Fables of La Fontaine — Fables CXLIX and CL
FABLE CXLIX.
THE MAN AND THE FLEA.
People pray to and weary the gods, now and then, About trifles unworthy to interest men;
Thinking Providence cruel unless it contrives To design to their likings the whole of their lives.
Why believe that Olympus should study us more Than it studied the Greeks and the Trojans of yore?
A gaby was bit on the shoulder, one night, By a Flea, which took refuge instanter in flight.
"O Hercules, Hercules, prithee come down, And exterminate Fleas!"
cried the suppliant clown.
"O Jupiter, strike with your lightning the beasts, And avenge me on them and their horrible feasts!"
To punish a Flea, 'twould be rather a wonder If gods went to work with their clubs and their thunder.
FABLE CL.
THE WOMAN AND THE SECRET.
A secret is a dreadful weighty thing: Few women carry secrets very far;
And this remark doth to my memory bring Some men, too, born beneath the female star.
To try his wife, a husband one night cried, "Ye gods, I perish!
spare me, spare, I pray: For, lo!
I have just laid an egg."
"An egg?"
she sighed.
"Here it is--newly laid: but do not say A single word, or they will call me 'hen.'
Be silent, darling."
Then, in full belief, She swore by all the gods to keep all men Quite in the dark, so she assured her chief.
But with the shadows pass those words of hers.
Foolish and indiscreet, at earliest dawn, She seeks her neighbour, and she thus avers: "My gossip, such a thing took place last night!
You must say nothing, or I shall be beat.
My husband laid an egg, yes, large and white.
And big as any four; but don't repeat, In Heaven's name, nor mention anywhere This strange occurrence."
"Now, I see you mock," The other said.
"What!
mention the affair!
You know me not.
Go, I am like a rock!"
The hen's wife hastened homeward presently;
The other spreads the tale in twenty places.
The one big egg she quickly turns to three;
Nor was this all: to many startled faces Another chatterer makes the number four.
Whispering is no more needful--all is known.
Before the day was over there had flown A rumour that the man had forty score Of chickens of his own all cackling round his door.
[Illustration: TIRCIS AND AMARANTH.
] FABLE CLI.
TIRCIS AND AMARANTH.
