Nothing in Excess

Fable by Jean De La Fontaine Collection The FablesThemes LifePeriod 17th century

I see no creature
That behaves with moderation.
There is a certain temper
That the master of nature
Wills us to keep in all things. Do we? Not at all.
Whether in good or in evil, it scarcely happens.
The wheat, rich gift of blond Ceres,
Too thick often exhausts the fields;
Spreading ordinarily into superfluities,
And growing too abundantly,
It takes from its fruit the nourishment.
The tree does no less; so much does luxury know how to please!
To correct the wheat, God permitted the sheep
To cut back the excess of the prodigal harvests.
Right through they threw themselves,
Ruined everything, and browsed everything,
Until Heaven permitted the Wolves
To crunch a few of them: they crunched them all;
If they did not do it, at least they tried.
Then Heaven permitted humans
To punish the latter: humans abused
In their turn the divine orders.
Of all the animals man has the greatest inclination
To carry himself into excess.
One would have to put on trial
The small as well as the great. There is no living soul
That does not sin in this. Nothing in excess is a point
That is spoken of ceaselessly, and that is never observed.

Jean de La Fontaine

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

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