The Fables of La Fontaine, translated by Elizur Wright

A city rat, one night,
    Did, with a civil stoop,
A country rat invite
    To end a turtle soup.

Upon a Turkey carpet
    They found the table spread,
And sure I need not harp it
    How well the fellows fed.

The entertainment was
    A truly noble one;
But some unlucky cause
    Disturb'd it when begun.

It was a slight rat-tat,
    That put their joys to rout;
Out ran the city rat;
    His guest, too, scamper'd out.

Our rats but fairly quit,
    The fearful knocking ceased.
'Return we,' cried the cit,
    To finish there our feast.

'No,' said the rustic rat;
    'To-morrow dine with me.
I'm not offended at
    Your feast so grand and free,--

'For I've no fare resembling;
    But then I eat at leisure,
    And would not swap, for pleasure
So mix'd with fear and trembling.'

X.--THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.[11]

    That innocence is not a shield,
      A story teaches, not the longest.
    The strongest reasons always yield
      To reasons of the strongest.

    A lamb her thirst was slaking,
      Once, at a mountain rill.
    A hungry wolf was taking
      His hunt for sheep to kill,
When, spying on the streamlet's brink
      This sheep of tender age,
      He howl'd in tones of rage,
'How dare you roil my drink?
Your impudence I shall chastise!'
'Let not your majesty,' the lamb replies,
    'Decide in haste or passion!
For sure 'tis difficult to think
    In what respect or fashion
My drinking here could roil your drink,
Since on the stream your majesty now faces
I'm lower down, full twenty paces.'
    'You roil it,' said the wolf; 'and, more, I know
    You cursed and slander'd me a year ago.'
'O no! how could I such a thing have done!
    A lamb that has not seen a year,
    A suckling of its mother dear?'
'Your brother then.' 'But brother I have none.'
      'Well, well, what's all the same,
      'Twas some one of your name.
    Sheep, men, and dogs of every nation,
    Are wont to stab my reputation,
      As I have truly heard.'
      Without another word,
    He made his vengeance good--
    Bore off the lambkin to the wood,
And there, without a jury,
Judged, slew, and ate her in his fury.

XI.--THE MAN AND HIS IMAGE.[12]

A man, who had no rivals in the love
      Which to himself he bore,
Esteem'd his own dear beauty far above
      What earth had seen before.
More than contented in his error,
He lived the foe of every mirror.
Officious fate, resolved our lover
From such an illness should recover,
Presented always to his eyes
The mute advisers which the ladies prize;--
Mirrors in parlours, inns, and shops,--
Mirrors the pocket furniture of fops,--
Mirrors on every lady's zone,[13]
From which his face reflected shone.
What could our dear Narcissus do?
From haunts of men he now withdrew,
On purpose that his precious shape
From every mirror might escape.
    But in his forest glen alone,
      Apart from human trace,
      A watercourse,
      Of purest source,
While with unconscious gaze
He pierced its waveless face,
    Reflected back his own.
Incensed with mingled rage and fright,
He seeks to shun the odious sight;
But yet that mirror sheet, so clear and still,
He cannot leave, do what he will.

Ere this, my story's drift you plainly see.
From such mistake there is no mortal free.
      That obstinate self-lover
      The human soul doth cover;
The mirrors follies are of others,
In which, as all are genuine brothers,
Each soul may see to life depicted
Itself with just such faults afflicted;
And by that charming placid brook,
Needless to say, I mean your Maxim Book.

[12] This is one of La Fontaine's most admired fables, and is one of the few for which he did not go for the groundwork to some older fabulist. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld, to whom it was dedicated, was the author of the famous "Reflexions et Maximes Morales," which La Fontaine praises in the last lines of his fable. La Rochefoucauld was La Fontaine's friend and patron. The "Maximes" had achieved a second edition just prior to La Fontaine's publication of this first series of his Fables, in 1668. "The Rabbits" (Book X., Fable 15.), published in the second collection, in 1678-9, is also dedicated to the Duke, who died the following year, 1680. See Translator's Preface.
[13] Lady's zone.--One of La Fontaine's commentators remarks upon this passage that it is no exaggeration of the foppishness of the times in which the poet wrote, and cites the instance that the canons of St. Martin of Tours wore mirrors on their shoes, even while officiating in church.

XII.--THE DRAGON WITH MANY HEADS, AND THE DRAGON WITH MANY TAILS.[14]

      An envoy of the Porte Sublime,
      As history says, once on a time,
      Before th' imperial German court[15]
      Did rather boastfully report,
The troops commanded by his master's firman,
As being a stronger army than the German:
      To which replied a Dutch attendant,
      'Our prince has more than one dependant
      Who keeps an army at his own expense.'
        The Turk, a man of sense,
        Rejoin'd, 'I am aware
      What power your emperor's servants share.
It brings to mind a tale both strange and true,
A thing which once, myself, I chanced to view.
      I saw come darting through a hedge,
      Which fortified a rocky ledge,
      A hydra's hundred heads; and in a trice
        My blood was turning into ice.
        But less the harm than terror,--
        The body came no nearer;
        Nor could, unless it had been sunder'd,
        To parts at least a hundred.
        While musing deeply on this sight,
        Another dragon came to light,
        Whose single head avails
        To lead a hundred tails:
      And, seized with juster fright,
        I saw him pass the hedge,--
        Head, body, tails,--a wedge
        Of living and resistless powers.--
The other was your emperor's force; this ours.'

[14] The original of this fable has been attributed to the chief who made himself Emperor of Tartary and called himself Ghengis Khan (b. 1164, d. 1227). He is said to have applied the fable to the Great Mogul and his innumerable dependent potentates.
[15] German court.--The court of the "Holy Roman Empire" is here meant.

XIII.--THE THIEVES AND THE ASS.[16]

Two thieves, pursuing their profession,
Had of a donkey got possession,
      Whereon a strife arose,
      Which went from words to blows.
The question was, to sell, or not to sell;
But while our sturdy champions fought it well,
      Another thief, who chanced to pass,
      With ready wit rode off the ass.

      This ass is, by interpretation,
      Some province poor, or prostrate nation.
      The thieves are princes this and that,
      On spoils and plunder prone to fat,--
      As those of Austria, Turkey, Hungary.
      (Instead of two, I've quoted three--
      Enough of such commodity.)
      These powers engaged in war all,
      Some fourth thief stops the quarrel,
          According all to one key,
          By riding off the donkey.

XIV.--SIMONIDES PRESERVED BY THE GODS.[17]

Three sorts there are, as Malherbe[18] says,
Which one can never overpraise--
The gods, the ladies, and the king;
And I, for one, endorse the thing.
The heart, praise tickles and entices;
Of fair one's smile, it oft the price is.
See how the gods sometimes repay it.
Simonides--the ancients say it--
Once undertook, in poem lyric,
To write a wrestler's panegyric;
Which, ere he had proceeded far in,
He found his subject somewhat barren.
No ancestors of great renown;
His sire of some unnoted town;
Himself as little known to fame,
The wrestler's praise was rather tame.
The poet, having made the most of
Whate'er his hero had to boast of,
Digress'd, by choice that was not all luck's,
To Castor and his brother Pollux;
Whose bright career was subject ample,
For wrestlers, sure, a good example.
Our poet fatten'd on their story,
Gave every fight its place and glory,
    Till of his panegyric words
    These deities had got two-thirds.
      All done, the poet's fee
      A talent was to be.
But when he comes his bill to settle,
The wrestler, with a spice of mettle,
Pays down a third, and tells the poet,
'The balance they may pay who owe it.
The gods than I are rather debtors
To such a pious man of letters.
But still I shall be greatly pleased
To have your presence at my feast,
Among a knot of guests select,
My kin, and friends I most respect.'
More fond of character than coffer,
Simonides accepts the offer.
While at the feast the party sit,
And wine provokes the flow of wit,
It is announced that at the gate
Two men, in haste that cannot wait,
Would see the bard. He leaves the table,
No loss at all to 'ts noisy gabble.
The men were Leda's twins, who knew
What to a poet's praise was due,
And, thanking, paid him by foretelling
The downfall of the wrestler's dwelling.
From which ill-fated pile, indeed,
No sooner was the poet freed,
Than, props and pillars failing,
Which held aloft the ceiling
        So splendid o'er them,
      It downward loudly crash'd,
      The plates and flagons dash'd,
        And men who bore them;
        And, what was worse,
      Full vengeance for the man of verse,
      A timber broke the wrestler's thighs,
      And wounded many otherwise.
    The gossip Fame, of course, took care
    Abroad to publish this affair.
'A miracle!' the public cried, delighted.
No more could god-beloved bard be slighted.
His verse now brought him more than double,
With neither duns, nor care, nor trouble.
    Whoe'er laid claim to noble birth
      Must buy his ancestors a slice,
    Resolved no nobleman on earth
      Should overgo him in the price.
    From which these serious lessons flow:--
    Fail not your praises to bestow
    On gods and godlike men. Again,
    To sell the product of her pain
    Is not degrading to the Muse.
    Indeed, her art they do abuse,
    Who think her wares to use,
    And yet a liberal pay refuse.
    Whate'er the great confer upon her,
    They're honour'd by it while they honour.
Of old, Olympus and Parnassus
In friendship heaved their sky-crown'd masses.

XV.--DEATH AND THE UNFORTUNATE.[19]

A poor unfortunate, from day to day,
Call'd Death to take him from this world away.
'O Death' he said, 'to me how fair thy form!
Come quick, and end for me life's cruel storm.'
Death heard, and with a ghastly grin,
Knock'd at his door, and enter'd in
'Take out this object from my sight!'
    The poor man loudly cried.
'Its dreadful looks I can't abide;
O stay him, stay him' let him come no nigher;
O Death! O Death! I pray thee to retire!'

    A gentleman of note
In Rome, Maecenas,[20] somewhere wrote:--
"Make me the poorest wretch that begs,
Sore, hungry, crippled, clothed in rags,
In hopeless impotence of arms and legs;
    Provided, after all, you give
    The one sweet liberty to live:
I'll ask of Death no greater favour
Than just to stay away for ever."

XVI.--DEATH AND THE WOODMAN.[21]

A poor wood-chopper, with his fagot load,
Whom weight of years, as well as load, oppress'd,
Sore groaning in his smoky hut to rest,
Trudged wearily along his homeward road.
At last his wood upon the ground he throws,
And sits him down to think o'er all his woes.
To joy a stranger, since his hapless birth,
What poorer wretch upon this rolling earth?
No bread sometimes, and ne'er a moment's rest;
Wife, children, soldiers, landlords, public tax,
All wait the swinging of his old, worn axe,
And paint the veriest picture of a man unblest.
On Death he calls. Forthwith that monarch grim
Appears, and asks what he should do for him.
'Not much, indeed; a little help I lack--
To put these fagots on my back.'

      Death ready stands all ills to cure;
        But let us not his cure invite.
      Than die, 'tis better to endure,--
        Is both a manly maxim and a right.

XVII.--THE MAN BETWEEN TWO AGES, AND HIS TWO MISTRESSES.[22]

      A man of middle age, whose hair
        Was bordering on the grey,
      Began to turn his thoughts and care
        The matrimonial way.
      By virtue of his ready,
      A store of choices had he
Of ladies bent to suit his taste;
On which account he made no haste.
To court well was no trifling art.
Two widows chiefly gain'd his heart;
The one yet green, the other more mature,
Who found for nature's wane in art a cure.
These dames, amidst their joking and caressing
      The man they long'd to wed,
Would sometimes set themselves to dressing
      His party-colour'd head.
      Each aiming to assimilate
      Her lover to her own estate,
      The older piecemeal stole
      The black hair from his poll,
      While eke, with fingers light,
      The young one stole the white.
Between them both, as if by scald,
His head was changed from grey to bald.
'For these,' he said, 'your gentle pranks,
I owe you, ladies, many thanks.
      By being thus well shaved,
      I less have lost than saved.
      Of Hymen, yet, no news at hand,
        I do assure ye.
      By what I've lost, I understand
        It is in your way,
      Not mine, that I must pass on.
      Thanks, ladies, for the lesson.'

XVIII.--THE FOX AND THE STORK.[23]

Old Mister Fox was at expense, one day,
      To dine old Mistress Stork.
The fare was light, was nothing, sooth to say,
      Requiring knife and fork.
That sly old gentleman, the dinner-giver,
Was, you must understand, a frugal liver.
    This once, at least, the total matter
    Was thinnish soup served on a platter,
For madam's slender beak a fruitless puzzle,
Till all had pass'd the fox's lapping muzzle.
    But, little relishing his laughter,
    Old gossip Stork, some few days after,
    Return'd his Foxship's invitation.
    Without a moment's hesitation,
    He said he'd go, for he must own he
    Ne'er stood with friends for ceremony.
      And so, precisely at the hour,
      He hied him to the lady's bower;
    Where, praising her politeness,
    He finds her dinner right nice.
    Its punctuality and plenty,
    Its viands, cut in mouthfuls dainty,
    Its fragrant smell, were powerful to excite,
    Had there been need, his foxish appetite.
    But now the dame, to torture him,
        Such wit was in her,
        Served up her dinner
    In vases made so tall and slim,
    They let their owner's beak pass in and out,
    But not, by any means, the fox's snout!
        All arts without avail,
        With drooping head and tail,
      As ought a fox a fowl had cheated,
      The hungry guest at last retreated.

    Ye knaves, for you is this recital,
    You'll often meet Dame Stork's requital.

XIX.--THE BOY AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.[24]

    Wise counsel is not always wise,
    As this my tale exemplifies.
A boy, that frolick'd on the banks of Seine,
Fell in, and would have found a watery grave,
Had not that hand that planteth ne'er in vain
A willow planted there, his life to save.
While hanging by its branches as he might,
A certain sage preceptor came in sight;
To whom the urchin cried, 'Save, or I'm drown'd!'
The master, turning gravely at the sound,
Thought proper for a while to stand aloof,
And give the boy some seasonable reproof.
    'You little wretch! this comes of foolish playing,
    Commands and precepts disobeying.
    A naughty rogue, no doubt, you are,
    Who thus requite your parents' care.
    Alas! their lot I pity much,
    Whom fate condemns to watch o'er such.'
    This having coolly said, and more,
    He pull'd the drowning lad ashore.

This story hits more marks than you suppose.
All critics, pedants, men of endless prose,--
    Three sorts, so richly bless'd with progeny,
    The house is bless'd that doth not lodge any,--
May in it see themselves from head to toes.
      No matter what the task,
        Their precious tongues must teach;
      Their help in need you ask,
        You first must hear them preach.

[24] A fable telling this story is in the collection of Arabic fables which bear the name of Locman, or Lokman, a personage some identify with Aesop himself. Lokman is said to have flourished about 1050 B.C.; and even as the "Phrygian slave"--Aesop was said to have been very ugly, so Lokman is described as "an ugly black slave." See Translator's Preface. Rabelais also has a version of the story of this fable, vide Gargantua, Book I. ch. xlii.

XX.--THE COCK AND THE PEARL.[25]

    A cock scratch'd up, one day,
    A pearl of purest ray,
Which to a jeweller he bore.
    'I think it fine,' he said,
    'But yet a crumb of bread
To me were worth a great deal more.'

    So did a dunce inherit
    A manuscript of merit,
Which to a publisher he bore.
    ''Tis good,' said he, 'I'm told,
    Yet any coin of gold
To me were worth a great deal more.'

XXI.--THE HORNETS AND THE BEES.[26]

    "The artist by his work is known."--
    A piece of honey-comb, one day,
    Discover'd as a waif and stray,
    The hornets treated as their own.
    Their title did the bees dispute,
    And brought before a wasp the suit.
    The judge was puzzled to decide,
    For nothing could be testified
    Save that around this honey-comb
    There had been seen, as if at home,
    Some longish, brownish, buzzing creatures,
    Much like the bees in wings and features.
    But what of that? for marks the same,
    The hornets, too, could truly claim.
    Between assertion, and denial,
    The wasp, in doubt, proclaim'd new trial;
    And, hearing what an ant-hill swore,
    Could see no clearer than before.
    'What use, I pray, of this expense?'
    At last exclaim'd a bee of sense.
      'We've labour'd months in this affair,
      And now are only where we were.
        Meanwhile the honey runs to waste:
'Tis time the judge should show some haste.
The parties, sure, have had sufficient bleeding,
Without more fuss of scrawls and pleading.
Let's set ourselves at work, these drones and we,
And then all eyes the truth may plainly see,
    Whose art it is that can produce
    The magic cells, the nectar juice.'
      The hornets, flinching on their part,
      Show that the work transcends their art.
      The wasp at length their title sees,
      And gives the honey to the bees.
      Would God that suits at laws with us
        Might all be managed thus!
      That we might, in the Turkish mode,
      Have simple common sense for code!
      They then were short and cheap affairs,
      Instead of stretching on like ditches,
      Ingulfing in their course all riches,--
      The parties leaving for their shares,
The shells (and shells there might be moister)
From which the court has suck'd the oyster.[27]

[26] Phaedrus, III. 12.
[27] The court has suck'd the oyster.--The humorous idea of the lawyers, the litigants, and the oyster, is more fully treated in Fable IX., Book IX.

XXII.--THE OAK AND THE REED.[28]

    The oak one day address'd the reed:--
    'To you ungenerous indeed
    Has nature been, my humble friend,
    With weakness aye obliged to bend.
    The smallest bird that flits in air
    Is quite too much for you to bear;
    The slightest wind that wreathes the lake
    Your ever-trembling head doth shake.
        The while, my towering form
        Dares with the mountain top
        The solar blaze to stop,
        And wrestle with the storm.
    What seems to you the blast of death,
    To me is but a zephyr's breath.
Beneath my branches had you grown,
    That spread far round their friendly bower,
Less suffering would your life have known,
    Defended from the tempest's power.
    Unhappily you oftenest show
      In open air your slender form,
    Along the marshes wet and low,
      That fringe the kingdom of the storm.
      To you, declare I must,
      Dame Nature seems unjust.'
Then modestly replied the reed:
'Your pity, sir, is kind indeed,
But wholly needless for my sake.
The wildest wind that ever blew
Is safe to me compared with you.
I bend, indeed, but never break.
Thus far, I own, the hurricane
Has beat your sturdy back in vain;
But wait the end.' Just at the word,
The tempest's hollow voice was heard.
The North sent forth her fiercest child,
Dark, jagged, pitiless, and wild.
The oak, erect, endured the blow;
The reed bow'd gracefully and low.
But, gathering up its strength once more,
In greater fury than before,
        The savage blast
        O'erthrew, at last,
    That proud, old, sky-encircled head,
Whose feet entwined the empire of the dead![29]

[28] The groundwork of this fable is in Aesop, and also in the Fables of Avianus. Flavius Avianus lived in the fifth century. His Aesopian Fables were written in Latin verse. Caxton printed "The Fables of Avian, translated into Englyshe" at the end of his edition of Aesop.
[29] This fable and "The Animals Sick of the Plague" (Fable I., Book VII.), 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. See Translator's Preface.

BOOK II.

I.--AGAINST THE HARD TO SUIT.[1]

Were I a pet of fair Calliope,
I would devote the gifts conferr'd on me
To dress in verse old Aesop's lies divine;
For verse, and they, and truth, do well combine;
But, not a favourite on the Muses' hill,
I dare not arrogate the magic skill,
To ornament these charming stories.
A bard might brighten up their glories,
No doubt. I try,--what one more wise must do.
Thus much I have accomplish'd hitherto:--
        By help of my translation,
        The beasts hold conversation,
    In French, as ne'er they did before.
    Indeed, to claim a little more,
    The plants and trees,[2] with smiling features,
    Are turn'd by me to talking creatures.
    Who says, that this is not enchanting?
    'Ah,' says the critics, 'hear what vaunting!
    From one whose work, all told, no more is
    Than half-a-dozen baby stories.'[3]
Would you a theme more credible, my censors,
In graver tone, and style which now and then soars?
Then list! For ten long years the men of Troy,
By means that only heroes can employ,
Had held the allied hosts of Greece at bay,--
Their minings, batterings, stormings day by day,
Their hundred battles on the crimson plain,
Their blood of thousand heroes, all in vain,--
When, by Minerva's art, a horse of wood,
Of lofty size before their city stood,
Whose flanks immense the sage Ulysses hold,
Brave Diomed, and Ajax fierce and bold,
Whom, with their myrmidons, the huge machine
Would bear within the fated town unseen,
To wreak upon its very gods their rage--
Unheard-of stratagem, in any age.
Which well its crafty authors did repay....
    'Enough, enough,' our critic folks will say;
      'Your period excites alarm,
    Lest you should do your lungs some harm;
      And then your monstrous wooden horse,
        With squadrons in it at their ease,
          Is even harder to endorse
Than Renard cheating Raven of his cheese.
      And, more than that, it fits you ill
      To wield the old heroic quill.'
Well, then, a humbler tone, if such your will is:--
Long sigh'd and pined the jealous Amaryllis
For her Alcippus, in the sad belief,
None, save her sheep and dog, would know her grief.
Thyrsis, who knows, among the willows slips,
And hears the gentle shepherdess's lips
      Beseech the kind and gentle zephyr
      To bear these accents to her lover....
            'Stop!' says my censor:
      'To laws of rhyme quite irreducible,
      That couplet needs again the crucible;
            Poetic men, sir,
        Must nicely shun the shocks
        Of rhymes unorthodox.'
      A curse on critics! hold your tongue!
      Know I not how to end my song?
      Of time and strength what greater waste
      Than my attempt to suit your taste?

        Some men, more nice than wise,
        There's nought that satisfies.

[1] Phaedrus, Book IV. 7.
[2] The plants and trees.--Aristotle's rule for pure fable is that its dramatis personae should be animals only--excluding man. Dr. Johnson (writing upon Gay's Fables) agrees in this dictum "generally." But hardly any of the fabulists, from Aesop downwards, seem to have bound themselves by the rule; and in this fable we have La Fontaine rather exulting in his assignment of speech, &c., not only to the lower animals but to "plants and trees," &c., as well as otherwise defying the "hard to suit," i.e., the critics.
[3] Half-a-dozen baby stories.--Here La Fontaine exalts his muse as a fabulist. This is in reply to certain of his critics who pronounced his work puerile, and pretended to wish him to adopt the higher forms of poetry. Some of the fables of the first six Books were originally published in a semi-private way before 1668. See the Translators Preface. La Fontaine defends his art as a writer of fables also in Book III. (Fable I.); Book V. (Fable I.); Book VI. (Fable I.); Book VII. (Introduction); Book VIII. (Fable IV.), and Book IX. (Fable I).

II.--THE COUNCIL HELD BY THE RATS [4]

    Old Rodilard,[5] a certain cat,
      Such havoc of the rats had made,
    'Twas difficult to find a rat
      With nature's debt unpaid.
    The few that did remain,
      To leave their holes afraid,
    From usual food abstain,
      Not eating half their fill.
      And wonder no one will
That one who made of rats his revel,
With rats pass'd not for cat, but devil.
Now, on a day, this dread rat-eater,
Who had a wife, went out to meet her;
And while he held his caterwauling,
The unkill'd rats, their chapter calling,
Discuss'd the point, in grave debate,
How they might shun impending fate.
      Their dean, a prudent rat,
Thought best, and better soon than late,
      To bell the fatal cat;
That, when he took his hunting round,
The rats, well caution'd by the sound,
Might hide in safety under ground;
    Indeed he knew no other means.
        And all the rest
        At once confess'd
    Their minds were with the dean's.
No better plan, they all believed,
Could possibly have been conceived,
No doubt the thing would work right well,
If any one would hang the bell.
    But, one by one, said every rat,
    'I'm not so big a fool as that.'
The plan, knock'd up in this respect,
The council closed without effect.

And many a council I have seen,
Or reverend chapter with its dean,
    That, thus resolving wisely,
    Fell through like this precisely.

      To argue or refute
        Wise counsellors abound;
      The man to execute
        Is harder to be found.

[4] Faerno and Abstemius both have fables upon this subject. Gabriel Faerno (1500-1561) was an Italian writer who published fables in Latin. Perrault translated these into French verse, and published them at Paris in 1699. Faerno was also a famous editor of Terence. Laurentius Abstemius, or Astemio, was an Italian fabulist of the fifteenth century. After their first publication his fables often appeared in editions of Aesop.
[5] Rodilard.--The name no doubt taken from the famous cat Rodilardus (bacon-gnawer), in Rabelais, Pantagruel, IV., ch. LXVII.

III.--THE WOLF ACCUSING THE FOX BEFORE THE MONKEY.[6]

      A wolf, affirming his belief
      That he had suffer'd by a thief,
        Brought up his neighbour fox--
      Of whom it was by all confess'd,
      His character was not the best--
        To fill the prisoner's box.
      As judge between these vermin,
      A monkey graced the ermine;
      And truly other gifts of Themis[7]
        Did scarcely seem his;
      For while each party plead his cause,
      Appealing boldly to the laws,
      And much the question vex'd,
      Our monkey sat perplex'd.
        Their words and wrath expended,
      Their strife at length was ended;
      When, by their malice taught,
      The judge this judgment brought:
'Your characters, my friends, I long have known,
      As on this trial clearly shown;
And hence I fine you both--the grounds at large
      To state would little profit--
You wolf, in short, as bringing groundless charge,
      You fox, as guilty of it.'

    Come at it right or wrong, the judge opined
    No other than a villain could be fined.[8]

[6] Phaedrus, I. 10.
[7] Themis.--The goddess of Justice.
[8] So Philip of Macedon is said to have decided a suit by condemning the defendant to banishment and the plaintiff to follow him. The wisdom of each decision lies in taking advantage of a doubtful case to convict two well-known rogues of--previous bad character.

IV.--THE TWO BULLS AND THE FROG.[9]

Two bulls engaged in shocking battle,
    Both for a certain heifer's sake,
And lordship over certain cattle,
    A frog began to groan and quake.
      'But what is this to you?'
Inquired another of the croaking crew.
      'Why, sister, don't you see,
      The end of this will be,
That one of these big brutes will yield,
And then be exiled from the field?
No more permitted on the grass to feed,
He'll forage through our marsh, on rush and reed;
      And while he eats or chews the cud,
      Will trample on us in the mud.
      Alas! to think how frogs must suffer
      By means of this proud lady heifer!'
This fear was not without good sense.
One bull was beat, and much to their expense;
For, quick retreating to their reedy bower,
He trod on twenty of them in an hour.

    Of little folks it oft has been the fate
    To suffer for the follies of the great.

V.--THE BAT AND THE TWO WEASELS.[10]

    A blundering bat once stuck her head
    Into a wakeful weasel's bed;
    Whereat the mistress of the house,
      A deadly foe of rats and mice,
      Was making ready in a trice
    To eat the stranger as a mouse.
      'What! do you dare,' she said, 'to creep in
    The very bed I sometimes sleep in,
    Now, after all the provocation
    I've suffer'd from your thievish nation?
    Are you not really a mouse,
    That gnawing pest of every house,
    Your special aim to do the cheese ill?
    Ay, that you are, or I'm no weasel.'
      'I beg your pardon,' said the bat;
    'My kind is very far from that.
What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie?
      Why, ma'am, I am a bird;
      And, if you doubt my word,
    Just see the wings with which I fly.
    Long live the mice that cleave the sky!'
      These reasons had so fair a show,
      The weasel let the creature go.

      By some strange fancy led,
      The same wise blunderhead,
      But two or three days later,
        Had chosen for her rest
        Another weasel's nest,
    This last, of birds a special hater.
      New peril brought this step absurd;
    Without a moment's thought or puzzle,
    Dame weasel oped her peaked muzzle
      To eat th' intruder as a bird.
    'Hold! do not wrong me,' cried the bat;
    'I'm truly no such thing as that.
Your eyesight strange conclusions gathers.
What makes a bird, I pray? Its feathers.
      I'm cousin of the mice and rats.
      Great Jupiter confound the cats!'
    The bat, by such adroit replying,
    Twice saved herself from dying.

      And many a human stranger
      Thus turns his coat in danger;
    And sings, as suits, where'er he goes,
    'God save the king!'--or 'save his foes!'[11]

[10] Aesop.
[11] Or save his foes!--La Fontaine's last line is--"Vive le roi! Vive la ligue!" conveying an allusion to the "Holy League" of the French Catholic party, which, under the Guises, brought about the war with Henry III. and the Huguenots, which ended, for a time, in the edict of Nantes, promulgated by Henry IV. in 1598.

VI.--THE BIRD WOUNDED BY AN ARROW.[12]

      A bird, with plumèd arrow shot,
      In dying case deplored her lot:
    'Alas!' she cried, 'the anguish of the thought!
    This ruin partly by myself was brought!
    Hard-hearted men! from us to borrow
    What wings to us the fatal arrow!
    But mock us not, ye cruel race,
    For you must often take our place.'

The work of half the human brothers
Is making arms against the others.

VII.--THE BITCH AND HER FRIEND.[13]

    A bitch, that felt her time approaching,
      And had no place for parturition,
    Went to a female friend, and, broaching
      Her delicate condition,
        Got leave herself to shut
        Within the other's hut.
      At proper time the lender came
      Her little premises to claim.
    The bitch crawl'd meekly to the door,
    And humbly begg'd a fortnight more.
Her little pups, she said, could hardly walk.
In short, the lender yielded to her talk.
    The second term expired; the friend had come
    To take possession of her house and home.
The bitch, this time, as if she would have bit her,
Replied, 'I'm ready, madam, with my litter,
      To go when you can turn me out.'
      Her pups, you see, were fierce and stout.

    The creditor, from whom a villain borrows,
    Will fewer shillings get again than sorrows.
If you have trusted people of this sort,
You'll have to plead, and dun, and fight; in short,
      If in your house you let one step a foot,
      He'll surely step the other in to boot.

IX.--THE CITY RAT AND THE COUNTRY RAT.[10]