The lion's court
The court of the lion (French La Cour du Lion ) is the seventh fable from the seventh book of the Fables Choisies collection , Mises En Vers by Jean de La Fontaine . It is one of the so-called political fables.
Nowhere did La Fontaine show the sovereign's unpredictability as dramatically as in his fable La Cour du Lion . The fable tells how the lion invites all of his subjects to court. When the animals dutifully appear in the lion cave, it turns out to be a smelly ossuary and a real mass grave . Overwhelmed by the stench, the bear covers his nose. This displeases the lion, who promptly kills the bear (“ sends to Pluton ” [into the underworld]). The monkey proceeds in a different way, praising both the lion's murderous act and the putrid smelling den. The lion, however, finds this flattery just as unacceptable and punishes the monkey just as he punished the bear. The fox, who witnessed these two rhetorical failures, replied to the lion's request, “What do you smell? Tell me. Speak openly. ” , He has a cold that keeps him from smelling anything.
The fable ends with the narrator's remarks: Take this as a lesson. If you want to please the court , do not be a stupid flatterer or an overly sincere speaker, and sometimes try to give a noncommittal answer.
Individual evidence
- ^ Collection Brandes / La Fontaine, Jean de: Fables Choisies, Mises En Vers: / Par J. De La Fontaine. ParisParisParis. Paris: Desaint & Saillant; Paris: Durand; Paris: Jombert, 1756. Retrieved December 23, 2019 .
- ^ Christian August Fischer : Political Fables . Nicolovius, Königsberg 1796, p. 89 ( google.de [accessed December 23, 2019]).
- ↑ Anne Lynn Birberick: Reading Undercover: Audience and Authority in Jean de La Fontaine . Bucknell University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8387-5388-0 , pp. 122–123 ( google.de [accessed December 23, 2019]).