beavers erect their houses for the winter time, and make bridges of marvellous construction for passing over the ponds; whilst the human folk who live there, though this wonderful work is always before their eyes, can but cross the water by swimming.
That these beavers are nothing but bodies without minds nothing will make me believe. But here is something better still. Listen to this recital which I had from a king great in fame and glory. This king, defender of the northern world, whom I now cite, is my guarantee: a prince beloved of the goddess of Victory. His name alone is a bulwark against the empire of the Turks. I speak of the Polish king.[1] A king, it is understood, can never lie.
He says, then, that upon the frontiers of his kingdom there are animals that have always been at war among themselves, their passion for fighting having been handed down from father to son. These animals, he explains, are allied to the fox. Never has the science of war been more skilfully pursued among men than it is pursued by these beasts, not even in our present century. They have their advanced out-posts, their sentinels and spies; their ambuscades, their expedients, and a thousand other inventions of the pernicious and accursed science Warfare, a hag born, herself, of Styx, [2] but giving birth to heroes.
- ↑ The allusion is to Sobieski, whose victory over the Turks made him famous throughout Europe in 1673. La Fontaine had frequently met him in the salons of the cultured ladies of France.
- ↑ A nymph of one of the rivers of Hades named after her. She became the mother of Zelus (zeal), Nike (victory), Kratos (power), and Bia (strength).
