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Use alone makes possession.
I ask those people whose passion
Is always to pile up, adding sum to sum,
What advantage they have that another man does not.
Diogenes down there is as rich as they,
And the miser up here lives like a beggar, just as he.
The man with the hidden treasure that Aesop presents to us
Will serve as an example of the matter.
This wretch was waiting
To enjoy his wealth in a second life;
He did not possess the gold, but the gold possessed him.
He had in the earth a sum buried,
His heart with it, having no other delight
Than to brood on it day and night,
And to make his hoard sacred to himself.
Whether he went or came, whether he drank or ate,
One would have caught him quickly, unless he were thinking
Of the spot where that buried sum lay.
He made so many rounds there that a Gravedigger saw him,
Suspected the deposit, and took it away without a word.
Our Miser one fine day found only the nest.
There is my man in tears; he groans, he sighs. He torments himself, he tears himself apart.
A passerby asks him on what account his cries.
It is my treasure that has been taken from me.
– Your treasure? Where taken? – Right next to this stone.
– Eh! are we in times of war,
To bring it so far? Would you not have done better
To leave it at home in your cabinet,
Than to change its dwelling?
You could have drawn from it without trouble at any hour.
– At any hour? Good heavens! is that all it takes?
Does money come as it goes?
I never touched it. – Tell me then, pray,
Replied the other, why you grieve so much,
Since you never touched that money:
Put a stone in its place,
It will be worth just as much to you.
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-the-miser-who-lost-his-treasure-jean-de-la-fontaine/