Fables of La Fontaine — Fables XXXI and XXXII
FABLE XXXI.
THE ASTROLOGER WHO LET HIMSELF FALL INTO THE WELL.
To an Astrologer, who by a blunder Fell in a well, said one, "You addle-head, Blind half an inch before your nose, I wonder How you can read the planets overhead."
This small adventure, not to go beyond, A useful lesson to most men may be;
How few there are at times who are not fond Of giving reins to their credulity, Holding that men can read, In times of need, The solemn Book of Destiny, That book, of which old Homer sung, What was the ancient <i>chance</i>, in common sense, but modern Providence?
Chance that has always bid defiance To laws and schemes of human science.
If it were otherwise, a single glance Would tell us there could be no fortune and no chance.
All things uncertain;
Who can lift the curtain?
Who knows the will of the Supreme?
He who made all, and all with a design;
Who but himself can know them?
who can dream He reads the thoughts of the Divine, Did God imprint upon the star or cloud The secrets that the night of Time enshroud, In darkness hid?
--only to rack the brains Of those who write on what each sphere contains.
To help us shun inevitable woes, And sadden pleasure long before its close;
Teaching us prematurely to destroy, And turn to evil every coming joy, This is an error, nay, it is a crime.
The firmament rolls on, the stars have destined time.
The sun gives light by day, And drives the shadows of the night away.
Yet what can we deduce but that the will Divine Bids them rise and bids them shine, To lure the seasons on, to ripen every seed, To shed soft influence on men;
What has an ordered universe to do indeed, With chance, that is beyond our ken.
Horoscope-makers, cheats, and quacks.
On Europe's princes turn your backs, And carry with you every bellows-working alchymist: You are as bad as they, I wist.
-- But I am wandering greatly, as I think, Let's turn to him whom Fate forced deep to drink.
Besides the vanity of his deceitful art, He is the type of those who at chimeras gape, Forgetting danger's simpler shape, And troubles that before us and behind us start.
[Illustration: THE HARE AND THE FROGS.
] FABLE XXXII.
THE HARE AND THE FROGS.
One day sat dreaming in his form a Hare, (And what but dream could one do there?
) With melancholy much perplexed (With grief this creature's often vexed).
"People with nerves are to be pitied, And often with their dumps are twitted;
Can't even eat, or take their pleasure;
Ennui," he said, "torments their leisure.
See how I live: afraid to sleep, My eyes all night I open keep.
'Alter your habits,' some one says;
But Fear can never change its ways: In honest faith shrewd folks can spy, That men have fear as well as I." Thus the Hare reasoned; so he kept Watch day and night, and hardly slept;
Doubtful he was, uneasy ever;
A breath, a shadow, brought a fever.
It was a melancholy creature, The veriest coward in all nature;
A rustling leaf alarmed his soul, He fled towards his secret hole.
Passing a pond, the Frogs leaped in, Scuttling away through thick and thin, To reach their dark asylums in the mud.
"Oh!
oh!"
said he, "then I can make them scud As men make me; my presence scares Some people too!
Why, they're afraid of Hares!
I have alarmed the camp, you see.
Whence comes this courage?
Tremble when I come;
I am a thunderbolt of war, may be;
My footfall dreadful as a battle drum!"
There's no poltroon, be sure, in any place, But he can find a poltroon still more base.
