La Fontaine's Complete Tales in Verse: An Illustrated and Annotated Translation

273 Pages·2008·14.58 MB·English

by  Jean de La Fontaine

La Fontaine’s
Complete Tales in Verse
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La Fontaine’s
Complete Tales in Verse
An Illustrated and
Annotated Translation
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
Edited and translated by
RANDOLPH PAUL RUNYON
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
La Fontaine, Jean de, 1621–1695.
[Contes et nouvelles en vers. English]
La Fontaine’s complete tales in verse : an illustrated and
annotated translation / Jean de La Fontaine ; edited and
translated by Randolph Paul Runyon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4161-7
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. La Fontaine, Jean de, 1621–1695—Translations into English.
I. Runyon, Randolph, 1947– II. Title.
PQ1811.E4R86 2009 841'.4—dc22 2008049411
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2009 Randolph Paul Runyon. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: “Let’s take this fellow to the shed,” illustration by
Jean Duplessis-Bertaux, 1894; (background) text of an
English translation of Mazet of Lamporechio
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
AACCKKNNOOWWLLEEDDGGMMEENNTTSS
I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Juanita Schrodt, Secretary
of the Department of French and Italian at Miami University, for her
invaluable assistance in preparing this book, including scanning the more
than a hundred illustrations from which these were chosen. I am grateful
to Yves Le Pestipon, of the École Préparatoire of the Lycée Pierre de
Fermat, Toulouse, for his expert replies to my many queries, his
encouragement, and his friendship. Most of all, I want to thank my
wife, Elizabeth, for having the patience to listen to my reading aloud
each of these poems in their various versions and for making
suggestions to improve them.
vv
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TTAABBLLEEOOFF CCOONNTTEENNTTSS
Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
BBOOOOKKOONNEE
1. “Jocondo” 5 7. “The Glutton” 23
2. “Richard Minutolo” 12 8. “A Model Nun” 24
3. “The Cuckold, Cudgeled but 9. “Provincial Justice” 24
Content” 16 10. “The Peasant Who Angered
4. “The Husband Who Heard His Lord” 26
Confession” 19 11. “In the Court of Love” 28
5. “The Cobbler and His Wife” 20 12. “Vulcan’s Revenge” 29
6. “Bosom Buddies” 22 13. “The Ballad of the Books” 31
BBOOOOKKTTWWOO
1. “The Ear-Maker” 33 10. “You Can’t Think of Everything” 66
2. “The Catalonian Friars” 36 11. “The Bumpkin in Search of
3. “The Cradle” 41 His Calf” 67
4. “The Muleteer” 44 12. “Hans Carvel’s Ring” 67
5. “The Saint Julian Prayer” 46 13. “The Boasting Braggart Punished” 69
6. “The Servant Girl Found 14. “The Runaway Bride” 72
Guiltless” 51 15. “The Hermit Monk” 84
7. “The Three Wives’ Wager” 53 16. “Mazet of Lamporechio” 88
8. “How Old Men Count the Days” 60
9. “A Money-Minded Woman Meets Her
Match” 64
BBOOOOKKTTHHRREEEE
1. “Brother Philip’s Geese” 92 9. “The Kiss in Exchange” 125
2. “The Mandrake” 95 10. “Time to Confess” 126
3. “An Evening in Reims” 100 11. “Portrait of Iris” 126
4. “The Enchanted Cup” 104 12. “Cupid the Intruder” 127
5. “The Falcon” 111 13. “The Quarrel between a Beauty’s
6. “The Courtesan Who Fell in Love” 116 Mouth and Eyes” 129
7. “Nicaise” 120 14. “The Wonder Dog” 131
8. “The Saddle” 124 15. “Clymene” 138
vviiii
vviiiiii TTAABBLLEEOOFFCCOONNTTEENNTTSS
BBOOOOKKFFOOUURR
1. “How Girls Get Smart” 150 9. “Putting the Devil in Hell” 175
2. “The Mother Superior” 152 10. “The Farmer and His Mare” 178
3. “The Wife Swappers” 155 11. “Eel Pâté” 181
4. “A Clear Conscience” 157 12. “The Eyeglasses” 184
5. “The Devil of Popefingerdom” 160 13. “Convincing Kate” 187
6. “Ferondo in Purgatory” 163 14. “The Tub” 188
7. “The Psalter” 167 15. “Mission Impossible” 190
8. “King Candaules and the Professor 16. “The Magnificent One” 192
of Law” 169 17. “The Painting” 195
TTHHEEUUNNCCOOLLLLEECCTTEEDDTTAALLEESS
1. “The Ephesian Matron” 200 6. “The Remedy” 215
2. “Belphegor” 204 7. “Indiscreet Confessions” 217
3. “The Little Bell” 208 8. “Mixed Up in the Dark” 219
4. “The River Scamander” 210 9. “A Rearward Glance” 222
5. “The Unwitting Go-Between” 212
Notes on the Tales 225
Bibliography 261
Index 263
PPRREEFFAACCEE
It may come as a surprise to learn that Jean de La Fontaine wrote these poems. His
Tales in Verse are not for children. No tortoises, hares or foxes inhabit their precincts, but
husbands and wives, nuns and friars, ingénues and roués, all ruled by the unstoppable power
of lust. The Talesare delicately sensual and yet, like Chaucer’s, delightfully wicked. In 1675,
at the request of Louis XIV, the lieutenant de police forbade the sale of one of their install-
ments and ordered all copies to be seized, claiming they contained indiscreet and unseemly
language and that reading them would corrupt public morals and inspire libertinage. The
first claim was false and the second at least questionable. There are in fact no unseemly
words in the Tales; La Fontaine went to amusing lengths to suggest certain things without
actually saying them, in verse that provides food for the mind as well as the senses. In a
preface he made the reasonable claim that a far greater danger lay in the sweet melancholy
induced by certain novels to make their readers want to fall in love; better to warn them of
wily tricks than to set them up to be seduced. The Talesare a veritable catalog of recipes for
deception, though it is sometimes the women who outwit the men. On the other hand,
maybe the lieutenant de police was not entirely wrong: in Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons
Madame Merteuil warms up with a couple of the Tales before entertaining a lover.
The Tales themselves proved about as irrepressible as the lust that propels their char-
acters. La Fontaine disavowed them to win election to the prestigious French Academy at
the age of 63, but then published five more the following year. On his deathbed, he appeared
to yield to his confessor’s insistence that he renounce them to win admittance to heaven,
making a public declaration that he was sorry he had “had the misfortune of composing a
book of infamous Tales” and claiming to agree that they were “abominable.” Nevertheless
another one found its way into print the year after his death.
The Taleswere as important to La Fontaine as his Fables, and like them they have their
moral lessons: Don’t be naive. Watch out for hypocrites. Seize the moment. Don’t let artificial
constraints (like marriage) get in your way. Money is a lover’s best friend.
Some of the Fables (such as “The Young Widow” and “The Husband, the Wife, and
the Thief”) could as easily have been published as Tales. “The Ephesian Matron” and
“Belphegor” were published as both. La Fontaine kept going back and forth between the
two forms of narration, publishing his first two books of Tales between 1664 and 1666, his
first six books of Fablesin 1668, the third and fourth books of Talesbetween 1671 and 1674,
five more books of Fables in 1678–79, seven tales in 1682–85, and his last book of Fables in
1694. Each genre complements and justifies the other. We can fully appreciate neither La
Fontaine nor the Fables without knowing the Tales.
The Tales in Verse are a treasury of wit and adventure, and yet for readers who cannot
read French they must rank among the best-kept secrets of world literature—for they have
never before appeared, in their entirety, in English. Six of the tales are translated here for
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