The Woodman And Mercury.

A poem by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]

To M. The Chevalier De Bouillon.[2]

Your taste has served my work to guide;
To gain its suffrage I have tried.
You'd have me shun a care too nice,
Or beauty at too dear a price,
Or too much effort, as a vice.
My taste with yours agrees:
Such effort cannot please;
And too much pains about the polish
Is apt the substance to abolish;
Not that it would be right or wise
The graces all to ostracize.
You love them much when delicate;
Nor is it left for me to hate.
As to the scope of Aesop's plan,[3]
I fail as little as I can.
If this my rhymed and measured speech
Availeth not to please or teach,
I own it not a fault of mine;
Some unknown reason I assign.
With little strength endued
For battles rough and rude,
Or with Herculean arm to smite,
I show to vice its foolish plight.
In this my talent wholly lies;
Not that it does at all suffice.
My fable sometimes brings to view
The face of vanity purblind
With that of restless envy join'd;
And life now turns upon these pivots two.
Such is the silly little frog
That aped the ox upon her bog.
A double image sometimes shows
How vice and folly do oppose
The ways of virtue and good sense;
As lambs with wolves so grim and gaunt,
The silly fly and frugal ant.
Thus swells my work - a comedy immense -
Its acts unnumber'd and diverse,
Its scene the boundless universe.
Gods, men, and brutes, all play their part
In fields of nature or of art,
And Jupiter among the rest.
Here comes the god who's wont to bear
Jove's frequent errands to the fair,
With winged heels and haste;
But other work's in hand to-day.

A man that labour'd in the wood
Had lost his honest livelihood;
That is to say,
His axe was gone astray.
He had no tools to spare;
This wholly earn'd his fare.
Without a hope beside,
He sat him down and cried,
'Alas, my axe! where can it be?
O Jove! but send it back to me,
And it shall strike good blows for thee.'
His prayer in high Olympus heard,
Swift Mercury started at the word.
'Your axe must not be lost,' said he:
'Now, will you know it when you see?
An axe I found upon the road.'
With that an axe of gold he show'd.
'Is't this?' The woodman answer'd, 'Nay.'
An axe of silver, bright and gay,
Refused the honest woodman too.
At last the finder brought to view
An axe of iron, steel, and wood.
'That's mine,' he said, in joyful mood;
'With that I'll quite contented be.'
The god replied, 'I give the three,
As due reward of honesty.'
This luck when neighbouring choppers knew,
They lost their axes, not a few,
And sent their prayers to Jupiter
So fast, he knew not which to hear.
His winged son, however, sent
With gold and silver axes, went.
Each would have thought himself a fool
Not to have own'd the richest tool.
But Mercury promptly gave, instead
Of it, a blow upon the head.
With simple truth to be contented,
Is surest not to be repented;
But still there are who would
With evil trap the good, -
Whose cunning is but stupid,
For Jove is never dupèd.