Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

In us the zephyrs most rejoice:
Our emerald beauty to caress,
On silken wings they fondly press!"
"Most true; but yet
You ought not to forget
We too exist," replied a voice
That issued from the earth;
"We sure possess some little worth."
"And who are ye? where do ye grow?"
"Buried are we here below,
Deep in the ground. 'Tis we who nourish
The stem and you, and make you flourish:
For understand, we are the roots
From whom the tree itself upshoots:
'Tis we by whom you thrive —
From whom your beauty ye derive;
Unlike to you, we are not fair,
Nor dwell we in the upper air;
Yet do we not, like you, decay —
Winter tears us not away.
Ye fall, yet still remains the tree;
But should it chance that we
Once cease to live, adieu
Both to the tree, fair leaves, and you!"'

As an example of his ironical humour we give a prose translation, by Mr. Ralston, of his fable The Geese:

'A peasant, with a long rod in his hand, was driving some geese to a town where they were to be sold; and, to tell the truth, he did not treat them over-politely. In hopes of making a good bargain, he was hastening on so as not to lose the market-day (and when gain is concerned, geese and men alike are apt to suffer). I do not blame the peasant; but the geese talked about him in a different spirit, and, whenever they met any passers-by, abused him to them in such terms as these:

'"Is it possible to find any geese more unfortunate than we are? This moujik[65 - Peasant.] harasses us so terribly, and chases us about just as if we were common geese. The ignoramus does not know that he ought to pay us reverence, seeing that we are the noble descendants of those geese to whom Rome was once indebted for her salvation, and in whose honour even feast-days were specially appointed there."

'"And do you want to have honour paid you on that account?" a passer-by asked them.

'"Why, our ancestors – "

'"I know that – I have read all about it; but I want to know this: of what use have you been yourselves?"

'"Why, our ancestors saved Rome!"

'"Quite so; but what have you done?"

'"We? Nothing."

'"Then, what merit is there in you? Let your ancestors rest in peace – they justly received honourable reward; but you, my friends, are only fit to be roasted!"'

Krilof concludes: 'It would be easy to make this fable still more intelligible; but I am afraid of irritating the geese.'

A story, rather than a fable, is The Man with Three Wives, and the moral underlying it is in the author's peculiar vein. This is translated from the original by Mr. J. H. Harrison:

'A certain vanquisher of women's hearts,
While still his first wife was alive and well,
Married a second, and a third. They tell
The king the scandal of such shameless arts,
And, as his majesty abhorred all vice,
Given himself to self-denial,
He gave the order in a trice
To bring the bigamist to trial,
And such a punishment invent, that none
Should evermore dare do what he had done.
"And if the punishment to me should seem too small,
Around their table will I hang the judges all."
This to the judges seemed no joke:
The cold sweat ran along each spine.
Three days and nights they sit, but can't divine
What punishment will best such lawless license choke.
Thousands of punishments there are; but then,
As all men of experience know,
They cannot keep from evil evil men.
This time kind Providence did help them though,
And when the culprit came before the court,
This was his sentence short:
To give him back his three wives all together.
The people wondered much at this decision,
And thought the judges' lives hung by a feather;
But three days had not passed before
The bigamist, behind his door,
Himself hung to a peg with great precision:
And then the sentence wrought on all great fear,
And much the morals of the kingdom steadied,
For from that time its annalists are clear
That no man in it more has three wives wedded.'

CHAPTER XV

OTHER AND OCCASIONAL FABULISTS

'With wisdom fraught,
Not such as books, but such as Nature taught.'

    Waller.
Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) was a rabid Jacobite, journalist, and pamphleteer, and during a long life spent in fierce political conflict, in which, at times, he bore a far from estimable part, found time to translate various classical works, amongst these being Æsop's fables. L'Estrange's version (1692) of the sage is not in the best taste. It is disfigured by mannerisms and vulgarisms in language, and the applications which he appended to the fables are often a distortion of the true intent of the apologue, stated so as to support and enforce his own peculiar views in politics and religion.

Steele (1672-1729) was the author of at least one excellent fable,[66 - 'The Tatler,' No. 115, vol iii., p. 7.]The Mastiff and his Puppy, not unworthy to take a place beside those of the Greek sage:

'It happened one day, as a stout and honest mastiff (that guarded the village where he lived against thieves and robbers) was very gravely walking with one of his puppies by his side, all the little dogs in the street gathered round him, and barked at him. The little puppy was so offended at this affront done to his sire, that he asked him why he would not fall upon them, and tear them to pieces. To which the sire answered with great composure of mind, "If there were no curs, I should be no mastiff."'

Of other fabulists, it will be sufficient, without going into lengthy particulars, to name Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), who attempted the writing of fables, though with but doubtful success; of the thirty he produced there is not one of striking merit. Edmund Arwaker, Rector of Donaghmore, who compiled a collection of two hundred and twenty-five select fables from Æsop and others, which he entitled, 'Truth in Fiction; or, Morality in Masquerade' (1708). John Hall-Stevenson, 1718-1785 (the original of Sterne's 'Eugenius'), wrote 'Fables for Grown Gentlemen.' Edward Moore composed a series of original 'Fables for the Fair Sex' (1756), pleasing in their versification, but otherwise of no striking merit. Moore, besides a number of poems, odes and songs, wrote two comedies ('The Foundling' and 'Gil Blas') and a tragedy ('The Gamester'), in which Garrick acted the leading characters. He was also editor of the World, a satirical journal of the period, which had a brief life of four years. He died in poverty in 1751. Francis Gentleman (actor and dramatist), whose collection of 'Royal Fables' (1766) was dedicated to George, Prince of Wales. William Wilkie, D.D., a Scotch fabulist of some note in his day, was Professor of Natural Philosophy in St. Andrews University. In 1768 he published a volume containing sixteen fables after the manner of Gay. One of these, The Boy and the Rainbow, a fable of considerable merit, has survived; the others are forgotten. Rev. Henry Rowe, whose fables tire without interesting. 'Fables for Mankind,' by Charles Westmacott. 'The Fables of Flora,' by Dr. Langhorne. Gaspey wrote a number of original fables, as did also Dr. Aitken and Walter Brown. Cowper, the poet, penned some elegant fables with which most readers are familiar. There are 'Fables for Children, Young and Old, in Humorous Verse,' by W. E. Staite (1830); Sheridan Wilson was the author of a volume entitled 'The Bath Fables' (1850); finally, there is Frere's Fables for 'Five Years Old.' Æsop's fables have been parodied and caricatured, with varying success, by different writers, notably by an American author, under the pseudonym of 'G. Washington Æsop.'

Of lady fabulists, the most notable is Maria de France, who lived in the first half of the thirteenth century, and made a collection of one hundred and six fables in French, which, she alleges, were translated from the English of King Alfred.[67 - Mr. Joseph Jacobs, in his erudite 'History of the Æsopian Fable,' shows that this was a mistake on the part of Maria de France, and that the author of the work from which her translation was made was not the King, but 'Alfred the Englishman,' who flourished about A.D. 1170.] There are several more modern collections by members of the fair sex. One is entitled 'The Enchanted Plants, Fables in Verse;' London, 1800. The name of the author is not given, but evidently a lady. Mrs. Trimmer has her version of Æsop. A volume of original fables was published by Mary Maria Colling, a writer of humble rank, under the patronage of the once celebrated Mrs. Bray (daughter of Thomas Stothard, R.A.), and Southey, the Poet Laureate. A volume of fables, also original, by Mrs. Prosser, and 'Æsop's Fables in Words of One Syllable,' by Mary Godolphin.