Ysopet

In particular she criticizes the inequalities of the legal system (The Wolf and the Lamb, The Dog and the Sheep), injudicious choice of deputy and betrayal of faith.

But in the similar situation of The Wife and Her Husband in the Forest she concludes that 'for this reason women are criticized for their deceptiveness: these lying tricksters have more art than the devil.'

The humorous ending of the otherwise horrifying story of The Man and the Wife Who Quarreled, in which a husband cuts out the tongue of his wife only to have her continue their quarrel in sign language, draws from Marie the wry comment that 'This fable shows what one can often see: if a fool talks foolishness and someone else comes along and speaks sense to him, he won't believe it but gets angry instead.

The change of gender at the end indicates that for Marie, as for Jean de la Fontaine five centuries later, 'Many men are women too' (Fables VI.6).

The introduction and the first few fables in Mary Lou Martin's translation can be found in the limited preview on Google Books [1]