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A certain monarch one day lamented his misery,
and complained of being king:
what a painful trade! he said: on earth
is there a single mortal contradicted as I am?
I would like to live in peace, I am forced into war;
I cherish my subjects, and I impose taxes;
I love truth, I am ceaselessly deceived;
my people are overwhelmed with ills;
I am consumed with sadness;
everywhere I seek advice,
I take every means, my effort is useless;
the more I do, the less I succeed.
Our monarch then perceives in the plain
a flock of thin sheep, closely shorn,
ewes without lambs, lambs without their mothers,
scattered, bleating, bewildered,
and strengthless rams wandering in the heather.
Their driver Guillot went, came, ran,
now to this sheep that gains the forest,
now to this lamb that stays behind,
then to his dearest ewe;
and, while he is on one side,
a wolf takes a sheep and carries it off quickly.
The shepherd runs, the lamb he leaves
is carried off by a she-wolf.
Guillot all panting stops,
tears his hair, no longer knows where to run,
and, striking his head with his fist,
he asks heaven to die.
There is indeed my faithful image!
cried the monarch; and poor shepherds,
like us kings, surrounded by dangers,
have no gentler slavery;
that consoles a little. As he said these words,
he discovers in a meadow the most beautiful of flocks,
fat sheep, numerous, barely able to walk,
so much their rich fleece hinders them,
tall and proud rams, all grazing in order,
ewes bending under the weight of wool,
and whose full udder
makes lambs come running from afar, bounding.
Their shepherd, softly stretched under a beech,
was making verses for his Iris,
sang them gently to the touched echoes,
and then repeated the tune on his pastoral oboe.
The king all astonished said: this beautiful flock
will soon be destroyed: wolves scarcely fear
loving shepherds who sing their shepherdess;
they are poorly kept away with a pipe.
Ah! How I would laugh…! In that instant the wolf passes, as if to please him:
but scarcely does he appear, than, quick to seize him,
a dog springs forward and brings him down.
At the noise they make in fighting,
two frightened sheep stray into the plain;
another dog leaves, brings them back,
and to restore order an instant suffices.
The shepherd saw everything, lying on the grass,
and did not leave his musette.
Then the king almost in wrath
said to him: how do you do it? The woods are full of wolves,
your sheep fat and beautiful are a thousand in number;
and, without being any less tranquil,
in this happy state you alone maintain them!
Sire, said the shepherd, the thing is very easy;
my whole secret consists in choosing good dogs.
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-le-roi-et-les-deux-bergers-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian-2/