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“Begone, you puny insect, excrement of the earth!”
It was in these words that the Lion
Spoke one day to the Gnat.
The other declared war on him.
“Do you think,” he said, “that your title of King
Frightens me or troubles me?
An ox is more powerful than you:
I lead him as I please.”
Scarcely had he finished these words
When he himself sounded the charge,
Was both Trumpeter and Hero.
At first he stands clear;
Then bides his time, swoops on the neck
Of the Lion, whom he nearly drives mad.
The quadruped foams, and his eye flashes;
He roars; all hide, all tremble around him;
And this universal alarm
Is the work of a Gnat.
An abortive Fly harasses him in a hundred places:
Now stings his spine, now his muzzle,
Now enters the depths of his nostril.Then rage reaches its height.
The invisible enemy triumphs, and laughs to see
That there is no claw nor tooth in the angered beast
That does not do its duty to draw blood.
The wretched Lion tears himself apart,
Makes his tail resound around his flanks,
Beats the air, which can do nothing about it; and his extreme fury
Wearies him, brings him down: there he lies, worn out.
The insect withdraws from the combat with glory:
As he sounded the charge, he sounds the victory,
Goes everywhere to announce it, and meets on the way
The ambush of a spider;
There he also meets his end.
What thing can we be taught by this?
I see two, one of which is that among our enemies
The most to be feared are often the smallest;
The other, that from great perils one may have escaped
Who perishes over the slightest matter.
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-lion-and-the-gnat-jean-de-la-fontaine/