Fables. A Book for Reading in French

What is a fable? It is a poetic or prose literary work of a moralizing, satirical nature that mocks the vices of people. It always includes a brief moral conclusion - the so-called moral. The characters are usually animals, plants,... or objects endowed with human traits. The fox is characterized by cunning, the owl by wisdom, the goose is a fool, the lion is associated with courage, and the snake embodies treachery.
We have all been familiar since childhood with the fables of the remarkable Russian poet Ivan Andreyevich Krylov: "Quartet", "The Elephant and the Pug", "The Swan, the Crab, and the Pike" and many others. The fables "The Crow and the Fox", "The Grasshopper and the Ant", "The Wolf and the Lamb", "The Oak and the Reed" and some others were written by him based on the plots of the fables of the great French poet, one of the most prominent figures of French culture in the 17th century, Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1694).
This collection includes only some of the vast number of fables written by La Fontaine.
Compilation, questions, comments, and dictionary by O.P. Panaiotty.