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All is mystery in Love,
His arrows, his Quiver, his Torch, his Childhood.
It is not the work of a day
To exhaust this Science.
So I do not claim to explain everything here.
My aim is only to tell, in my own way,
How the Blind one here
(He is a God), how, I say, he lost his sight;
What followed from this misfortune, which perhaps is a blessing;
I make a Lover the judge, and decide nothing.
Folly and Love were playing together one day.
The latter was not yet deprived of his eyes.
A dispute arose: Love wishes that they assemble
The Council of the Gods on the matter.
The other had not the patience;
She gives him such a furious blow,
That he loses the light of the Heavens.
Venus demands vengeance.
Woman and mother, it is enough to judge her cries:
The Gods were stunned by them,
And Jupiter, and Nemesis,
And the Judges of Hell, in short the whole band.
She set forth the enormity of the case.
Her son, without a staff, could not take a step:
No punishment was great enough for this crime.
The damage had to be repaired as well.
When they had fully considered
The interest of the Public, that of the Party,
The result finally of the supreme Court
Was to condemn Folly
To serve as guide to Love.
Jean de La Fontaine
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/fable-love-and-folly-jean-de-la-fontaine/