The Thieves and the Ass

Fable by Jean De La Fontaine Collection The FablesThemes Politics, WarPeriod 17th century

Two Thieves, disputing for a stolen Ass,
One wished to keep the prize, the other wished to sell.
While fists were flying fast and thick,
And while our champions thought to guard their claim,
A third accomplice happens by
And seizes Master Long-Ears for his own.
An Ass is sometimes a poor province.
The thieves are such and such a prince,
Like the Transylvanian, the Turk, and the Hungarian.
Instead of two, I have met with three:
There is enough of this merchandise.
By none of them is the Province often won:
A quarter of a Thief comes up, who settles them outright
By seizing the poor Donkey.

Jean de La Fontaine

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

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