The Flood

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

Laborers lived peacefully and content
in a rich and populous village;
at dawn they went to work in their fields,
in the evening they returned singing
to the bosom of a quiet household;
and nature, good and wise,
as the reward for their labors, gave them every year
fine wheat and fine children.
But we must suffer, that is our destiny.
Now it happened that one year,
in the month when blond Phoebus
goes to visit burning Sirius,
the earth, its juices exhausted,
opening its breast on every side,
panted beneath a brazen sky.
No rain and no dew.
On cracked soil the grain is seen to blacken,
the ears of wheat are scorched, and their drooping heads
fall upon their dried stalks.
They trembled with fear of dying of hunger;
the commune assembles. In haste they deliberate;
and each one, as usual,
says a great deal and nothing at all.
At last a few old men, people of sense and wit,
proposed a wise course:
my friends, they said, from here you can see
the hill not far from the village;
there lies a great lake, an immense reservoir
of the subterranean waters that make their way there.
Go and bleed that lake; but be sure to spare
a small number of bleedings,
so that at your will you may direct
those life-giving waters into your parched lands.
Just when needed we will stop them.
Take good care at least… yes, yes, let’s run,
let’s run,
cries the assembly at once.
And there are a thousand young men
armed with hoes, picks, and other tools,
who fly toward the lake: the earth is worked
all around its shores; they pierce in a hundred places
at once;
each worker takes charge of a piece of ground:
courage! Come on! No rest!
The opening can never be wide enough.
It was soon done. Before night, the waters,
falling with all their weight on their weakened dike,
roll everywhere in great waves.
Transports and compliments from the astonished troop,
who admire themselves in their work.
The next morning it was not the same:
the wheat is seen floating on an ocean of water;
to leave the village one must take a boat;
everything is lost, drowned. The grief is extreme,
they blame the old men: it is you, they
were told,
who cost us our harvest;
your cursed advice… it was salutary,
replied one of them; but what has just been done
is very far from the advice as from reason.
We wanted a little water, you let loose the floodgate;
the excess of a very great good becomes a very great evil:
the wise man waters gently,
the fool at once floods.

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-flood-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian/