The Battle of the Rats and the Weasels

Fable by Jean De La Fontaine Collection The FablesThemes Animals, PoliticsPeriod 17th century

The weasel nation,
No less than the cats,
Wishes no good to the rats;
And without the narrow doors
Of their dwellings,
The long-backed animal
Would make, I imagine,
Great destruction of them.
Now, in a certain year
When they were plentiful,
Their king, named Ratapon,
Sent an army into the field.
The weasels, on their side,
Unfurled the banner.
If one believes rumor,
Victory hung in the balance:
More than one field grew fat
With the blood of more than one band.
But the greatest loss
Fell almost everywhere
On the Souriquois people.
Their rout was complete,
Whatever Artarpax,
Psicarpax, Meridarpax might do,
Who, all covered in dust,
Held out quite a long time
Against the efforts of the fighters.
Their resistance was vain:
They had to yield to fate:
Each fled as fast as he could,
Soldier and captain alike.
The princes all perished.
The rabble, in holes
Finding its retreat ready,
Saved itself without great trouble.
But the lords, upon their heads
Having each a plume,
Horns or crests,
Whether as marks of honor,
Or so that the weasels
Might conceive more fear,
That caused their misfortune.
Hole, nor crack, nor crevice
Was large enough for them,
Whereas the common folk
Entered the smallest hollows.
The principal slaughter
Was therefore of the principal rats.
A plumed head
Is no small encumbrance.
Too proud an equipage
Can often in a passage
Cause delay.
The small, in any affair,
Escape quite easily;
The great cannot do so.

Jean de La Fontaine

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

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