The two parrots, the king and his son
The two parrots, the king and his son (French: Les Deux Perroquets, le Roi et son fils ) is the twelfth fable in the tenth book of the Fables Choisies collection of fables , Mises En Vers by Jean de La Fontaine .
La Fontaine's fables are littered with dead or estranged allies and friends when he illustrates the importance of real friendship through a portrait of dangerous friendship. Here he connects all four protagonists - the parrot and the king with their two sons - in "une amitié sincére" (sincere friendship). Both the king and his son are avid bird collectors. The prince's favorites are the young parrot and a sparrow. These two birds play and fight one day, injuring the sparrow; the prince kills the young parrot in his rage. The father of the parrot then pecks the prince's eyes and flees from the royal court. The righteous king, who acknowledges the parrot father's vengeance, appeals to him to return to the court, but the cautious parrot refuses and retreats to the top branches of a distant pine tree:
"Herr König, dear friend, you speak for free, so leave it!
Return? No way! The separation does
hers already: it is for the healing of wild hatred
as against love as a plaster good. ""
moral
The parrot should never have trusted a friendship with a king. Anyone hoping for a real friendship should know themselves first. As the fabulist explains in the final fable of his collection: People who do not know themselves have no way of judging other people.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Andrew Calder: The Fables of La Fontaine: Wisdom Brought Down to Earth . Librairie Droz, 2001, ISBN 978-2-600-00464-0 , pp. 174 (English, google.de [accessed on January 25, 2020]).
- ↑ " https://digital.blb-karlsruhe.de/blbihd/periodical/pageview/5199167 " p. 236