The Cowherd and the Gamekeeper

Fable by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian Period 18th century

Colin was watching his father’s cows one day;
Colin had no shepherdess,
and was bored all alone. The keeper comes out of the woods:
since dawn, he says, I’ve been running across this plain
after an old roebuck that I’ve missed twice
and that has left me quite out of breath.
He just passed down over there,
Colin answered him: but, if you are tired,
rest, guard my cows in my place,
and I’ll go do your hunting;
I’ll answer for the roebuck. — My word, I’m willing.
Here, take my gun, take my dog with you,
go kill it. Colin gets ready,
arms himself, calls Sultan. Sultan, though reluctantly,
runs with him toward the forest.
The dog beats the bushes; he goes, comes, sniffs, points,
and there’s the roebuck… Colin impatient
fires at once, misses the beast,
and wounds poor Sultan.
Following the dog that cries out,
Colin comes back to the meadow.
He finds the keeper snoring;
of cows, none; they had been stolen.
Unhappy Colin, tearing his hair,
roams groaning over the mountains and valleys;
he sees nothing. In the evening, without cows, all ashamed,
Colin returns to his father,
and trembling tells him the affair.
This one, seizing a stick of wild pear,
corrects his dear son for his foolish ideas,
then says to him: everyone to his own trade,
the cows will be well guarded.

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-cowherd-and-the-gamekeeper-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian/