The Disguised Fox

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

A fox full of wit, of skill, of prudence,
at the court of a lion had served for a long time.
The most dazzling successes
had proved his zeal and his intelligence.
However little he was employed, every matter went well.
He was much praised, but without being given anything;
and the clever fox was in poverty.
Weary of serving ingrates,
of always succeeding without being any fatter for it,
he fled from the court; in a solitary wood
he went to find his grandfather,
an old retired fox, who once had been a vizier.
There, recounting his exploits, and then the injustices,
the vexations he had to endure,
he asks why so many services
had never been able to obtain anything.
The good old fox, with his cracked voice,
said to him: my dear child, last week,
a badger, my cousin, died in this burrow:
I am his heir,
I have kept his skin: put it over your own,
and return to the court. The fox with difficulty
submitted to the advice; rigged out in the skin
of his late cousin the badger,
he goes to look at himself in the water of a fountain,
finds himself looking like a fool, just as the cousin was.
Quite ashamed, he takes back the road to the court.
But, some months later, in a rich equipage,
surrounded by valets, slaves, flatterers,
loaded with gifts and favors,
he comes to pay homage to the old man for his fortune:
he was grand vizier. I told you so,
cries then the old grandfather:
my friend, at the court of the great, whoever wishes to please
must first hide his wit.

Florian

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

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