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The Eagle was chasing Master Jean Rabbit,
Who fled straight to his burrow as fast as he could.
The Beetle’s hole is met along the way.
I leave you to judge whether this lodging
Was safe; but what better? Jean Rabbit huddled there.
The Eagle swooping down on him despite this refuge,
The Beetle intercedes, and says:
“Princess of the Birds, it is very easy for you
To carry off despite me this poor wretch;
But do not do me this affront, I beg you;
And since Jean Rabbit asks you for his life,
Give it to him, I pray, or take it from both of us:
He is my neighbor, he is my comrade.”
The bird of Jupiter, without answering a single word,
Strikes the Beetle with its wing,
Stuns him, forces him to be silent,
Carries off Jean Rabbit. The Beetle, indignant,
Flies to the bird’s nest, smashes, in its absence,
Its eggs, its tender eggs, its sweetest hope:
Not a single one was spared.
The Eagle having returned, and seeing this household,
Fills the sky with cries; and to crown her rage,
Does not know on whom to avenge the wrong she has suffered.
She groans in vain: her complaint is lost to the wind.
She had to live that year as a grieving mother.
The following year, she placed her nest higher.
The Beetle takes his time, makes the eggs take the leap:
The death of Jean Rabbit is once again avenged.
This second mourning was such that the echo of these woods
Did not sleep from it for more than six months.
The Bird that carries Ganymede
At last implores the aid of the monarch of the Gods,
Deposits in his lap her eggs, and believes that in peace
They will be in this place; that, for his own interest,
Jupiter will see himself forced to defend them:
Bold he who would go there to take them.
Nor, indeed, were they taken there.
Their enemy changed his tune,
Let fall a dropping on the robe of the God:
The god, shaking it, threw the eggs to the ground.
When the Eagle learned of the carelessness,
She threatened Jupiter
To abandon his Court, to go live in the desert,
With many another extravagance.
Poor Jupiter said nothing:
Before his tribunal the Beetle appeared,
Made his complaint, and told the affair.
At last the Eagle was made to understand that she was wrong.
But the two enemies not wanting any accord,
The Monarch of the Gods decided, to do things right,
To transport the time when the Eagle makes love
To another season, when the Beetle race
Is in winter quarters, and, like the Marmot,
Hides itself and does not see the day.
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-eagle-and-the-beetle-jean-de-la-fontaine/