IV The Two Goats6
Since goats have browsed, by freedom fired,
To follow fortune they’ve aspired.
To pasturage they’re wont to roam
Where men are least disposed to come.
If any pathless place there be,
Or cliff, or pendent precipice,
’Tis there they cut their capers free:
There’s nought can stop these dames, I wis.
Two goats, thus self-emancipated,—
The white that on their feet they wore
Look’d back to noble blood of yore,—
Once quit the lowly meadows, sated,
And sought the hills, as it would seem:
In search of luck, by luck they met
Each other at a mountain stream.
As bridge a narrow plank was set,
On which, if truth must be confest,
Two weasels scarce could go abreast.
And then the torrent, foaming white,
As down it tumbled from the height,
Might well those Amazons affright.
But maugre such a fearful rapid,
Both took the bridge, the goats intrepid!
I seem to see our Louis Grand7
And Philip IV. advance
To the Isle of Conference,8
That lies ’twixt Spain and France,
Each sturdy for his glorious land.
Thus each of our adventurers goes,
Till foot to foot, and nose to nose,
Somewhere about the midst they meet,
And neither will an inch retreat.
For why? they both enjoy’d the glory
Of ancestors in ancient story.
The one, a goat of peerless rank,
Which, browsing on Sicilian bank,
The Cyclop gave to Galataea;9
The other famous Amalthaea,10
The goat that suckled Jupiter,
As some historians aver.
For want of giving back, in troth,
A common fall involved them both.—
A common accident, no doubt,
On Fortune’s changeful route.11
[6] This and several others of the fables in the XIIth Book are taken from the “Thèmes” of the Duke de Bourgogne, afterwards published in Robert’s “Fables Inédites.” These “Thèmes,” were the joint composition of Fénélon, his pupil the infant Duke de Bourgogne, and La Fontaine, and were first used in the education of the Duke. Fénélon suggested the story, the pupil put it into prose, and La Fontaine versified it. La Fontaine is eulogistic of the young Duke’s “wit” in putting these “Thèmes” into prose in Fable IX., Book XII. [7] Louis Grand.—Louis XIV. See note to Epilogue of Book XI. [8] The Isle of Conference.—The Pheasants’ Isle in the river Bidassoa, which separates France and Spain. It is called the Isle of Conference on account of several of the Conferences, leading to Treaties, &c., between the two countries, having been held there. [9] The Cyclop gave to Galataea.—Polyphemus and Galataea: vide Theocritus, Idyl XI. [10] Amalthaea.—Another story is that Amalthaea was not a goat, but a nymph of Crete, who fed the infant Jupiter with goat’s milk. [11] In the original the last lines differ from those in the version of La Fontaine’s “Oeuvres Posthumes,” published in 1696, the year after the poet’s death. Indeed, variations of text are common to most of the fables of the XIIth Book, on making the same comparison, viz., of the first edition, 1694, and the edition in the “Oeuvres Posthumes.”