XIX. THE USE OF KNOWLEDGE.'
BETWEEN two citizens
A controversy grew.
The one was poor, but much he knew:
The other, rich, with little sense,
Claim'd that, in point of excellence,
The merely wice should bow the knee
To all such money'd men as he.
The merely fools, he should have said;
For why should wealth hold up its head,
When merit from its side hath fled ?
'My friend,' quoth Bloated-purse,
To his reverse,
"You think yourself considerable.
Pray, tell me, do you keep a table?
What comes of this incessant reading,
In point of lodging, clothing, feeding?
It gives one, true, the highest chamber,
One coat for June and for December,
His shadow for his sole attendant,
And hunger always in th' ascendant.
What profits he his country, too,
Who scarcely ever spends a sou—
Will, haply, be a public charge?
Who profits more the state at large,
Than he whose luxuries dispense
Among the people wealth immense ?
We set the streams of life a-flowing;
We set all sorts of trades a-going.
The spinner, weaver, sewer, vender,
And many a wearer, fair and tender,
All live and flourish on the spender-
As do, indeed, the reverend rooks
Who waste their time in making books.'
These words, so full of impudence,
Received their proper recompense.
The man of letters held his peace,
Though much he might have said with ease.
A war avenged him soon and well;
In it their common city fell.
Both fled abroad; the ignorant,
By fortune thus brought down to want,
Was treated everywhere with scorn,
And roamed about, a wretch forlorn;
Whereas the scholar, everywhere,
Was nourish'd by the public care.
Let fools the studious despise ;
There's nothing lost by being wise.
XX.—JUPITER AND THE THUNDERBOLTS.
SAID Jupiter, one day,
As on a cloud he lay,
Observing all our crimes,
Come, let us change the times,
By leasing out anew
A world whose wicked crew
Have wearied out our grace,
And cursed us to our face.
Hie hellward, Mercury;
A Fury bring to me,
The direst of the three.
Race nursed too tenderly,
This day your doom shall be!'
E'en while he spoke their fate,
His wrath began to moderate.
O kings, with whom His will
Hath lodged our good and ill,
Your wrath and storm between
One night should intervene !
The god of rapid wing,
And lip unfaltering,
To sunless regions sped,
And met the sisters dread.
To grim Tisiphone,
And pale Megara, he
Preferr'd, as murderess,
Alecto, pitiless.
This choice so roused the fiend,
By Pluto's beard she swore
The human race no more
Should be by handfuls glean'd,
But in one solid mass
Th' infernal gates should pass.
But Jove, displeased with both
The Fury and her oath,
Despatch'd her back to hell.
And then a bolt he hurl'd,
Down on a faithless world,
Which in a desert fell.
Aim'd by a father's arm,
It caused more fear than harm.
(All fathers strike aside.)
What did from this betide ?
Our evil race grew bold,
Resumed their wicked tricks,
Increased them manifold,
Till, all Olympus through,
Indignant murmurs flew.
When, swearing by the Styx,
The sire that rules the air
Storms promised to prepare
More terrible and dark,
Which should not miss their mark.
'A father's wrath it is!'
The other deities
'All in one voice exclaim'd;
And, might the thing be named,
Some other god would make
Bolts better for our sake.'
This Vulcan undertook.
His rumbling forges shook,
And glow'd with fervent heat,
While Cyclops blew and beat.
Forth from the plastic flame
Two sorts of bolts there came.
Of these, one misses not:
"Tis by Olympus shot,-
That is, the gods at large.
The other, bearing wide,
Hits mountain-top or side,
Or makes a cloud its targe.
And this it is alone
Which leaves the father's throne.
XXI.—THE FALCON AND THE CAPON.'
You often hear a sweet seductive call:
If wise, you haste towards it not at all ;-
And, if you heed my apologue,
You act like John de Nivelle's dog.2
A capon, citizen of Mans,
Was summon'd from a throng
To answer to the village squire,
Before tribunal call'd the fire.
The matter to disguise
The kitchen sheriff wise
Cried, Biddy-Biddy-Biddy !—'
But not a moment did he
This Norman and a half 3
The smooth official trust.
'Your bait,' said he, 'is dust,
And I'm too old for chaff.'
Meantime, a falcon, on his perch,
Observed the flight and search.
'In the Bidpaii Fables it is "The Falcon and the Cock."
2 John de Nivelle's dog.-A dog which, according to the French proverb, ran away when his master called him.-TRANSLATOR.
3 This Norman and a half.-Though the Normans are proverbial for their shrewdness, the French have, nevertheless, a proverb that they come to Paris to be hanged. Hence La Fontaine makes his capon, who knew how to shun a similar fate, le Normand et demi-the Norman and a half.-TRANSLATOR.
In man, by instinct or experience,
have so little confidence,
That this was not without much trouble caught, Though for a splendid supper sought.
To lie, the morrow night,
In brilliant candle-light,
Supinely on a dish
'Midst viands, fowl, and fish,
With all the ease that heart could wish-
This honour, from his master kind,
The fowl would gladly have declined.
Outcried the bird of chase,
As in the weeds he eyed the skulker's face,
'Why, what a stupid, blockhead race!-
Such witless, brainless fools
Might well defy the schools.
I understand
To chase at word
The swiftest bird,
Aloft, o'er sea or land;
At slightest beck,
Returning quick
To perch upon my master's hand.
There, at his window he
appears-
He waits thee-haston-hast no ears?'
'Ah! that I have,' the fowl replied;
'But what from master might betide?
Or cook, with cleaver at his side ?
Return you may for such a call,
But let me fly their fatal hall;
And spare your mirth at my expense :
Whate'er I lack, 'tis not the sense
To know that all this sweet-toned breath
Is spent to lure me to my death.
you had seen upon the spit
As many of the falcons roast
As I have of the capon host,
You would not thus reproach my wit.'
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