January 11, 2020: The grasshopper and the ant

I put up my first FrenchKate on January 11, 2007  just a few days after my husband I moved to Toulouse thirteen years ago. Today, 3052 posts later, I am struck by how much I have learned about French history and culture since then...and yet dismayed by how much I still need to comprehend. 

For example, French literature. What do I know about French literature? Not nearly enough. Certain classics play an important role in French intellectual and cultural life; yet I have read few of them.

So I was very happy to have my French tutor (I meet with her once a week) propose that we read some La Fontaine's fables that she--along with all French children--had memorized as a schoolgirl. 

We started with "La cigale et la fourmi"--which English speakers know as "The grasshopper and the ant"--a cautionary tale taken from Aesop that highlights the virtues of working hard and planning ahead for rainy day. At the same time, it raises the basic ethical question: what responsibility do we have for our neighbors, and especially what responsibility do we have for our human grasshoppers. Can we just turn her away--"well, now dance!"--knowing that she is starving? 

The first illustration is from an edition of La Fontaine's fables. The second, entitled "La cigale et la fourmi," is an artwork by Paul Gauguin, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

La cigale, ayant chanté                                  The grasshopper, having sung

                   Tout l'été,                                                             all summer,

Se trouva fort dépourvue                                Found herself destitute

Quand la bise fut venue:                                When the north wind came:

Pas un seul petit morceau                               She didn't have a single morsel 

de mouche ou de vermisseau.                        Of maggot or worm.

Elle alla crier famine                                      She went to her neighbor, the ant,                        

Chez la fourmi sa voisine                               And begged for help.

La priant de lui préter                                    Praying that she would lend her   

Quelque grain pour subsister                          Some grain to survive

Jusqu'à la saison nouvelle                                Until the new season;

--Je vous paîrait, lui dit-elle                          --I will pay you, she said to her,

Avant l'oût, foi d'animal,                                Before August, cross my heart,

Intéret et principal.                                        Interest and principal.

La foumi n'est pas prêteuse;                            The ant is not a lender,

C'est là son moindre défaut.                          (the least of her faults) 

--Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud?                 asked her borrower

Dit-elle à cette emprunteuse.                        --"What did you do when the weather was warm?"

--Nuit et jour à tout venant                           --"Night and day, to all who came

Je chantois, ne vous déplaise.                        I sang, you not displeasing."

--Vous chantiez? j'en suis fort aise:                 "You sang? I am glad:

Eh bien! dansez maintenant.                        Well, ...now dance.  

Comments

[Tom]

Les Miserables, Madame Bovary, a bit of Balzac...yes, embarrasingly shallow for me too.