Page:La Fontaine - The Original Fables Of, 1913.djvu/62

 XVI

THE POWER OF FABLE

( VIII.—No. 4)

the old, vain, and fickle city of Athens, an orator, seeing how the light-hearted citizens were blind to certain dangers which threatened the state, presented himself before the tribune, and there sought, by the very tyranny of his forceful eloquence, to move the heart of the republic towards a sense of the common welfare.

But the people neither heard nor heeded. Then the orator had recourse to more urgent arguments and stronger metaphors, potent enough to touch hearts of stone. He spoke in thunders that might have raised the dead; but his words were carried away on the wind. The beast of many heads did not deign to hear the launching of these thunderbolts. It was engrossed in something quite different. A fight between two urchins was what the crowd found so engaging; not the orator's warnings.

What then did the speaker do? He tried another plan. "Ceres," he began, "made a voyage one day