Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the Epick Poem/Chapter 7
CHAP. VII.
The Method of Composing a Fable.
The first thing we are to begin with for Composing a Fable, is to chuse the Instruction, and the point of Morality, which is to serve as its Foundation, according to the Design and End we propose to our selves.
I would, for Instance, exhort two Brothers, or any other Persons, who hold an Estate in Common, to agree well together, the better to preserve it: And this is the End of the Fable, and the first thing I thought on.
For this purpose I endeavour to imprint upon their Minds this Maxim; That a Misunderstanding between Friends is the ruin of Families, and of all sorts of Societies. This Maxim which I make choice of, is the Point of Morality, and the Truth which serves as a Foundation to the Fable I would compose.
In the next place this Moral Truth must be reduc'd into Action, and a general Action must be feign'd in Imitation of the true and singular Actions of those who have been ruin'd by a Misunderstanding that has happen'd among them. I say then, that several Persons were engaged together to look after an Estate, which they hold in Common. They fall out with one another, and this Difference leaves them defenceless to the Will of an Enemy who ruins them.
This is the first Platform of a Fable. The Action, which this Recital presents us with, has four Qualifications: it is Ʋniversal, it is Imitated, it is Feign'd, and it contains Allegorically, a Moral Truth. This Model then comprehends the two Essential Parts which compose the Fable, viz. the Truth and the Fiction. All this is common to all sorts of Fables.
The Names that are given to the Personages do first specifie a Fable. Aesop gives them the Names of Beasts. Once upon a time (says he) two Dogs were set to keep a Flock of Sheep, they fight with one another, and leave the Sheep without Defence to the Mercy of the Wolf, that commits what Ravage he pleases among them. These Names are the meanest of any. The Action is still General, and the Fiction is altogether apparent.
We may disguise the Fiction, render the Action more singular, and make it a Rational Fable by the Names of Men invented at Pleasure. Pridamant and Orontes, two Brothers by a second Marriage, were left very rich by their Father's last Will and Testament. They could not agree in sharing their Estates, and were so obstinately bent one against the other, that to provide for their common Interest against Clitander (their elder Brother by a former Marriage) was the very least of their care. He very dextrously foments their Quarrel, and keeps them from minding the Design he has upon them, by pretending he expected nothing but a small Gratuity by the Accommodations, which he daily proposes, but never urges home to them. In the mean time he gains upon the Judges, and all others, who were intrusted with this Affair; he procures the Will to be cancell'd, and becomes Master of all that Estate he pretended he would have gratified his Brothers with, though to his own prejudice.
This Fable is a Rational and Probable Fable; but because the Names are feign'd as well as the Things, and the Action is only particular, and the Families ordinary, it is neither an Epick nor Tragick Fable; and can only be manag'd in Comedy. For [1]Aristotle informs us, That Comick Poets invent both the Names and the Things.
In order to make this an Alamode Comick Fable, some Girl or another should have been promised to Clitander; but the Will should have put the Father upon altering his Design, and he should have oblig'd her to have married one of these two rich Coxcombs, for whom she had not the least Fancy. And here the Comical Part might have been carried on very regularly even as the Poet pleas'd. But to return.
The Fiction might be so disguis'd under the Truth of History, that those who are ignorant of the Poet's Art would believe that he had made no Fiction. But the better to carry on this Disguise, search must be made in History for the Names of some Persons to whom this feign'd Action might either Probably or Really have happen'd; and then must the Action be rehears'd under these known Names, with such Circumstances as alter nothing of the Essence either of the Fable or the Moral: as in the following Example.
"In the War King Philip the Fair had with the Flemings in the Year 1302, he sent out his Army under the Command of Robert Earl of Artois his General, and Ralph of Nesle his Constable. When they were in the Plain of Courtray in sight of the Enemy, the Constable says, 'Twas so easie to starve them, that it would be advisable not to hazard the Lives of so many brave Men against such vile and despicable Fellows. "The Earl very haughtily rejects this Advice, charging him with Cowardice and Treachery. We will see, replies the Constable in a rage, which of us has the most Loyalty and Bravery: and with that away he rides directly towards the Enemy, drawing all the French Cavalry after him. This Precipitation, and the Dust they rais'd, hinder'd them from discovering a large and deep River, beyond which the Flemings were posted. The French were miserably cast away in the Torrent. At this Loss the Infantry were so startled, that they suffer'd themselves to be cut in pieces by the Enemy."
'Tis by this means that the Fiction may have some Agreement with the Truth it self, and the Precepts of the Art do not contradict one another, though they order us to begin by feigning an Action, and then advise us to draw it from History. As for the Fiction and Fable, it signifies little whether the Persons are Dogs, or Orontes and Pridamont, or Robert d'Artois and the Earl of Nesle, or lastly Achilles and Agamemnon.
'Tis time we should now propose it in its just Extent under the two last Names in the Iliad. It is too narrow for an Epopéa under the former Names.
- ↑ (Greek characters)