Note 138 — Chapter V

The Archpriest says of the fable of the Mountain that brought forth a Mouse, that it “was composed by Isopete.” Now there were at least two collections of fables in French in the thirteenth century, that passed under the name of Ysopet, and are published in Robert, “Fables Inédites,” (Paris, 1825, 2 tom. 8vo); and as Marie de France, who lived at the court of Henry III. of England, then the resort of the Northern French poets, alludes to them in the Prologue to her own Fables, they are probably as early as 1240. (See Poésies de Marie de France, ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 61, and the admirable discussions in De la Rue sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs et les Trouvères, Caen, 1834, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 198-202, and Tom. III. pp. 47-101.) To one or both of these Isopets the Archpriest went for a part of his fables,—perhaps for all of them. Don Juan Manuel, his contemporary, probably did the same, and sometimes took the same fables; e. g. Conde Lucanor, Capp. 43, 26, and 49, which are the fables of the Archpriest, stanzas 1386, 1411, and 1428.