SOURCE: Guy Everett Snavely, "Latin Source of deVignay's Fables" in an introduction to The Aesopic Fables in the "Mireoir Historical" of Jehan de Vignay, edited by Guy Everett Snavely, J. H. Furst Company, 1908, pp. 31-36.

[In the following excerpt, Snavely discusses how Jehan de Vignay translated Aesop's fables in a fairly literal manner from Latin prose versions into Old French.]

While the ultimate source of the short collection of Æsopic Fables contained in Jehan de Vignay's Mireoir Historial is probably to be found in Classical Greek literature,¹ it will be sufficient for the purposes of the present dissertation to investigate our author's immediate source. This latter is readily shown to be the same as that of the remainder of the work; namely, the Speculum Historiale of Vincentius Bellovacensis, which contains the same set of fables in a Latin prose form.

Vincentius Bellovacensis was a Dominican monk who lived from 1190 (?) to 1264, and who was on terms of intimacy with St. Louis (Louis IX, King of France, 1226-1270). Indeed it was he who assisted the King very largely in the formation of the newly-founded Royal Library at Paris, while at the same time the manuscripts of the King supplied him with the necessary materials for his own voluminous writings.²

The Speculum Historiale, the most popular of all his works, was written in Latin prose, by the order of his royal patron, St. Louis. In its manuscript form this is a massive work of four thick folio volumes divided into thirty-two books giving a general survey of the history of the world from the Creation to the beginning of the Thirteenth Century.

After a very brief account of the ancient nations of the East, the author proceeds to treat of the history of the Persians in Book IV. In enumerating the historic events of the reign of Cyrus the Great, he puts down as the most important occurrence in the first year of his reign the killing of Æsop by the people of Delphi, and proceeds to give a short account of his life and work in fable literature.

At this point our author gives by way of illustration a collection of twenty-nine Æsopic Fables, which he inserts bodily into his text. It seems likely that the general moral character of these fables recommended them to the attention of our author as being in close accord with the tone of all his own writings. In further support of this statement it is to be noted that especial emphasis is placed on the lives and deaths of the Christian martyrs, as would naturally be expected in a universal history written by a monk.³

If we turn our attention now to the text of the fables, we find that Jehan de Vignay has given a very close translation of his Latin original. Apparently he does not attempt to expand the text of his model, although he makes a few mistakes, as will be noted below.⁴ We can not, however, make the same statement concerning all the translations by Jehan de Vignay…. [He] has shown originality in others of his works, and made many important additions to them.

To show how closely our author follows his Latin original in the fables under discussion, specimens of both the Latin and the French texts … will next be given. Let us compare first a few lines of the introduction to the fables:

VINCENTIUS BELLOVACENSIS.⁶

Anno regni primo Hesopus a Delphis interimitur.

Extant Hesopi fabule elegantes et famose quas Romulus quidam de Greco in Latinum transtulit et ad filium suum Tyberinum dirigit, ita scribens:

De civitate Attica Hesopus quidam homo grecus et ingeniosus famulos suos docet quid observare debeant homines. Et ut vitam hominum ostendat et mores, inducit aves et arbores bestiasque loquentes, probanda cuiuslibet fabula.

JEHAN DE VIGNAY.

En l'an du regne Cyre premier Esope est occis de Delphins.

L'Aucteur. Les fables de Esope sont nobles et renommées les queles Romulus, un Grec, estrait de Grec en Latin et les envoia a son fïlz, Tyberim, escrivant ainsi:

"De la cite de Atice Esope, un homme grec et engigneus enseigne ses sergens quel chose les hommes doivent garder. Et a fin que il devise et demonstre la vie des hommes et les meurs il amaine a ce arbres, oysiaus et bestes parlans a prouver chascune fable."

If we carefully compare these parallel passages, it is at once apparent that Jehan de Vignay closely imitates the style of Vincentius Bellovacensis. The former even, as it seems, places his words as near as possible in the same order as those in Latin. Thus in the first sentence he places the adjective "premier" after "Cyre," as if it modified that noun and not "an," as conveyed by the Latin "primo" in "anno regni Cyri primo."

This and similar examples tend to prove that Jehan de Vignay's translation is merely a mechanical rendering of the words without strict attention to the sense.

It is to be noted further that between the first and second sentences we have the words "L'Aucteur"⁸ inserted in the French version. Although the interpolation exists in this form in all the manuscripts of the fables, the Latin text published by Hervieux,¹⁰ as well as that of Inc. 1480 bis B, Bibl. de l'Arsenal, Paris,¹¹ contains the words: "Eusebius et actor." The same words appear again at the conclusion of the fables. They are written in red ink like all titles in all but the late manuscripts.

In the second sentence we find that our author again translates very literally. The only noticeable difference between the original and the translation is that the French has after "Romulus" the words "un grec," whereas "quidam" appears in the Latin original. This discrepancy and evident error (as Romulus sounds like a Roman name) may be explained by the proximity of the words "de greco" to "Romulus" in the Latin.

In the next sentence there is no variation at all from the Latin, and the translation is as literal as possible.

However, in the fourth sentence we find what might appear a slight attempt at originality of style; namely, the expansion of "ostendat" into "devise et demonstre." But as this is doubtless a common phrase in Old French and suits here very well our author readily adopted it. The remainder of the text is translated literally.

As a second specimen of Jehan de Vignay's methods of work we may cite a passage taken from about the middle of his fable collection, and compare it with the original:

VINCENTIUS BELLOVACENSIS.¹³

Item contra pauperum superbum. In prato quodam Rana uidit pascentem Bouem: putabat se posse fieri talem, si rugosam impleret pellem, et inflans se natos suos interrogauit. Sum ipsa quanta Bos? Dixerunt non.

JEHAN DE VIGNAY.

De rechief contre le povre orgueilleus. Une raine vit un buef pessant en un pre et cuidoit que ele peust estre faite icele se ele emploit sa piau froncie. Et ele enflant soy, demanda a ses filz se ele estoit ja aussi grant comme un buef, et il distrent que non.

Here, again, we notice the closeness in forms, order, and construction between the French text and its original. Jehan de Vignay, however, leaves his model in the last part of this passage, and changes the question and answer to the indirect form; that is, he has here preferred to keep to one style of narration, instead of changing to the direct form of address, as does his Latin original.

Another illustration, taken from toward the end of the collection, may now be finally given:

VINCENTIUS BELLOVACENSIS.¹⁵

Item contra pigros. Formica hyeme frumentum ex cauerna trahens siccabat quod estate colligens coagulauerat. Cycada autem earn rogabat esuriens ut daret aliquid illi de cibo, ut uiueret.

JEHAN DE VIGNAY.

De rechief contre les peresceus. Le formi el temps d'yver traioit le fourment de sa fosse hors et le sechoit, le quel fourment il avoit conqueilli en este. Le gresillon si le prioit que il li donnast aucune chose de viande pour vivre, car il mouroit de fain.

This, again, illustrates how closely our author followed Vincentius Bellovacensis in his translation. A few points may be commented upon, as his rendering of "hyeme," an ablative of time, by "el temps d'yver" instead of the more usual "en yver." This preposition "en" he employs a few lines below in the phrase "en este," as a translation for "estate." Moreover for the relative "quod" he gives in French both the relative and its antecedent, "le quel fourment." Again he condenses "colligens coagulauerat" into "avoit conqueilli." Finally de Vignay expands the participle "esuriens" into the clause "car il mouroit de fain."

But these changes, as well as those mentioned before, are of minor importance, and remembering that this same general closeness in forms and constructions prevails throughout the whole collection we may safely conclude that Jehan de Vignay translated as literally as possible.

¹ Cf. J. Jacobs, History of the Æsopic Fable, p. xx.

² Cf. L. Delisle, [Le Cabinet des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, Vol. 1, Paris, 1868-81, p.8.]

³ This fact was personally verified by an examination of MS. fr. 316 of the Bibl. Nationale, Paris, containing Jehan de Vignay's translation.

⁴ See infra, pp. 33-36….

⁶ See L. Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, Phèdre, Vol. II, 2nd ed., Paris, 1894, p. 234….

⁸ Cf. P. Meyer in Romania I, 364: Spec, histor., XXIX, 108. Author (c'est-à-dire Vincent lui-même)….

¹⁰ Cf. Hervieux, op. cit., Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 234-245. The text here is taken from the second edition of Mentelin.

¹¹ A copy of the fables in this incunabulum was made by Dr. G. C. Keidel in 1897….

¹³ See Hervieux, op. cit., Vol. II, 2nd ed., p. 240….

¹⁵ See Hervieux, op. cit., Vol. II, 2nd ed., p. 245.