French 18th Century Aubusson Panel Pillow Fables of Jean De La Fontaine

Antique French Aubusson Pillow
Woven in silks
Silk Backing
Depicting Aesop's Fable "The Lion And The Gnat"
18 inches high x 12 inches wide
From the internet:
THE LION AND GNAT

“ Begone, vile insect ! excrement of earth,
And from the lion keep afar ! ”
Thus spake the beast of royal birth.
The gnat declared immediate war :
“ You think your title, proudest sire,
Excites my fear or breaks my ease ?
The bull's far mightier in his ire,
And yet I lead him as I please.”
He said ; nor deigning to enlarge,
Sounded himself the battle charge ;
At once the hero and the herald too,
On to the conflict he at leisure drew.
He took his time ; jumped on the lion's mane,
And drove the royal beast almost insane.
The quadruped now foamed with sparkling eyes,
He roared—all, trembling, hid themselves around ;
With piercing cries he told the skies,
It was a gnat that gave the wound !
The gnat still led him raging mad about,
Now on his back, anon upon his snout ;
And sometimes up his very nose
The conqueror to conquest goes.
The lion suffered to the last degree ;
Triumphed his hidden foe, and laughed to see
His fangs and teeth against himself engaged.
Tearing his flesh, the lion roared, enraged,
Lashing his agonising sides in vain ;
Beating the harmless air in awful pain,
Falling exhausted, vanquished on the plain.
The gnat returned triumphant from his back,
And sounded victory as before the attack.
He went to spread the tidings all around ;
But in his way,
In ambuscade, a spider lay,
And sudden death he found.
From such example two things we may know,
What's most to dread is oft the smallest foe :
The victor too, must, if for life he care,
Great foes brought down, of lesser foes beware.