The fish and the shepherd fluting
The fish and the shepherd fluting (French: Les Poissons et le Berger qui joue de la flûte ) is the eleventh fable in the 10th book of the collection of fables by the French poet Jean de La Fontaine .
The fable was borrowed from Aesop , who tells of a fisherman who is still inexperienced in his profession, who tries in vain to catch the fish by playing the flute, but then finally succeeds with a net. Aesopian morality teaches that one should not do business rashly or at the wrong time. La Fontaine turns this template into a pastoral , his expression pasteurs d'humains ( shepherds of men) cannot be found in any previous version:
His main character Tircis is not an inexperienced fisherman, but a shepherd who lets his flute and voice sound in the midst of a bucolic landscape in the service of Annette, his shepherdess. At the center of this poem is not the unsuccessful attempt to lure the fish with music, but rather the development of the shepherd's idyll and the shepherd's song. After the successful use of the network, however, the mood changes - from the picturesque milieu into a drastic political request to the kings to win over the spirits of their subjects not with reason but with power.
text
Tircis, who let the voice sing for Annette only
and his flute - dead would have seized even their sweet sound,
once sang along the clear brook that wet the colorful meadows,
the zephyr delighted in the scent of flowers.
Meanwhile Annett is sitting and fishing; but alas!
No fish can be seen in the brook;
the shepherdess will not succeed today.
The shepherd, whose song is probably already
so many a brittle may delight
thinks that the sound also attracts the fish.
So he sings to them: "Inhabitants of the waters,
leave your nymph in a damp grotto. Better,
A thousand times more beautiful you are attracted by a charming picture.
The fair girl is tender; appear cruel
can she only against us
she cherishes you tenderly, gently and mildly.
It's not about your life;
a pond welcomes you, clear as crystal and pure.
And should the bait be of concern to you:
Death by Annetten's hand, can there be anything beautiful? "
His eloquence has little effect: The crowd
the listener shows himself deaf, how dumb she has ever been.
Tircis preaches for free; the words, sweet and gentle,
decay as a prey to the winds.
He lays a net and the maiden can do it right away
put at your feet full of fish.
O kings who are shepherds of men!
By persuasion you believe, by reason, the spirit
to address the blunt crowd?
Believe me, you don't get very much that way;
just try other ways.
Cast your nets; the power leads you to the goal.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Lindner: Didactic genre structure and narrative play: Studies on narrative technique in La Fontaine's fables . Fink, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7705-1236-7 , pp. 70 .
- ↑ Lafontaine's Fables. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .