The Old Tree and the Gardener

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

A gardener, in his garden,
had an old barren tree;
it was a large pear tree that once was fertile:
but it had grown old, such is our fate.
The ungrateful gardener wants to cut it down one morning;
there he is taking his axe.
At the first blow the tree says to him:
respect my great age, and remember the fruit
that I gave you each year.
Death is about to seize me, I have only an instant left,
do not murder a dying one
who was your benefactor. I cut you with sorrow,
the gardener replies; but I need wood.
Then, chirping at once,
a hundred nightingales
cry out: spare him, we have no one but him:
when your wife comes to sit beneath his shade,
we delight her with our sweet warbling;
she is often alone, we charm away her boredom.
The gardener drives them off and laughs at their request;
he strikes a second blow. A swarm of bees
comes out of the trunk at once, saying to him: stop,
listen to us, inhuman man:
if you leave us this shelter,
every day we will give you
a delicious honey whose combs you can
carry to town and sell:
does that move you? I weep with tenderness over it,
the miserly gardener replies:
ah! what do I not owe to this poor pear tree
that fed me in its youth?
My wife sometimes comes to hear these birds;
that is enough for me: let them sing in peace.
And you, who will deign to increase my comfort,
for you I will sow flowers all over this plot.
That said, he goes away, sure of his reward,
and lets the old trunk live.
Count on gratitude
when self-interest answers for it.

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-old-tree-and-the-gardener-jean-pierre-claris-de-florian/