Ein Fabelbuch

Abstract

Etzel (20) and Ewers (24) contribute together 44 verse fables on some 115 pages. An original -- and attractive! -- feature of this book is that diverse monograms indicate who authored and who illustrated each fable. The key to the monograms is on 8. The first fable (11) sets a good tone: a May beetle sits on tree and eats leaf after leaf and then crawls onto the body of his wife. You gourmand, a spider says with wrinkled brow, how soon you will perish! People who misspend their present with such a lifestyle will be their own hangmen! Look at me for example. I sit here chaste and eat only what comes to me of its own will. That is why I live healthy and…. She wants to say long, but a finch flies by and eats her and then poops what is left of her, digested, onto the lawn. The Maybug laughs out loud: Here lies a moralist! A strong fable and illustration are Im Karpfenteich (23). A corpse appears in a carp pond. A young carp comes by and opines Surely the victim of rejected love! A second seems to comment He drank too much and fell in here. An hundred-year-old carp says nothing but goes to work eating and thinking Nicht immer giebt's im Teiche/solch' eine schöne, schleimig-weiche/und bläulich-bleiche Wasserleiche! What a tour de force! A nicely formed echo of the fable tradition comes in Das Schneiderlein und der Tod (32). Philipp Fips, the tailor, complains steadily and finally wishes death would appear. Death does appear as a skeleton and asks What do you want? Philipp outdoes himself giving death clothes, and then his Sunday clothes, and then his own clothes and wedding ring -- all to ask that Death spare him. The book is in fragile condition. The spine and inside front cover have already both been taped. At least one whole signature has separated from the binding. There is some lovely Jugendstil work on the parrot-cover and the bird back-cover.