Note 273 — THE PLEASANT HISTORY OF THE COCK AND THE FOX.

MSS. pp. 718–724. This fable, whose moral is that the biter is often bit, seems unknown to Æsop and the compilation which bore his name during the so-called Dark Ages. It first occurs in the old French metrical Roman de Renart entitled, Si comme Renart prist Chanticler le Coq (ed. Meon, tom. i. 49). It is then found in the collection of fables by Marie, a French poetess whose Lais are still extent; and she declares to have rendered it de l’Anglois en Roman; the original being an Anglo-Saxon version of Æsop by a King whose name is variously written Li reis Alured (Alfred?), or Aunert (Albert?), or Henris, or Mires. Although Alfred left no version of Æsop there is in MS. a Latin Æsop containing the same story of an English version by Rex Angliæ Affrus. Marie’s fable is printed in extenso in the Chaucer of Dr. Morris (i. 247); London, Bell and Sons, 1880; and sundry lines remind us of the Arabic, e.g.:—

Li gupil volt parler en haut,

Et li cocs de sa buche saut,

Sur un haut fust s’est muntez.

And it ends with the excellent moral:—

Ceo funt li fol tut le plusur,

Parolent quant deivent taiser,

Teisent quant il deivent parler.

Lastly the Gentil Cok hight Chanticlere and the Fox, Dan Russel, a more accidented tale, appear in “The Nonne Preestes Tale,” by the Grand Traducteur.