The Trial of the Two Foxes

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

How I hate that pedantic art,
that captious logic,
which turns a clear thing into a doubtful one,
from an erroneous principle subtly draws
a deceptive consequence,
and reasons by reasoning wrongly!
The Greeks invented this fine manner.
They did more harm than they thought they were doing.
May God grant them peace! The matter concerns a fox,
a great arguer, a famous babbler,
and who taught rhetoric.
He kept a public school,
had pupils who paid in chickens.
One of them, destined to plead in the courts,
was to pay his master at the first case
that he would win: thus the matter
had been settled on both sides.
His course being finished, my fox pupil
brings a lawsuit against his master,
saying that he owes nothing. Before the leopard
the two go to appear.
My lord, said the pupil,
if I win, it is clear, I owe nothing;
if I lose, his claim is void:
for it is agreed that the due date
was to arrive only after
the winning of my first case;
now, that case lost, I am quits, I think:
my dilemma is certain. No indeed,
replied the master at once:
if you lose, pay, the law so orders;
if you win, without further delay,
pay, for you have signed
a promise to pay at the first suit won:
there you have it. I believe the argument unanswerable.
Everyone then waits for the judge to pronounce,
and the audience was astonished
that he did not throw his cap into it.
The thoughtful leopard finally spoke:
Out of court, he told them; forbidden to the pupil
to continue his trade,
to the master to keep school.

Florian

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

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