Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks From the French of La Fontaine — Reading Companion

The Translator’s Stated Principles

Larned’s preface is unusually direct about his editorial choices. He calls his work an “adaptation” rather than a strict translation, noting that some fables keep close to La Fontaine while others erase “political, mythological and literary allusions” that are “obsolete or unintelligible to a child.” He also admits to a “twofold” literary sin: changing the metrical forms entirely, and injecting phrases “more appropriate to our contemporary beasts.” This self-awareness sets the tone for the collection: the fables are deliberately reshaped for a young American audience circa 1900.

The preface also reveals Larned’s view of La Fontaine’s original: “lyric poetry of a high order,” whose soul is lost in prose translations. By choosing light verse, he aims to convey “something of his originality and blithe spirit.” The excerpts confirm this spirit—the fables are brisk, playful, and occasionally irreverent, as when the Miller’s son rides the ass and passersby heckle them.

Rhyme and Meter in the Excerpts

The three fables excerpted—“The Hare and the Tortoise,” “The Heron Who Was Hard to Please,” and “The Raven Who Would Rival the Eagle”—each use a different rhyme scheme and stanza form. “The Hare and the Tortoise” is in anapestic dimeter with a limerick-like AABBA pattern: “Said the Tortoise one day to the Hare: / ‘I’ll run you a race if you dare.’” “The Heron” uses iambic heptameter couplets: “A long-legged Heron, with long neck and beak, / Set out for a stroll by the bank of a creek.” “The Raven” employs a shorter line, alternating trimeter and dimeter: “An Eagle swooped from out the sky, / And carried off a sheep.” This variety matches Larned’s claim of substituting “a variety of forms in line and stanza.”

The language is colloquial and direct. The Tortoise calls the Hare “surely insane”; the Heron says “Bah, Bah!” and “No—not I”; the Raven declares “His meal comes mighty cheap.” These phrases are far from La Fontaine’s 17th-century elegance, but they give the fables a conversational energy that suits a child listener.

Moral Lessons and Their Presentation

Each fable ends with a pointed moral, but the delivery varies. In “The Hare and the Tortoise,” the Tortoise herself delivers the lesson: “You can surely run fast, / She remarked. ‘Yet you’re last. / It is better to get a good start.’” The moral is woven into the dialogue rather than stated as a separate tag. In “The Heron,” the narrator concludes dryly: “He was happy to happen upon a fat snail”—the punishment for pickiness is a reduced meal. “The Raven” ends with the bird “in a cage kept fast,” a physical consequence of overreaching.

Notably, the morals are practical and concrete: start early, don’t be fussy, know your limits. They avoid abstract virtue and instead focus on observable outcomes. This aligns with Larned’s aim to make the fables accessible to children without the “political, mythological and literary allusions” that might obscure the point.

Readers approaching this edition should note that the fables are not La Fontaine verbatim but Larned’s creative paraphrases. The preface provides a clear rationale for each liberty taken. The excerpts show a consistent voice—brisk, humorous, and child-oriented—but the full collection of 240 fables is not represented here. For those interested in comparing adaptation to source, a French edition of La Fontaine would be a useful companion.

I keep thinking about that old La Fontaine collection, how the rhymes stayed with me long after closing it, like a quiet tune in a back room. It made me curious about the animal characters themselves, their strange real histories. That’s when Curious Creatures in Zoology — A Reader’s Guide found its way to my shelf, and it felt like a gentle hand reaching back through the years, answering an unasked question.