Le Renard et les Raisins (La Fontaine)

Overview

"Le Renard et les Raisins" is La Fontaine's version (Fables, Book III) of Aesop's fable of the fox who cannot reach grapes and declares them too green; the expression "sour grapes" comes from the fable (Wikipedia EN, "The Fox and the Grapes"). In La Fontaine the fox concludes "Ils sont trop verts, dit-il, et bons pour des goujats" (Book III, fable 11, first published in 1668; text checked on Wikisource).

Marie and this work

23 April 1877 (070.0889): in her answer to a note from Larderel, which she took as an insult, Marie closes with a twist on the fable, "Les raisins sont tellement verts qu'ils sont pourris avant de mûrir", implying that he is scorning what he cannot reach. She did not send exactly this version: 28 August 1877 (074.0119) she remembers the phrase as a "perle et diamant d'esprit" that took her four months to find ("Les raisins sont si verts qu'ils en sont pourris") and that she did not use in the letter she actually wrote.

Identification note

Marie does not name La Fontaine or the fable; the diary footnote (070.0889) and LAN notes identify it. It is a different fable from "Les Deux Pigeons", which has its own entry.

References in Diary

Sources