LINE

XLIII. LE POT DE TERRE ET LE POT de fer.

2. de terre, 'earthenware.' 'De' here expresses material, as in 'golden egg.'

'œuf d'or' =

4. que sage, 'would act as a wise man should.' The construction is obsolete. It is equivalent to '(ce) que (ferait un) sage.'

5. de garder, ‘in keeping,' ‘if he kept . . .'

8. débris here means 'breaking.' It is only used now in the sense
of 'fragment,' 'remnant' (cp. 'broken meats').
9. en, i.e. of him.'

morceau; more fully 'pas un morceau.'
negative cp. Gram. Introd. IV. iii.

10. la peau; a curious application of the word.
12. tienne = retienne. Why subjunctive?

For this use of the

13. Nous = je; a pompous use, in proclamations, etc.

16. d'aventure =

par hasard. Cp. 'de fortune.'

17. entre deux, i.e. between the two of you.

18. du coup, at once,' 'immediately'; cp. 'tout d'un coup' (though it might perhaps mean 'from the blow,' 'from the shock').

21. droit, adverbial, 'straightway.'

22. à trois p., 'on three legs.' These 'pots' are the 'marmites' which may be seen in any French cottage, hanging over the fire by a chain. They have three legs like the ancient 'tripod.'

23. clopin clopant, higgledy-piggledy,' 'lippity-clippity' (Uncle Remus, not quite in the same sense). The phrase is evidently intended to give one the idea of people hobbling or 'hirpling' along.

25. hoquet, 'collision,' 'obstacle'; a rare use. The ordinary meaning of the word is 'hiccough.'

treuvent; an old-fashioned form of 'trouvent.'

26. en, 'from it,' i.e. the collision.

=
... que à peine eut-il f.

il n'eut pas f.
tense cp. xxxv. 8.

.

que. For the

28. sans que. The other construction is 'sans' with the infinitive.

avoir lieu de, to have any reasons,' any grounds' for . . 'Avoir lieu' of an event is to 'take place."

LINE

2. v. avez bien

XLIV.-LE CHÊNE ET LE ROSEAU.

'Pride goes before a fall.'

Notice the force of 'bien'; 'you have indeed

reason, you have good grounds for . . .'

7. cependant que, 'whilst,' 'whereas.'

11. encor si, 'if only'; lit. 'yet if.'

à l'abri, 'under shelter of.

15. le plus souvent, 'more often than not,' 'in most cases.'

16. sur les h. bords

; a poetical expression for the waterside

exposed to the full force of the wind.

18. arbuste, i.e. the reed.

19. part, springs from'; lit. 'starts' (partir).

20. me sont . . ., i.e. me sont moins red. qu'à vous.

26. le plus terrible

.; a poetical way of describing a violent hurricane from the north.

27. eût portés is subjunctive because the relative 'que' is preceded by a superlative. See Gram. Introd. III.

28. bon; adverbial. Cp. 'tenir ferme.'

30. et fait si bien, 'and works with such a will'; lit. 'and does so well that . . .'

31. voisin à is a poetical and archaic construction. We should say ' voisin de.

32. touchaient à, 'reached.' The last two lines are meant to lay stress upon the height of the oak and the depth of its roots underground. They are an imitation of Virgil—

quæ quantum vertice ad auras

Etherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.'

Georg., ii. 291, 2.

XLV. LE COCHE ET LA MOUCHE.

'Much ado about nothing.'

3. coche is an old-fashioned word. It corresponds to the modern 'diligence

4. femmes, etc. Notice the omission of the article in enumerations. It makes the description more rapid. 'Tout,' neuter, resumes, 'the whole party.'

5. rendu, 'exhausted,' 'worn out.'

7. prétend, 'fancies she can 'pretends.'

'undertakes to

,' not

LINE

9. la machine, 'the vehicle.'

11. chemine, ' moves on,' 'makes some way.

13. en depends on 'la gloire.'

14. fait l'emp., 'plays the busybody.' For 'faire' in this sense see xxix. 21.

que ce soit, 'as if it were.'

15. sergent de b., 'field-marshal.' This officer's title and functions are obsolete. His duties were to draw up the army in order of battle, according to the instructions given him by the commander-in-chief.

20. disait son b., 'was saying his office,' 'reading his breviary,' i.e. was reading in his 'breviary' or prayer-book the prayers, psalms, and lessons set apart for the day.

21. bien. In this line and the next 'bien' is used sarcastically. 'A well-chosen opportunity, to be sure! . . .' 'A nice time for singing!'; lit. it was indeed a question of singing.

25. bien = beaucoup; but notice that 'bien' takes the article after it and 'beaucoup' does not.

28. Cà, 'come now'; lit. 'here,' 'hither'; not to be confused with ça (no accent), a contraction for 'cela.'

31. nécessaire, 'busybody'; much the same meaning as 'empressé,' which may be rendered 'officious.'

XLVI. LE COQ ET LE RENARD.

2. matois; an old-fashioned word.

4. en querelle, 'on bad terms.'

6. que = afin que; 'embrasse' is therefore in the subjunctive.

8. Je dois, 'I am to,' 'I have to do . . .' For this idiomatic use of 'devoir' cp. xxiii. 5.

poste, 'stage.' As a measure of distance the 'poste' was about two leagues.

11. y, i.e. dans vos affaires.

en frères, 'like brothers.' Notice this use of ‘en.’

12. faites-en les f., 'light bonfires in honour of it' (en). 'Feux'

feux-de-joie.

13. cependant, 'in the meantime.'

14. am. fraternelle. Notice the gender of 'amour.' At present it is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. But in poetry it is often feminine in the singular now, and in old French it was feminine all through, as it should be.

20. tenir de, lit. 'to hold it from. . .,' 'to be indebted to you

for it.

LINE

21. je m'assure, 'I am certain,' 'I am convinced.' An obsolete use. 23. seront n., 'will be with us,' i. e. 'will have reached us.' 25. traite, 'I have a long journey before me'; lit. 'my spell is long to make.' 'Traite is the extent of road covered without stopping.

28. tire ses grègues, 'girds up his loins'; lit. 'pulls up his breeches,' i.e. 'cuts his stick.'

gagne au haut, 'is off and away'; one of a number of similar phrases; cp. enfiler la venelle, détaler, esquiver, etc.

30. en soi-même would now be 'en lui-même.'

31. se mit à. 'Se mettre à,' is to set one's self to a thing, 'to set to work,' 'to begin.'

XLVII.-CONSEIL TENU PAR LES RATS.

'Who will bell the cat?'

1. Rodilardus, lit. 'Gnawbacon'; Latin rodere lardum. Like Mouflar, etc., this word is borrowed from Rabelais; cp. xxviii. 16. 2. telle déconf., 'wrought such havoc among the rats.' 'Déconfiture' generally means 'defeat,' 'discomfiture.'

4. dedans; adverb used here instead of the preposition 'dans.' 6. For 'ne. que' see iii. 3.

soûl, 'their fill,' what they needed.

7. gent. See xxx. 9.

8. non; more emphatic here than 'pas.'

9. au haut et au 1., 'far and wide'; lit. 'high and far.'

10. a. chercher femme, 'went a-wooing.' The two words combine to form one idea, and so the article is left out. Cp. li. 10. 11. sabbat, rumpus,' 'shindy,' alluding to the wedding festivities of the cat. This meaning of 'sabbat' is due to its use in the Middle Ages for a gathering of witches-a sense derived from the fact that Jews were then looked upon as sorcerers.

12. tint chap., 'held a meeting of the chapter.' The rats are compared to the members of a cathedral or monastic chapter.

14. doyen, 'dean.' In France the president of a meeting is commonly the 'doyen d'âge,' or senior member present. The word is in keeping with 'chapitre' above.

15. plus tôt que p. t., 'the sooner the better'; lit. 'sooner than later.'

19. y, for it,' i.e. to remedy the evil. This was the only remedy he knew.

20. monsieur le d., 'their worthy dean.'

LINE

21. chose

ne, 'nothing.' 'Chose' is here exactly equivalent to 'rien.' They have, in fact, the same meaning, for 'rien' comes from the Latin rem, the accus. of res, a thing.

23. vas for vais. See xxxvii. 13.

25. on se quitta, the meeting broke up.' Why are 'vus' and 'tenus' in the plural?

28. voire, 'even,' 'nay,' 'indeed.' 'Voire' is an old-fashioned word, orig. truly, really.

Obs.-This fable was applied at an interesting crisis in Scotch history. At a meeting of conspirators against James III. and his favourites in 1482, one of the lords (Lord Gray) quoted this fable, and applied it to themselves. 'Leave me to bell the cat,' cried the Earl of Angus-who was hence called 'Archibald Bell-the-Cat.'

XLVIII.-LE RENARD, LE LOUP ET LE CHEVAL.

2. eût vu. When the relative pron. is preceded by a superl. or an ordinal number, it is followed by the subjunctive. See Gram. Introd. III.

3. franc, added to a word of an insulting or depreciating nature, has the force of utter,' 'arrant.' Trans. 'a thorough greenhorn.' 5. la vue. For the def. art. used for the poss. adj. cp. xiii. 5.

toute rav. 'Toute' is here an adverb, and should not take any inflection; but before a fem. adj. beginning with a consonant or an 'h' aspirate it has been considered more harmonious to put 'tout' in the feminine also.

8. étudiant, 'scholar'; used in rather an old-fashioned way. 9. j'avancerais; here 'avancer' = 'to hasten,' 'to hurry on' (active). 11. que sait-on? 'who knows?'; lit. 'what do we know?'

est-ce. Notice that after 'peut-être' and a few other conjunctions the order of the words is usually inverted.

14. assez peu cur., 'far from anxious for . . .'; an old-fashioned use of 'curieux'; 'peu' is here used ironically (little enough, i.e. not at all).

15. enfiler la v., 'to take to one's heels,' 'cut one's stick.' A slang phrase for 's'enfuir.' 'Venelle' is a little street or lane, and 'enfiler' is literally 'to thread' (a needle).

18. n'était; 'pas' omitted. See Gram. Introd. IV.

19. vous le p. 'Le' is neuter, referring to the whole clause-' you

can do so.'

21. sur, 'on the ground of