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Two Rats were seeking their living; they found an Egg.
Dinner was enough for folk of this kind!
There was no need for them to find an Ox.
Full of appetite and of gladness,
They were going to eat each his share of their egg,
When a certain somebody appeared. It was Master Fox;
An awkward and troublesome encounter.
For how to save the egg? To pack it up well,
Then carry it together with the two front feet,
Or roll it, or drag it,
Was a thing as impossible as it was risky.
Necessity, the ingenious,
Provided them an invention.
As they could reach their dwelling,
The sponger being half a quarter of a league away,
One laid himself on his back, took the egg between his arms,
Then, despite some bumps and some bad steps,
The other dragged him by the tail.
Let someone come and maintain after this, such a tale,
That beasts have no mind.
As for me, if I were the master of it,
I would give them as much as to children.
Do not these think from their earliest years?
So someone can think without being able to know himself.
By an example all equal,
I would attribute to the animal
Not a reason after our manner,
But much more too than a blind impulse:
I would subtilize a piece of matter,
That one could no longer conceive without effort,
Quintessence of atom, extract of light,
I know not what more vivid and more mobile still than fire:
For in the end, if wood makes the flame,
Can the flame, purifying itself, not give us
Some idea of the soul, and does there not come from gold
The entrails of lead? I would make my work
Capable of feeling, judging, nothing more,
And judging imperfectly,
Without a Monkey ever making the least argument.
As regards us other men,
I would make our lot infinitely stronger:
We would have a double treasure;
One this soul like in all—insofar as we are,
Wise, mad, children, idiots,
Hosts of the universe, under the name of animals;
The other yet another soul, between us and the Angels
Common in a certain degree
And this treasure separately created
Would follow among the airs the celestial phalanxes,
Would enter into a point without being pressed by it,
Would never end though having begun:
Real things, though strange.
As long as childhood would last,
This daughter of Heaven in us would appear
Only a tender and feeble light;
The organ being stronger, reason would pierce
The darkness of matter,
Which would always envelop
The other soul, imperfect and coarse.
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-two-rats-the-fox-and-the-egg-jean-de-la-fontaine/