LITERARY FABLES

OF

YRIARTE.

(Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa)

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH,

BY

GEO. H. DEVEREUX.

BOSTON:

TICKNOR AND FIELDS.

MDCCCLV.

TO

THE CLASS OF 1829

I DEDICATE

THIS UNPRETENDING RESULT OF SOME LEISURE HOURS.

I do not flatter myself that it will make any conspicuous addition to the worthy 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 connect 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.

PREFACE.

The Fable has always been a popular mode of conveying certain kinds of instruction. The brief and simple illustrations 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 practical 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 literature —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 purpose. Both these circumstances tend to narrow their sphere of circulation; and we presume that they form a book little known to most English readers.

If we do not err in our estimate of them, the Literary Fables of Don Thomas De Yriarte are well worthy of perusal. They are aptly and ingeniously adapted to the truths they seek to inculcate; and they are remarkable for a terse simplicity of form and style, well suited to the objects and character of such productions. The maxims and criticisms they enforce must approve themselves to the mind, both of the professed scholar and the general reader.

The author was born in Teneriffe, A.D. 1750, but was educated and resided at Madrid, where he died in 1791, at the early age, of course, of forty-one years. His uncle, Don Juan De Yriarte, was the chief superintendent of the royal library; and the nephew was educated under his auspices. In his eighteenth year, he commenced his literary career by the writing of dramas, and the translation of plays from the French for the Spanish stage. He spent his life in the duties of sundry offices under the government; yet he very soon assumed and maintained a high consideration as a scholar and writer. His works, however, were of a character to command but little interest from posterity, with the exception of the fables translated in this little volume.

Of them, Professor Ticknor, from whose learned work on Spanish literature we have collected these details, speaks as follows:—

"Here, he, in some degree, struck out a new path; for he not only invented all his fictions, which no other fabulist, in modern times, had done, but restricted them all, in their moral purpose, to the correction of the faults and follies of men of learning—an application which had not before been thought of. They are written with great care, in no less than forty different measures, and show an extraordinary degree of ingenuity in adapting the attributes and instincts of animals to the instruction, not of mankind at large, as had always been done before, but to that of a separate and small class, between whom and the inferior creation the resemblance is rarely obvious. The task was certainly a difficult one. Perhaps, on this account, they are too narrative in their structure, and fail somewhat in the genial spirit which distinguishes Esop and La Fontaine, the greatest masters of Apologue and Fable. But their influence was so needed in the age of bad writing when they appeared, and they are, besides, so graceful in their versification, that they were not only received with great favor at first, but have never lost it since."—Ticknor's Hist, of Span. Literature, vol. iii., p. 279.

We have endeavored to discharge with fidelity the duty of translation; attempting to preserve the form and spirit of the author, as far as was consistent with giving the work an English dress. With this view, we have aimed to produce a literal and characteristic reflection of the original rather than an expanded and highly-wrought paraphrase. Where we could do so, we have sought to preserve the metre, or a nearly analogous one, in order, if possible, to give a clear idea of the Spanish work to the English reader. But this is not practicable in all cases. The peculiar construction of Spanish rhymes, together with the obstinacy with which some words and sentences refuse the stern yoke of our English rules, render the task, always hard, sometimes impossible. The terminal inflections of the Spanish language and its accentuation are widely different from those of the Anglo-Saxon; and so axe the arbitrary arrangements of the rhythm, which are, in the latter, far more exacting and precise. The professed scholar will recognize and make due allowance for such obstacles. To the public at large we shall hope our little book may convey some instruction and amusement, in a palatable shape. If so, it may give, to a novel class of subjects, somewhat of the well-known interest inspired by the graceful and popular fictions of Esop, Gay and La Fontaine.

G.H.D.

Salem, October 25th, 1854.

CONTENTS

THE ELEPHANT AND OTHER ANIMALS
THE SILKWORM AND SPIDER
THE BEAR, THE MONKEY AND THE HOG
THE DRONES AND THE BEE
THE TWO PARROTS AND THE MAGPIE
THE SHOWMAN'S MONKEY AND HIS MASTER
THE CATHEDRAL BELL AND THE LITTLE BELL
THE ASS AND THE FLUTE
THE ANT AND THE FLEA