Literary Fables of Yriarte / Translated from the Spanish by Geo. H. Devereux
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Ex Ohrte ïferrg Bdiolît, ffi o ws e>SöO^ds£< a « ' í i s MM kHRHhIHHBbIHI LITERARY FABLES OP YRIARTE. TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH, B Y GEO. H. DEVEREUX. BOSTON: T I C K N O R AND FIELDS. MD C C C L V. IWMHInHfilSBfflI T 0 THE CLASS OE 1829 I DEDICATE THIS UNPRETENDING RESULT OF SOME LEISURE HOURS. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by GEO. II. DEVEREUX, I do not flatter myself that it will make any conspicuous addition to the worthy In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. achievements that have already graced our roll with names that rank high in the lists of Science, Philosophy and Literature. But it is pleasant to me to con nect this translation of a college text-book — used by us all, long ago, within the walls of old Harvard — with the memory of youthful pursuits that have never lost their charm for the mind, and early associations that retain, with all their original freshness and geniality, their hold upon the heart. Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS, New England Type and Stereotype Foundery, BOSTON. PREFACE. The Fable has always been a popular mode of conveying certain kinds of instruction. The brief and simple illustra tions it affords give additional weight and point to moral apothegms or sententious criticisms. Like the feather on the shaft, they serve to increase the force and direct the aim more certainly to the mark. A pertinent fact or an apt fiction breathes, even into a dry and curt axiom, a living and prac tical interest which opens to it hearts and heads that would otherwise pass it by with indifference, or revolt from it with impatience. Many of these unpretending allegories have been familiar to us all, in childhood, in a great variety of dresses, and have long formed a standard part of our litera ture — congenial alike to nursery days and to mature age. The fables contained in the little collection here translated are not, with one or two exceptions', found among the widely popular and familiar fables to which we have alluded. They were written in a foreign tongue, less generally understood, among us, than some other of the European languages ; and they are designed for a special and somewhat abstruse pur pose. Both these circumstances tend to narrow their sphere MHBHnUB PREFACE. VII VI PREFACE. modern times, had done, but restricted them all, in their of circulation; and we presume that they form a book little moral purpose, to the correction of the faults and follies of known to most English readers. men of learning — an application which had not before been If we do not err in our estimate of them, the Literary thought of. They are written with great care, in no less than Fables of Don Thomas De Yriarte are well worthy of perusal. forty different measures, and show an extraordinary degree of They are aptly and ingeniously adapted to the truths they ingenuity in adapting the attributes and instincts of animals geek to inculcate ; and they are remarkable for a terse sim to the instruction, not of mankind at large, as had always plicity of form and style, well suited to the objects and char been done before, but to that of a separate and small class, acter of such productions. The maxims and criticisms they between whom and the inferior creation the resemblance is enforce must approve themselves to the mind, both of the rarely obvious. The task was certainly a difficult one. Per professed scholar and the general reader. haps, on this account, they are too narrative in their struc The author was born in Teneriffe, a. d. 1750, but was edu ture, and fail somewhat in the genial spirit which distin cated and resided at Madrid, where he died in 1701, at the guishes Esop and La Fontaine, the greatest masters of early age, of course, of forty-one years. Ilia uncle, Don Apologue and Fable. But their influence was so needed in Juan De Yriarte, was the chief superintendent of the royal the age of bad writing when they appeared, and they are, library ; and the nephew was educated under his auspices. In besides, so graceful in their versification, that they were not his eighteenth year, he commenced his literary career by the only received with great favor at first, but have never lost it writing of dramas, and the translation of plays from the since.”__Ticknor’s Hist, of Span. Literature, vol. iii., p. 279. French for the Spanish stage. He spent his life in the duties LVe have endeavored to discharge with fidelity the duty of of sundry offices under the government ; yet he very soon translation ; attempting to preserve the form and spirit of the assumed and maintained a high consideration as a scholar and author, as far as was consistent with giving the work an Eng writer. His works, however, were of a character to com lish dress. With this view, we have aimed to produce a lit mand but little interest from posterity, with the exception of eral and characteristic reflection of the original, rather than an the fables translated in this little volume. expanded and highly-wrought paraphrase. Where we could Of them, Professor Ticknor, from whose learned work on do so, we have sought to preserve the metre, or a nearly anal Spanish literature we have collected these details, speaks as ogous one, in order, if possible, to give a clear idea of the follows: — Spanish work to the English reader. But this is not practi “ Here, he, in some degree, struck out a new path ; for he cable i-n all cases. The peculiar construction of Spanish not only invented all his fictions, which no other fabulist, in vin PREFACE. rhymes, together with the obstinacy with which some words and sentences refuse the stern yoke of our English rules, ren der the task, always hard, sometimes impossible. The terminal inflections of the Spanish language and its accentuation are CONTENTS widely different from those of the Anglo-Saxon ; and so are the arbitrary arrangements of the rhythm, which are, in the latter, far more exacting and precise. The professed scholar PAGE will recognize and make due allowance for such obstacles. To The Elephant and Other AnimalS.....................................................1 the públic at large we shall hope our little book may convey The SilkwOrm and Spider,..................................................................5 some instruction and amusement, in a palatable shape. If The Bear, the MOnkey and the HOg,............................................6 so, it may give, to a novel class of subjects, somewhat of The DrOneS and the Bee,.....................................................................8 the well-known interest inspired by the graceful and popular The TwO ParrOtS and the Magpie,............................................ 10 fictions of Esop, Gay and La Fontaine. The ShOwman’S MOnkey and hiS MaSter,...............................12 G. H. D. The Cathedral Bell and the Little Bell,.......................... 15 Salem, October 25th, 1854. The Ass and the Flute,........................................... 17 The Ant and the Flea,....................................................................... 19 The Wall-FlOwer and the Thyme, . ..................................... 21 The BabbitS and the DOgS,.............................................................. 22 The EggS,........................................................................................... 24 The Duck and the Snake,.................................................................26 The Muff, the Fan, and the Umbrella,...................................28 The FrOg and the TadpOle,................................. 30 The BuStard,............................................................................................ 31 The Linnet and the Swan,................................................................33 The Hack Mule,....................................................................................35 The GOat and the HOrSe,..............................................................38 The Bee and the CuckOO,..................................................................40 The Bat and the Cat...........................................................................42 The Owl and Lamp, and the DOgS and the Bagman, . 44 The ThruSh, ParrOt and Magpie,............................................ 47 The WOle and the Shepherd............................................................ 48 The Judge and the BObber,..........................................................118 The LiOn, Eagle and Bat,................................................................ 49 The HOuSemaid and the BrOOm,.................................. 120 The MOnkey,............................................................................................ 51 The LizardS,.......................................................................................... 121 The ASS and hiS MaSter,............................................................. .55 The WatcheS,........................................................................................ 124 The TurnSpit and the Mule Of the Well, ...........................57 The MOle and Other AnimalS,.....................................................126 The AuthOr and the Rat,.................................................................60 The ROpe-Dancer,............................................................................... 129 The Squirrel and the HOrSe............................................................63 The Owl and the TOad,................................................................131 The