The Hedgehog and the Rabbits

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

There are certain spirits of a quarrelsome nature
who always need war;
they love to sting, take pleasure in displeasing,
and show wonderful talents for it.
As for me, I flee them constantly,
even if they had all gifts and attributes:
I want from them indulgence or politeness;
that is the adornment of virtues.
A hedgehog, whom a vexation
had forced to leave his homeland,
into a large rabbits’ burrow
came to bring his misanthropy.
He told them his long sorrows,
against his enemies he vented his bile well,
and ended by begging the underground hosts
to be willing to give him shelter.
Gladly, the elder told him:
we are good folk, we live like brothers,
and we know neither yours nor mine;
everything is shared here: our greatest affairs
are to go, from the dawn of day,
graze on wild thyme, play on the tender grass:
each one, meanwhile, sentinel in turn,
watches for the hunter who might surprise us;
if he spots him, he strikes, and we are crouched.
With our wives, our little ones,
in gaiety, in concord,
we spend the moments heaven grants us.
Often they are quick to end;
snares, ferrets, shorten our life,
all the more reason to enjoy it.
At least through friendship, love and pleasure,
as long as it lasted we have embellished it:
such is our philosophy.
If that suits you, stay with us,
and be of the colony;
otherwise, do our company the honor
of accepting a dinner, then return home.
To this speech full of wisdom,
the hedgehog replies that he will be too happy
to spend his days with them.
Then each rabbit hurries
to imitate the honest elder
and to show him politeness.
Until evening all went well.
But when after supper the assembled troop
began to chat about the affairs of the day,
the hedgehog with his quills
wounds a young rabbit. Gently, I beg you,
the child’s father told him.
The hedgehog, turning around,
pricks two, then three, and then a fourth.
They murmur, they get angry, they surround him growling.
Gentlemen, he cried, my regret is extreme;
you must forgive me, I am made this way,
and I cannot recast myself.
My word, said the elder, in that case, my friend,
you can go get yourself sheared.

Florian

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

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