Tales and Novels of J. de La Fontaine — Volume 15 — Edition Insights

(0 User reviews) 56

In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: La Fontaine, Jean de, 1621-1695 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: French poetry -- Translations into English; Fables, French -- Translations into English Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 7,441

Reading time 33 min

Text sections 1

Before opening Tales and Novels of J. de La Fontaine — Volume 15 — Edition Insights, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 7,441 words, 33 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 29.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “French poetry -- Translations into English,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #5289

Two verse tales by La Fontaine, translated into English, featuring cunning lovers, foolish husbands, and the comic consequences of marital deception in Renaissance Florence and Rheims.

Editorial Edition Score 4.3/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg5289

Read the Text

And thought his country honour he could do, Could he contrive his lineage to pursue. No holy saint in Paradise was blessed, But what this husband fervently addressed; From day to day, so oft he teazed for grace, They scarcely knew his off'rings where to place. No matron, quack, nor conjurer around, But what he tried their qualities profound; Yet all in vain: in spite of charm or book, No father he, whatever pains he took.

TO Florence then returned a youth from France; Where he had studied,--more than complaisance: Well trained as any from that polished court; To Fortune's favours anxious to resort; Gallant and seeking ev'ry FAIR to please; Each house, road, alley, soon he knew at ease; The husbands, good or bad, their whims and years, With ev'ry thing that moved their hopes or fears; What sort of fuel best their females charmed; What spies were kept by those who felt alarmed; The if's, for's, to's, and ev'ry artful wile, That might in love a confidant beguile, Or nurse, or father-confessor, or dog; When passion prompts, few obstacles can clog.

THE snares were spread, each stratagem was laid; And every thing arranged to furnish aid, When our gay spark determined to invest Old Nicia with the cuckold's branching crest. The plan no doubt was well conceived and bold; The lady to her friends appeared not cold; Within her husband's house she seemed polite; But ne'er familiarly was seen invite, No further could a lover dare proceed; Not one had hope the belle his flame would heed.

OUR youth, Calimachus, no sooner came, But he howe'er appeared to please the dame; His camp he pitched and entered on the siege Of fair Lucretia, faithful to her liege, Who presently the haughty tigress played, And sent him, like the rest, away dismayed.

HE, scarcely knew what saint he could invoke; When Nicia's folly served him for a cloak; However strange, no stratagem nor snare, But what the fool would willingly prepare With all his heart, and nothing fancy wrong; That might to others possibly belong. The lover and himself, as learned men, Had conversations ev'ry now and then; For Nicia was a doctor in the law: Degree, to him, not worth a single straw; Far better had he common prudence traced; And not his confidence so badly placed.

ONE day he to Calimachus complained, Of want of heirs, and wished they could be gained: Where lay the fault? He was a gay gallant; Lucretia young with features to enchant. When I at Paris was, replied our wight, There passed a clever man, a curious sight, His company with anxious care I sought, And was at length a hundred secrets taught; 'Mong others how, at will, to get an heir:-- A certain thing, he often would declare; The great Mogul had tried it on his queen, just two years since, the heir might then be seen; And many other princesses of fame, Had added by it to their husband's name. 'Twas very true; I've seen it fully proved: The remedy all obstacles removed; 'Tis from the root of certain tree expressed; A juice most potent ev'ry where confessed, And Mandrake called, which taken by a wife; More pow'r evinces o'er organick life, Than from conventual grace was e'er derived, Though in the cloister youthful friars hived.

TEN months from hence I'll you a father make; No longer time than that I ask to take; This period o'er, the child to church we'll bring,-- If true, said Nicia, what a glorious thing! You'll do me services I can't express.-- Don't doubt it, cried the spark of smart address: Must I the fact so oft to you repeat? I've seen it with my eyes; 'tis most complete; You mean to jest, assuredly my friend; Would you by doubts the great Mogul offend? So handsomely this traveller he paid, No sign of discontent he e'er betrayed.

'TIS excellent, the Florentine replied; Lucretia must be pleased to have it tried; What satisfaction! in her arms to view An infant that my lineage will renew. Now, worthy friend, you god-father shall stand; This very day pray take the thing in hand.

NOT quite so fast, rejoined our smart gallant, First know the plan, before consent you grant; There is an ill attends the whole affair; But what below, alas! is free from care; This juice, possessing virtues so divine, Has also pow'rs that prove the most malign: Whoe'er receives the patient's first embrace; Too fatally the dire effects will trace; Death oft succeeds the momentary joy; We scarcely good can find without alloy.

Continue Reading →

This volume presents two of La Fontaine's verse tales in English translation: "The Mandrake" and "The Rhemese." Both narratives revolve around marital infidelity, but they approach the theme with distinct tones and strategies. "The Mandrake" follows the elaborate scheme of Calimachus to seduce the virtuous Lucretia, exploiting her husband Nicia's desperate desire for an heir. The tale is built on a paradox: the more Nicia is fooled, the more he believes he is acting wisely. "The Rhemese," by contrast, opens with a painter hosting two married women while their husbands watch from a cage, a setup that foregrounds voyeurism and the gap between seeing and knowing. The excerpts reveal La Fontaine's interest in the mechanics of deception—how plans are laid, how fools are managed, and how appearances are maintained.

The Fool as Enabler

In "The Mandrake," the husband Nicia is not merely a dupe but an active participant in his own cuckolding. The narrator describes him as "fully bent to have a father's fame" and willing to try "no matron, quack, nor conjurer around." His obsession with paternity makes him vulnerable to Calimachus's stratagem. The lover and Nicia converse "as learned men," a detail that underscores how intellectual pretension masks gullibility. The tale suggests that a fool's vanity can be more useful to a seducer than any obstacle. Nicia's eagerness to believe he is taking decisive action—consulting experts, making offerings—only accelerates the plot against him. The poem's comedy derives from this inversion: the more Nicia asserts control, the more he loses it.

Watching and Being Watched

"The Rhemese" literalizes the theme of observation. The husbands are confined to a cage, forced to watch the painter flirt with their wives. The narrator notes that "the door half open gave a view complete, / How freely he their wives was led to treat." This arrangement creates a layered spectatorship: the reader watches the husbands watching the painter. The husbands' reactions range from rage to reluctant acceptance, as one advises the other: "Be quiet now: consider where we are; / Keep close, or else you'll all our pleasures mar." The tale plays with the idea that seeing is not the same as intervening. The husbands' impotence is both literal and figurative—they can observe but cannot act without exposing themselves. The painter's success depends on this paralysis.

The Language of Euphemism and Indirection

Both tales rely on a vocabulary of evasion. In "The Mandrake," the narrator describes the seduction plan with phrases like "to furnish aid" and "to invest / Old Nicia with the cuckold's branching crest." The euphemisms are playful but pointed. In "The Rhemese," the painter's advances are narrated through gestures: "Her lips assailed;—the tucker drew aside, / And stole a kiss." The physicality is explicit, yet the language remains decorous. The husbands rationalize what they see: "Fair Alice has consented:-that's enough; / The rest is mere compliance, nonsense, stuff!" This self-deception is rendered in the same polished couplets as the seduction itself. La Fontaine's verse form—rhymed iambic pentameter—imposes a formal control that contrasts with the unruly passions it describes, creating a tension between order and transgression.

Readers should attend to how La Fontaine balances sympathy and satire. The fools are ridiculous but not monstrous; the lovers are clever but not heroic. The tales reward attention to the narrator's tone—dry, amused, occasionally moralizing—and to the way physical details (a blushing cheek, a torn gown) carry narrative weight. The translation preserves the couplet structure, which shapes the pacing and wit. These are poems about strategy, both erotic and rhetorical, and their pleasure lies in watching the machinery of deception unfold.

That rainy afternoon, La Fontaine’s cunning wives and foolish husbands made me smile at how neatly we lie to ourselves. Later, drying the pages, I found myself wandering elsewhere, into a quieter melancholy—those faded creatures of The End of Elfintown — Key Ideas to Explore. Both felt like old rooms where the dust remembers laughter.