Chapter 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes Author: Jean de La Fontaine Annotator: J. W. M. Gibbs Translator: Elizur Wright Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7241] Most recently updated: September 1, 2014 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7241 Credits: Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FABLES OF LA FONTAINE — A NEW EDITION, WITH NOTES *** Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE FABLES OF LA FONTAINE _Translated From The French_ By Elizur Wright. _A New Edition, With Notes_ By J. W. M. Gibbs. 1882 * * * * * PREFACE To The Present Edition, With Some Account Of The Translator. The first edition of this translation of La Fontaine's Fables appeared in Boston, U.S., in 1841. It achieved a considerable success, and six editions were printed in three years. Since then it has been allowed to pass out of print, except in the shape of a small-type edition produced in London immediately after the first publication in Boston, and the present publishers have thought that a reprint in a readable yet popular form would be generally acceptable. The translator has remarked, in the "Advertisement" to his original edition (which follows these pages), on the singular neglect of La Fontaine by English translators up to the time of his own work. Forty years have elapsed since those remarks were penned, yet translations into English of the _complete_ Fables of the chief among modern fabulists are almost as few in number as they were then. Mr. George Ticknor (the author of the "History of Spanish Literature," &c.), in praising Mr. Wright's translation when it first appeared, said La Fontaine's was "a book till now untranslated;" and since Mr. Wright so happily accomplished his self-imposed task, there has been but one other complete translation, viz., that of the late Mr. Walter Thornbury. This latter, however, seems to have been undertaken chiefly with a view to supplying the necessary accompaniment to the English issue of M. Doré's well-known designs for the Fables (first published as illustrations to a Paris edition), and existing as it does only in the large quarto form given to those illustrations, it cannot make any claim to be a handy-volume edition. Mr. Wright's translation, however, still holds its place as the best English version, and the present reprint, besides having undergone careful revision, embodies the corrections (but not the expurgations) of the sixth edition, which differed from those preceding it. The notes too, have, for the most part, been added by the reviser. Some account of the translator, who is still one of the living notables of his nation, may not be out of place here. Elizur Wright, junior, is the son of Elizur Wright, who published some papers in mathematics, but was principally engaged in agricultural pursuits at Canaan, Litchfield Co., Connecticut, U.S. The younger Elizur Wright was born at Canaan in