The donkey in the lion's skin

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L'Âne vêtu de la peau du lion

The donkey in a lion's skin (French L'Âne vêtu de la peau du lion ) is the 21st fable from the fifth book of the Fables Choisies collection , Mises En Vers by Jean de La Fontaine . It is one of several fables by La Fontaine in which he severely criticizes the arrogance of his countrymen; his version therefore closes with the moral: "Three quarters of your heroism lies in a bellicose appearance."

The fable tells of how a donkey finds a lion's skin and covers it to arouse fear among the other animals. He, who frightened no one else, enjoyed how everything was trembling before him. However, one of his long ears, which had remained uncovered, soon made the dizziness fly. His master then drove him back to work with blows to the mill.

Versions of the fable

The topic of the donkey in a lion's skin has been dealt with several times in the literature. For example, in Aesop's version of the fable, the donkey with the lion's skin wants to frighten the fox, but the fox recognizes the donkey by its screams. Here the doctrine argues that some people without education try to make an effort through outward appearance, but then reveals themselves through their flow of speech. With Alexander Neckams , morality relates in an affirmative manner to the opposition between farmer and donkey and thus to the contrast between master and servant: the farmer threatens to burden the donkey with another bundle as a punishment. The fable of the donkey in the lion's skin was given a confessional coloring by Erasmus Alberus in his pamphlet Papstesel (where the Pope in the “great splendor of the lion skin made people all fools” until Luther pulled them off him).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Choisies, Mises En Vers. Pp. 91–92 , accessed on January 3, 2020 (French).
  2. ^ William Lucas Collins : La Fontaine and other French fabulists . W. Blackwood, Edinburgh / London 1882, p. 107-108 ( archive.org [accessed January 3, 2020]).
  3. ^ Dorothea Klein, Trude Ehlert , Elisabeth Schmid: Sangspruchdichtung: Genre constitution and genre interferences in the European context. International Symposium Würzburg, 15.-18. February 2006 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-091647-8 , pp. 248–252 ( google.de [accessed January 3, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Johannes Bühler: The Baroque Age . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-142202-2 ( google.de [accessed January 3, 2020]).