The Mouse Turned into a Maid
Encyclopedia
The mouse turned into a maid is an ancient fable of Indian origin that travelled westwards to Europe during the Middle Ages and also exists in the Far East. Its Classical analogue is the Aesop's Fable
of "Venus and the Cat" in which a man appeals to the goddess Venus
to change his cat
into a woman. The fable has the themes of incomplete transformation and, in the Indian form, of a succession of more powerful forces. It has received many treatments in literature, folklore and the arts.
It is Aarne-Thompson type 2031C. Another tale of this type is The Husband of the Rat's Daughter
. The theme of metamorphosis
is also treated in The Cat Turned into a Woman.
relates how a mouse
drops from the beak of a bird of prey into the hands of a holy man, who turns it into a girl and brings her up as his own. Eventually he seeks a powerful marriage for her and first approaches the sun, asking the girl:
Since the girl feels the call of like to like in this case, she is changed back to her original form and goes to live with her husband in his hole.
The tale has many Indian versions, including current oral examples. It was eventually translated into Pahlavi and then into Arabic, but before a version of any of these works had reached Europe the fable appeared in Marie de France
's Ysopet
as a cautionary tale against social climbing through marrying above one's station (Fable 74). The creature involved is a male vole ('which is a kind of mouse', Marie explains) who applies to the sun for the hand of his daughter. He is sent on to a cloud, the wind, a tower, and then the mouse that undermines it, to the ruin of his aspirations.
The theme of keeping to one's class reappears in a Romanian folk variant in which a rat sets out to pay God a visit. He applies to the sun and to clouds for directions, but neither will answer such a creature; then he asks the wind, which picks him up and flings him on an ant-heap - 'and there he found his level', the story concludes. A less harsh judgement is exhibited in Japanese and Korean variants where the father seeking a powerful match for his daughter is sent round the traditional characters of sun, cloud and wind, only to discover that he too has his place on the ladder of power. It is interesting to note that all these are animal fables and lack the transformation theme. In the Japanese case a rat is involved and in the Korean a mole.
Jean de la Fontaine
's later version, "The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid" (Fables IX.7), acknowledges the story's Indian origin by making it a Brahmin who fosters the mouse and gives it back the body it had in a former birth. Such goings-on shock the good Catholic in La Fontaine, who finds in the story's culmination, in which the girl falls in love with the burrowing rat at the mere mention of its name, an argument to confound the Eastern fabulist's beliefs:
It is the philosophical wrangling in this fable which inspired the American poet Marianne Moore
to a wry and idiosyncratic recreation in her versions of La Fontaine (1954):
This in turn was set for unaccompanied soprano by the British composer Alexander Goehr
in 1991. The fable is also the subject of Print 90 in Marc Chagall
's set of 100 hand-coloured etchings of La Fontaine's work commissioned by Ambroise Vollard in 1926 and executed between 1927 and 1930.
The original Indian version has been made into an animated film and appears with Hindi
, Kannada and English narrations on YouTube
.
s dispersed across the world. An early Jewish Midrash
has a similar cumulative theme: Abraham is accused of impiety and brought before King Nimrod
, who commands him to worship fire. Abraham replies that it would be more reasonable to worship water, which can quench fire and is therefore more powerful. When this premise is granted, he points out that the clouds, as sustainers of water, are more worthy of worship, and then that the wind that disperses them is more powerful still. Finally he confronts Nimrod with the observation that "man can stand up against the wind or shield himself behind the walls of his house" (Gen. R. xxxviii). This theme of a succession of more powerful elements, and even some of the same elements, seems to survive in many rhymes, songs and cumulative tales. Chad Gadya
, for instance, is a playful cumulative song
, written mainly in Aramaic and sung at the end of the Passover Seder
; it begins with one little goat and proceeds by turns to more powerful creatures and forces:
Modern examples appear to be descendents of this type of tale: the folktale "The Old Woman and Her Pig" and the anonymous poem "What's in there?".
The fable has received musical treatments which reinterpret the basic story. Jacques Offenbach
's one-act operetta La Chatte Metamorphosée en Femme (1858) verges on farce. A financially ruined reclusive bachelor is pursued by his female cousin. With the help of a Hindu fakir, she makes him believe that she is the reincarnation of the pet cat with which he is besotted. Its happy ending is reversed in Henri Sauguet
's popular ballet La Chatte (1927). Here the goddess Aphrodite
turns the woman back into a cat again after she leaves her lover to chase a mouse and he dies of disappointment. There had in fact been a much earlier ballet of La chatte metamorphosée en femme, with music by Alexandre Montfort and choreography by Jean Coralli
. This was first performed in 1837 with the Austrian dancer Fanny Elssler
in the lead role. Not only did the work inspire Offenbach to write his opera but it was also indirectly responsible for Frederick Ashton
's late ballet of that name, created in 1985 for a gala in honour of Fanny Elssler in Vienna. Then in 1999 the French composer Isabelle Aboulker
set La Fontaine's fable for piano and soprano as one of the four in her Femmes en fables.
The fable has also had several film treatments including the French shorts by Louis Feuillade
(1909) and Michel Carré
(1910), the cartoon from the American Aesop's Fables Studio
(1921), and Martin Simpson's "Venus and the Cat" (2010).
Interpretations in the Fine Arts include Millet
's chalk and pastel drawing of the fable (c.1858) in which a black cat with shining eyes enters and looks toward a startled man who pokes his head through the bed curtains. This was followed by an Art Nouveau
marble sculpture exhibited in 1908 by Ferdinand Faivre
in which the woman seems more to be contemplating and stroking the mouse than hunting it. Later the subject featured as Plate 25 in Marc Chagall
's etchings of La Fontaine's fables in which a figure with the head of a cat but the well developed body of a woman looks out at us from the picture while leaning on a small table. Though the series was issued in 1953, sketches for some of the earliest date from the 1920s when the vogue for Japanese prints was still strong among Parisian artists. Its kinship with Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "Cat Dressed as a Woman" (a parody of a kabuki
theme) is striking.
Chagall's print, in its turn, inspired a poem by American poet Patricia Fargnoli
. Published in her collection Small Songs of Pain (2003), it considers what the physical process of changing into a woman must have felt like. With its concentration on the woman's sexual characteristics, it takes us full circle to François Chauveau
’s copper engraving in the first edition of La Fontaine's Fables (1668) where it is made clear that the hunt for the mouse takes place immediately following the act of love. This underlines the character of Aphrodite's test of the woman and explains the love-goddess' judgement in turning her back to her original form. In the light of this too, the posture of Faivre's sculpture exhibits an interesting ambiguity.
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
of "Venus and the Cat" in which a man appeals to the goddess Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
to change his cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
into a woman. The fable has the themes of incomplete transformation and, in the Indian form, of a succession of more powerful forces. It has received many treatments in literature, folklore and the arts.
It is Aarne-Thompson type 2031C. Another tale of this type is The Husband of the Rat's Daughter
The Husband of the Rat's Daughter
The Husband of the Rat's Daughter is a Japanese fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Brown Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson type 2031C, a chain tale or cumulative tale. Another story of this type is The Mouse Turned into a Maid.-Synopsis:...
. The theme of metamorphosis
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation...
is also treated in The Cat Turned into a Woman.
The Mouse-Maid Made Mouse
The story found in the PanchatantraPanchatantra
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. The original Sanskrit work, which some scholars believe was composed in the 3rd century BCE, is attributed to Vishnu Sharma...
relates how a mouse
Mouse
A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...
drops from the beak of a bird of prey into the hands of a holy man, who turns it into a girl and brings her up as his own. Eventually he seeks a powerful marriage for her and first approaches the sun, asking the girl:
- "Little girl, how do you like him, this blessed lamp of the three worlds?" "No, father," said the girl. "He is too burning hot. I could not like him. Please summon another one, more excellent than he is."
- Upon hearing this, the holy man said to the sun: "Blessed one, is there any superior to you?" And the sun replied: "Yes, the cloud is superior even to me. When he covers me, I disappear."
- So the holy man summoned the cloud next, and said to the maiden: "Little girl, I will give you to him." "No," said she. "This one is black and frigid. Give me to someone finer than he."
- Then the holy man asked: "O cloud, is there anyone superior to you ?" And the cloud replied: "The wind is superior even to me."
- So he summoned the wind, and said: "Little girl, I give you to him." "Father," said she, "this one is too fidgety. Please invite somebody superior even to him." So the holy man said: "O wind, is there anyone superior even to you ?" "Yes," said the wind. "The mountain is superior to me."
- So he summoned the mountain and said to the maiden: "Little girl, I give you to him." "Oh, father," said she. "He is rough all over, and stiff. Please give me to somebody else."
- Then the holy man asked: "O kingly mountain, is there anyone superior even to you ?" "Yes," said the mountain. "Mice are superior to me."
- Then the holy man summoned a mouse, and presented him to the girl, saying: "Little girl, do you like this mouse?"
Since the girl feels the call of like to like in this case, she is changed back to her original form and goes to live with her husband in his hole.
The tale has many Indian versions, including current oral examples. It was eventually translated into Pahlavi and then into Arabic, but before a version of any of these works had reached Europe the fable appeared in Marie de France
Marie de France
Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...
's Ysopet
Ysopet
Ysopet refers to a medieval collection of fables in French literature, specifically to versions of Aesop's Fables. Alternatively the term Isopet-Avionnet indicates that the fables are drawn from both Aesop and Avianus....
as a cautionary tale against social climbing through marrying above one's station (Fable 74). The creature involved is a male vole ('which is a kind of mouse', Marie explains) who applies to the sun for the hand of his daughter. He is sent on to a cloud, the wind, a tower, and then the mouse that undermines it, to the ruin of his aspirations.
The theme of keeping to one's class reappears in a Romanian folk variant in which a rat sets out to pay God a visit. He applies to the sun and to clouds for directions, but neither will answer such a creature; then he asks the wind, which picks him up and flings him on an ant-heap - 'and there he found his level', the story concludes. A less harsh judgement is exhibited in Japanese and Korean variants where the father seeking a powerful match for his daughter is sent round the traditional characters of sun, cloud and wind, only to discover that he too has his place on the ladder of power. It is interesting to note that all these are animal fables and lack the transformation theme. In the Japanese case a rat is involved and in the Korean a mole.
Jean de la Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...
's later version, "The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid" (Fables IX.7), acknowledges the story's Indian origin by making it a Brahmin who fosters the mouse and gives it back the body it had in a former birth. Such goings-on shock the good Catholic in La Fontaine, who finds in the story's culmination, in which the girl falls in love with the burrowing rat at the mere mention of its name, an argument to confound the Eastern fabulist's beliefs:
-
-
-
- In all respects, compared and weigh'd,
- The souls of men and souls of mice
- Quite different are made -
- Unlike in sort as well as size.
- Each fits and fills its destined part
- As Heaven doth well provide;
- Nor witch, nor fiend, nor magic art,
- Can set their laws aside.
-
-
It is the philosophical wrangling in this fable which inspired the American poet Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
to a wry and idiosyncratic recreation in her versions of La Fontaine (1954):
-
-
- We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained
- in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic:
- Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic,
- None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.
-
This in turn was set for unaccompanied soprano by the British composer Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr
Alexander Goehr is an English composer and academic.Goehr was born in Berlin in 1932, the son of the conductor and Schoenberg pupil Walter Goehr. In his early twenties he emerged as a central figure in the Manchester School of post-war British composers. In 1955–56 he joined Oliver Messiaen's...
in 1991. The fable is also the subject of Print 90 in Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
's set of 100 hand-coloured etchings of La Fontaine's work commissioned by Ambroise Vollard in 1926 and executed between 1927 and 1930.
The original Indian version has been made into an animated film and appears with Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Kannada and English narrations on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Cumulative theme
The search for the strongest husband in the Indian fable is perhaps the ancestor of the many cumulative taleCumulative tale
In a cumulative tale, sometimes also called a chain tale, action or dialogue repeats and builds up in some way as the tale progresses. With only the sparest of plots, these tales often depend upon repetition and rhythm for their effect, and can require a skilled storyteller to negotiate their...
s dispersed across the world. An early Jewish Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
has a similar cumulative theme: Abraham is accused of impiety and brought before King Nimrod
Nimrod
Nimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...
, who commands him to worship fire. Abraham replies that it would be more reasonable to worship water, which can quench fire and is therefore more powerful. When this premise is granted, he points out that the clouds, as sustainers of water, are more worthy of worship, and then that the wind that disperses them is more powerful still. Finally he confronts Nimrod with the observation that "man can stand up against the wind or shield himself behind the walls of his house" (Gen. R. xxxviii). This theme of a succession of more powerful elements, and even some of the same elements, seems to survive in many rhymes, songs and cumulative tales. Chad Gadya
Chad Gadya
Chad Gadya is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew. It is sung at the end of the Passover Seder, the Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover...
, for instance, is a playful cumulative song
Cumulative song
A cumulative song is a song whose verses are built from earlier verses, usually by adding a new stanza to the previous verse. A simple cumulative song having n verses is structured as-Examples of cumulative songs:* "The Twelve Days of Christmas"...
, written mainly in Aramaic and sung at the end of the Passover Seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
; it begins with one little goat and proceeds by turns to more powerful creatures and forces:
-
-
-
- One little goat, one little goat
- Then came the Holy One, Blessed be He,
- and smote the angel of death, who slew the slaughterer,
- who killed the ox, that drank the water,
- that extinguished the fire, that burned the stick,
- that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat
- Which my father bought for two zuzim.
-
-
Modern examples appear to be descendents of this type of tale: the folktale "The Old Woman and Her Pig" and the anonymous poem "What's in there?".
Venus and the Cat
The Indian fable's western equivalent is the story of "Venus and the Cat", which goes back to Classical times and is given the moral that nature is stronger than nurture. There are various versions but all feature a cat turned into a woman by the goddess, who then tests her on the wedding night by introducing a mouse into the bedchamber. Jean de la Fontaine gives it an extended, thoughtful treatment in his fable of "The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman" (II.18), concluding that:-
-
-
- So great is stubborn nature's force.
- In mockery of change, the old
- Will keep their youthful bent.
- When once the cloth has got its fold,
- The smelling-pot its scent,
- In vain your efforts and your care
- To make them other than they are.
- To work reform, do what you will,
- Old habit will be habit still.
-
-
The fable has received musical treatments which reinterpret the basic story. Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's one-act operetta La Chatte Metamorphosée en Femme (1858) verges on farce. A financially ruined reclusive bachelor is pursued by his female cousin. With the help of a Hindu fakir, she makes him believe that she is the reincarnation of the pet cat with which he is besotted. Its happy ending is reversed in Henri Sauguet
Henri Sauguet
Henri Sauguet , was a French composer. Born in Bordeaux as Henri-Pierre Poupard, he adopted his mother's maiden name as his pseudonym. His output includes operas, ballets, four symphonies , concertos, chamber and choral music and numerous songs, as well as film music...
's popular ballet La Chatte (1927). Here the goddess Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
turns the woman back into a cat again after she leaves her lover to chase a mouse and he dies of disappointment. There had in fact been a much earlier ballet of La chatte metamorphosée en femme, with music by Alexandre Montfort and choreography by Jean Coralli
Jean Coralli
Jean Coralli , born Jean Coralli Peracini, was a French dancer and choreographer and later held the esteemed post of First Balletmaster of the Paris Opera Ballet...
. This was first performed in 1837 with the Austrian dancer Fanny Elssler
Fanny Elssler
Fanny Elssler - 27 November 1884), born Franziska Elßler, was an Austrian ballerina of the 'Romantic Period'.- Life :Daughter of Johann Florian Elssler, a second generation employee of Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt. Both Johann and his brother Josef were employed as copyists to the Prince's...
in the lead role. Not only did the work inspire Offenbach to write his opera but it was also indirectly responsible for Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
's late ballet of that name, created in 1985 for a gala in honour of Fanny Elssler in Vienna. Then in 1999 the French composer Isabelle Aboulker
Isabelle Aboulker
Isabelle Aboulker is a French composer, particularly known for her operas and other vocal works. In 1999 she gained a prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts and in 2000 the music prize of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques for her numerous lyric pieces.-Life and work:Isabelle...
set La Fontaine's fable for piano and soprano as one of the four in her Femmes en fables.
The fable has also had several film treatments including the French shorts by Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...
(1909) and Michel Carré
Michel Carré
Michel Carré was a prolific French librettist.He went to Paris in 1840 intending to become a painter but took up writing instead. He wrote verse and plays before turning to writing libretti. His libretto for Mirette was never performed in France but was later performed in English adaptation in...
(1910), the cartoon from the American Aesop's Fables Studio
Aesop's Film Fables
Aesop's Film Fables was a series of animated short subjects, created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. Terry came upon the inspiration for the series by young actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook, who suggested making a series of cartoons based on Aesop's Fables. Although Terry later claimed he...
(1921), and Martin Simpson's "Venus and the Cat" (2010).
Interpretations in the Fine Arts include Millet
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
's chalk and pastel drawing of the fable (c.1858) in which a black cat with shining eyes enters and looks toward a startled man who pokes his head through the bed curtains. This was followed by an Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
marble sculpture exhibited in 1908 by Ferdinand Faivre
Ferdinand Faivre
Ferdinand Faivre was a French sculptor whose work is characterised in particular by the Art Nouveau style.-Life and work:Marie Antoine Ferdinand Faivre was born in Marseille on 8 October 1860 and died on 19 August 1937. His birth date is occasionally given as 1867 in confusion with Abel Faivre ,...
in which the woman seems more to be contemplating and stroking the mouse than hunting it. Later the subject featured as Plate 25 in Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
's etchings of La Fontaine's fables in which a figure with the head of a cat but the well developed body of a woman looks out at us from the picture while leaning on a small table. Though the series was issued in 1953, sketches for some of the earliest date from the 1920s when the vogue for Japanese prints was still strong among Parisian artists. Its kinship with Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "Cat Dressed as a Woman" (a parody of a kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
theme) is striking.
Chagall's print, in its turn, inspired a poem by American poet Patricia Fargnoli
Patricia Fargnoli
Patricia Fargnoli is an award-winning American poet and retired psychotherapist. She was the New Hampshire Laureate from December 2006 to March 2009....
. Published in her collection Small Songs of Pain (2003), it considers what the physical process of changing into a woman must have felt like. With its concentration on the woman's sexual characteristics, it takes us full circle to François Chauveau
François Chauveau
François Chauveau was a French painter and engraver.-Life:The second son of the impoverished noble Lubin Chauveau and of Marguerite de Fleurs, he studied in the studio of Laurent de La Hyre and specialised in etching...
’s copper engraving in the first edition of La Fontaine's Fables (1668) where it is made clear that the hunt for the mouse takes place immediately following the act of love. This underlines the character of Aphrodite's test of the woman and explains the love-goddess' judgement in turning her back to her original form. In the light of this too, the posture of Faivre's sculpture exhibits an interesting ambiguity.