The Cat and the Spyglass

Fable by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian Period 18th century

A wild cat and great hunter,
established himself, to feast,
in the park of a young lord
where rabbits and partridges were abundant.
There, this new Nimrod, night and day,
at the chase, at the ambush equally skilled,
pursued, awaited, immolated in turn
both four-legged and feathered.
The guards spied on the insolent poacher;
but, in the depths of the wood hidden near a burrow,
the rascal thwarted their skill.
However he feared being caught in the end,
and complained that old age
made his eye less sure, less keen.
This thought often caused him sadness;
when one day he comes upon a little black tube
fitted at both ends with two very clear glasses:
it was one of those spyglasses
made for the opera, which by chance, one evening,
the master had lost in that solitary place.
The cat first considers it,
touches it with his claw, and with its end
makes it roll over little by little,
runs after it, seizes it, shakes it, moves it,
astonished that nothing comes out of it.
He finally takes it into his head to apply to his sight
the glass at one end, it was the smaller.
Then he perceives beneath the green hazel
a rabbit that his eyes alone did not see.
Ah! What a treasure! He says while gripping his spyglass,
and running toward the rabbit he believes four steps away.
But he hears a noise; he takes up his device again,
uses it by the other end, and sees in the distance
the guard walking toward him.
Pressed by fear, by hunger,
he remains a moment uncertain,
hesitates, reflects, then again looks:
but always the large end shows him the guard far away,
and the small one right nearby shows him the rabbit.
Believing he has time, he goes to eat the creature;
the guard is twenty steps away, aiming at his brow,
puts two balls in his head,
and of his skin makes a muff.
Each of us has his spyglass,
which he turns according to the object;
we see down there what displeases,
we see right here what we wish.

Florian

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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