The deer reflected in the water
The deer that is reflected in the water (French: Le Cerf se voyant dans l'eau ) is the ninth fable in the sixth book of the collection of fables, Fables Choisies, Mises En Vers by Jean de La Fontaine .
In fable poetry the deer represents a nobler creature than a frog or a rat and receives nobler treatment; So the fabulist offers the stag - with the utmost thrift, since only in the first line - an appropriate framework: " Dans le cristal d'une fontaine, Un Cerf se mirant autrefois ..." (German: In the crystal of a fountain, reflected once a deer ...). La Fontaine did not add any further incidents to the plot, but instead puts the reader directly into the landscape and the mind of the deer, which stimulates the assessment of the knowledge of the animal hero :
A deer reflected itself in the water and was dissatisfied to find that its antlers protrude magnificently, while its thin legs almost disappeared in the water. He misinterprets the visual information and therefore values the antlers more than the legs. When he is followed by a sniffer dog , he realizes that on the run his nimble legs are worth more than the beauty of antlers, which can only be a hindrance in an emergency. The morality concludes that the visual perception provides only a relative knowledge that needs to be weighed against other factors:
"One appreciates the beautiful",
by disregarding useful things -
Beauty often creates danger.
The deer reviles the feet,
who made him nimble
and praises its harmful antlers. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Choisies, Mises En Vers. Landesbibliothek Oldenburg , pp. 109–111 , accessed on January 19, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Andrew Calder: The Fables of La Fontaine: Wisdom Brought Down to Earth . Librairie Droz, 2001, ISBN 978-2-600-00464-0 , pp. 127 ( google.de [accessed on January 19, 2020]).
- ↑ Anne Lynn Birberick: Refiguring La Fontaine: Tercentenary Essays . Rookwood Press, 1996, ISBN 978-1-886365-00-1 , pp. 132 ( google.de [accessed on January 19, 2020]).
- ↑ https://digital.blb-karlsruhe.de/blbihd/content/pageview/5190914