The donkey with the relics
The donkey with the relics (French L'Âne portant des reliques ) is the 14th fable in the fifth book of the collection of fables by the French poet Jean de La Fontaine . The fable tells of a donkey that carries relics on its back and believes that the people on the roadside worship it. But he is scolded for his stupid vanity, as the admiration is only for the relics on his back.
moral
La Fontaine took up an old theme; For example, Aesop's fable "An Ass Carrying the Image" mentioned earlier that a donkey proudly refuses to go on because it believes it is admired. His donkey driver whispers to him: "Oh, you perverted fool! It has not yet come to people worshiping a donkey."
At La Fontaine, the initially religious theme takes a secular twist through morality: "Master Baudet, let this crazy vanity out of your head. It's not you, it's the idol to whom this honor is bestowed and whose glory it is due. At to an ignorant master , it is the robe that we greet. "
Motif parallels
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Jean de La Fontaine : Fables Choisies. Livre Cinquieme. In: Oldenburg State Library . P. 23 , accessed on August 9, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Aesopus: Three hundred Æsop's fables, literally tr. By GF Townsend. With illustr. by H. Weir . 1874, p. 66 ( google.de [accessed on August 9, 2020]).
- ^ Jean de la Fontaine : The Complete Fables of La Fontaine: A New Translation in Verse . Simon and Schuster , 2011, ISBN 978-1-62872-167-6 ( google.de [accessed on August 9, 2020]).