Fables Nouvelles Dediées au Roy

Abstract

I have wanted to dip into de La Motte's fables, and this book at last gives me a chance. Luckily, Google has a copy of an English translation online: One hundred new court fables: written for the instruction of princes, translated by a Dr. Samber, apparently in 1721. The book opens with a fable about the beautiful woman and the mirror. The mirror tells her that she is beautiful and that she has a few faults to correct. While the mirror is talking, admirers show up and she charms them -- and forgets the wise advice of the mirror. So, de La Motte suggests, is it with fable readers, and in this case the king as fable reader. After a long discourse on fable, the first fable of Book One speaks of an eaglet who tries his first look into the sun and his first flight. He can get only so far. Then he sees a mature eagle looking regularly into the sun and flying very high; that vision inspires him to keep trying and to seek greater things. Thus Reading may begin, but 'tis Example that must accomplish all. A second fable strikes me particularly. It contrasts the pelican who returns to the nest without food and opens her chest to feed her children her own blood. A spider nearby calls the pelican a fool. Her food supply is her young! She shall never fail to have food because she consumes them! De La Motte challenges the kings of the world: Will you be pelicans or spiders to your subjects? Five books, without about twenty fables in each book. These are not as inaccessible as I feared they would be.