terror, then we rats, small as we are, consider ourselves not one grain less than the elephant." He would have said more; but the cat, bounding out of her cage, let him see in an instant that a rat is not an elephant.

XX

THE HOROSCOPE

(BOOK VIII.--No. 16)

Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it.

A father had an only son whom he loved excessively. His devoted affection caused him to be so anxious as to the boy's welfare that he sought to learn from astrologers and fortune-tellers what fate was in store for the son and heir. One of these soothsayers told him that an especial danger lay with lions, from which the youth must be guarded until the age of twenty was reached, but not after. The father, to make sure of this precaution, upon the issue of which depended the life of his loved one, commanded that by no chance should the boy ever be permitted to go beyond the threshold of the house. Ample provision was made for the satisfaction of all the wishes proper to youth in the way of play with his companions, jumping, running, walking, and so forth. As the age approached when the spirits of youth yearn for the chase, he was taught to hold that sport in abhorrence.

But temperament cannot be changed by persuasion and counsel, nor by enlightenment. The young man, eager, ardent, and full of courage, no sooner felt the promptings of his years than he sighed for the forbidden pleasures. The greater the hindrance the stronger the desire.

Knowing the reason of his galling restrictions, and viewing day by day in his palatial home the hunting scenes pictured in paint and tapestry on every wall, his excitement became unrestrained.

Once his eye fell upon a pictured lion. "Ah! Monster!" he exclaimed in a transport of indignation. "It is to you that the shade and fetters in which I live are due!" With that he struck the lion's form a heavy blow with his fist. Hidden under the tapestry a great nail offered its cruel point, and upon this his hand was impaled. The wound grew beyond the reach of medical skill, and in the end this life, so guarded and cherished, was lost by means of the very care taken to preserve it.

The same jealous precaution proved fatal to the poet aeschylus. It is said that some fortune-teller menaced him with the fall of a house as his doom, upon which he at once left the town and made his bed in the open fields, far from roofs and beneath the sky. But an eagle flew by overhead carrying in its talons a tortoise, and seeing the bald head of the poet beneath, which it mistook for a stone, the bird let fall its prey in order to break the sh.e.l.l of the tortoise. Thus were the days of poor aeschylus ended.

From these two examples it would seem that this art of fortune-telling, if there be any truth in it, causes one to fall into the very evil one would be in dread of when one consulted it. But I will demonstrate and maintain that the art is false. I do not believe that Nature would have tied her own hands, and ours also, to the extent of marking our fate in the heavens. For our fate depends upon certain combinations of time, place, and people; not upon the combinations of charlatans. A shepherd and a king are born under the same planet: one carries the sceptre; the other the crook. The planet Jupiter willed it so! But what is this planet Jupiter? A body without senses. Whence comes it then that its influence works so differently on these two men? Further, how could its influence, if it had any, penetrate through endless voids to our world?

Do not attach too much importance to the two instances I have related.

This beloved son and the good man aeschylus are beside the mark.

Nevertheless, however blind and lying is the fortuneteller's art, it may yet hit home once in a thousand times. That is just a matter of chance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XXI

JUPITER AND THE THUNDERBOLTS

(BOOK VIII--No. 20)

One day, as Jupiter seated on high looked down upon the world, he was incensed at the faults committed by mankind. "Let us," he said, "have some other occupants in the regions of the universe in place of these present inhabitants who importune and weary me. Go you to Hades, Mercury, and bring hither the cruellest of the furies. This time, O race that I have too tenderly nurtured, you shall perish."

After this outburst the temper of the G.o.d began to cool.

O ye sovereigns of this world, to whom it has been given to be the arbiters of our destinies, let a night intervene between your wrath and the storm which follow!

Mercury, light of wing and sweet of tongue, descended to the abode of the dread sisters Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, and his choice fell upon the latter, the pitiless one. She, feeling proud of the preference, grew so arrogant as to swear by Pluto that the whole of the human brood should soon people his domains. But Jupiter did not approve of the vow this member of the Eumenides had sworn, and he sent her back to Hades.

At the same time he launched a thunderbolt upon one particularly perfidious race of men. This, however, being hurled by a father's arm, mercifully fell in a desert, causing less ruin than alarm. What followed from this was simply that the wicked brood took heart at such indulgence and did not trouble to mend their ways. Then all the G.o.ds in Olympus complained, until he who controls the clouds swore by the Styx that further storms should be sent and that they should not fail as the other had.

The Olympians only smiled at this. They told Jupiter that as he was the father it would be better if he left in other hands the making of thunderbolts. Vulcan undertook the task. Soon his furnaces glowed with bolts of two kinds; one that hits its mark with a deadly unerring--and that is the sort which any of the Olympian G.o.ds will hurl; whilst the other sort was that which becomes scattered on its course and does damage only to the mountain tops, or perchance is even lost on the way.

It is this kind of thunderbolt that Jupiter sends. His fatherly heart permits him to use no other.

XXII

EDUCATION

(BOOK VIII.--No. 24)

Once upon a time there were two dogs, one named Lurcher and the other Caesar. They were brothers; handsome, well-built, and plucky, and descended from dogs who were famous in their day. These two brothers, falling into the hands of different masters, found their destinies likewise in different spheres; for whilst one haunted the forests, the other lurched about a kitchen.

The names to which they now answered were not, however, the names that were first given them. The influence of each one's career upon his nature brought about a new name and a new reputation; for Caesar's nature was improved and strengthened by the life he led, whilst Lurcher's was made more and more despicable by a degraded existence. A scullion named him Lurcher; but the other dog received his n.o.ble name on account of his life of high adventure. He had held many a stag at bay, killed many a hare, and otherwise risen to the position of a Caesar among dogs. Care was taken that he should not mate indiscriminately, so that his descendants' blood should not degenerate. On the other hand, poor Lurcher bestowed his affections wherever he would and his brood became populous. He was the progenitor of all turn-spits in France; a variety which became common enough to form at last a race in themselves. They show more readiness to flee than to attack, and are the very antipodes of the Caesars.

We do not always follow our ancestors, nor even resemble our fathers.

Want of care, the flight of time, a thousand things, cause us to degenerate.

Ah! how many, Caesars, failing to cultivate their best nature and their gifts, become Lurchers!

XXIII

DEMOCRITUS AND THE PEOPLE OF ABDERA

(BOOK VIII.--No. 26)