The House of Cards

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

A good husband, his wife, and two pretty children,
spent their days in peace in the simple hermitage
where, peaceful like them, their parents had lived.
These spouses, sharing the sweet cares of the household,
cultivated their garden, gathered their harvests,
and in the evening, in summer supping under the foliage,
in winter before their brands,
they preached virtue, wisdom to their sons,
spoke to them of the happiness they always bring:
the father enlivened his talk with a tale,
the mother with a caress.
The elder of these children, born grave, studious,
read and pondered without cease;
the younger, lively, light, but full of charm,
jumped, laughed always, took pleasure only in games.
One evening, as usual, beside their father,
seated near a table on which the mother leaned,
the elder was reading Rollin; the younger, little caring
to learn the great deeds of the Romans or the Parthians,
used all his art, all his faculties,
to join, to support on all four sides
a fragile house of cards.
He scarcely breathed for attention, for fear.
Suddenly here is the reader
who interrupts himself: papa, he says, deign to instruct me
why certain warriors are named conquerors,
and others founders of empire:
are these two names different?
The father was pondering a wise answer,
when his younger son, transported with pleasure,
after so much work, at having managed
to place his second story,
cries out: it is finished! His brother murmuring
grows angry, and with a single blow destroys his long labor;
and there is the younger weeping.
My son, the father then answers,
the founder is your brother,
and you are the conqueror.

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-house-of-cards-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian/