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“”My brother, have you heard the news?
Mouflar, good Mouflar, the model of our dogs,
so dreaded by the wolves, so obedient to the shepherd,
Mouflar has, they say, just eaten
the little black lamb, then the ewe its mother,
and then flung himself furiously upon the shepherd.
-Could it be true? -Very true, my brother.
-In whom then can we trust, great gods!””
Thus did two sheep speak in the plain;
and the news was certain.
Mouflar, taken in the very act,
awaited nothing now but punishment;
and the farmer wanted swift justice
to strike fear into the dogs of the region.
The trial was finished in a day.
A thousand witnesses for one depose to the crime:
questioned, confronted, not one of them wavers;
Mouflar is convicted of the triple murder:
Mouflar shall therefore receive two bullets in the head
on the very scene of the offense.
To his punishment, which was being prepared,
the whole farm came.
Mouflar’s lambs begged for mercy;
it was refused. They were made to take their places:
the dogs ranged themselves beside them,
sad, humiliated, gloomy, ears lowered,
pitying, without excusing, their unhappy brother.
Everyone waited in deep silence.
Mouflar appears soon, led by two shepherds:
he arrives; and, raising to heaven his weeping eyes,
he thus addresses the assembly:
“”O you, whom at this moment I dare not and cannot
name, as once I did, my brothers, my friends,
witnesses of my final hour,
see where a guilty desire can lead!
For fifteen years I followed the path of virtue,
a false step made me leave it.
Learn my crimes. At the rising of the dawn,
alone, near the great wood, I guarded the flock;
a wolf comes, carries off a lamb,
and, while fleeing, devours it.
I run, I catch the wolf, who, leaving his feast,
comes to attack me: I throw him down,
and I strangle him on the spot.
So far, so good: but, pressed by hunger,
of the devoured lamb I look at what remains,
I hesitate, I waver… at last, however,
I set upon it a guilty tooth:
there lies the fatal origin of my misfortunes.
The ewe comes in that instant,
she utters cries of a mother….
my head turned, I feared that the ewe
might accuse me of having murdered her son;
and, to force her to be silent,
I cut her throat in my anger.
The shepherd came running, armed with his staff.
Hoping no longer for any pardon,
I fling myself upon him: but soon I am chained,
and here I am, ready to undergo
the just penalty of my crimes.
Learn at least, all of you, in seeing me die,
that the slightest injustice
can lead first to the greatest crimes;
and that, on the road of vice,
one is at the bottom of the precipice
as soon as one sets a foot on its edge.””
Florian
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-guilty-dog-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian/