The Camel and the Floating Sticks

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

The first who saw a Camel fled
From this new object, filled with dread;
The second nearer drew; the third dared to prepare
A halter for the Dromedary there.
Thus habit makes all things familiar to us.
What seemed to us so terrible and strange
Is tamed before our very view,
When it comes to the long continue.
And since we’ve fallen on this theme,
Some people had been set to watch,
Who, seeing on the waters some far-off object,
Could not refrain from saying
That it was a mighty ship.
Some moments later, the object becomes a fireship,
And then a skiff, and then a bundle,
At last floating sticks upon the wave.
I know a great many in the world
To whom this would apply quite well:
From afar it’s something, and from near it’s nothing.

Jean de La Fontaine

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-camel-and-the-floating-sticks-jean-de-la-fontaine/