Against Those Who Are Hard to Please

Translated from Jean de la Fontaine's Fables, Book II, Fable I

If at my birth Calliope had plied
me with the gifts the Muse pledged to her lovers,
I would have devoted them to Aesop’s lies:
they have been friends, the lie and the poem, forever.
But I don’t think Parnassus loves me thus
for me to make my fictions things of beauty.
One can give one’s inventions such a gloss:
one can, I try; a wiser man would do it.
Already though, in a new tongue, I’ve been
the one to make the wolf speak, the lamb reply.
I’ve got away with more before: the trees
and plants have found their voices under my
roof. Who would not take this as sorcery?
“Truly,” will say my critics,
“You’re making a whole lot of noise
about five or six children’s stories.”
“Censors, do you want something more authentic
and in a higher tone? Here you are: The Trojans
after ten years of war around their walls
had wearied the Greeks, who in a thousand fashions,
by a thousand attacks, a hundred battles
had not been able to bring to an end the course
of this proud city, when Minerva suggested a horse
of wood, a rare new form of trickery,
for sequestered in its flanks were the wise Ulysses,
the brave Diomedes, Ajax the Impetuous,
how this giant colossus
with their squadrons had to be carried into Troy
as if giving up even their Gods to the enemy as prey,
unheard of strategy which repaid its inventors
every trouble and steadfastness.”
“That’s enough,” some author will say to me.
“It’s a long narrative. You need to breathe;

and anyway your wooden horse,
your heroes and their men
these are stranger tales again

than a fox who flatters a crow for his voice.
Furthermore this high tone suits you ill.”
“Fine! Let’s lower the tone: The jealous Amarylle
was dreaming of her Alcippe, believing
her sheep and dog sole witness to her grieving.
Tircis, who spied her, slid between willow trees;
he heard the shepherdess entreat the breeze

gentle Zephyr, to deliver
her message to her lover.”
“I ban you from this rhyme”
my censor will say at once,
“It doesn’t seem to chime
with truth or be worth much sense:

Better to melt both these verses back down.”

“Blasted censor. Will you shut your mouth?
As if I don’t know how to finish off
my tale. It’s a dangerous plan
trying to please you all right.”

Unlucky, the sensitive man:
nothing satisfies him quite.

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