Le Soleil et les Grenouilles.

 

Aux noces d'un Tyran tout le Peuple en liesse
Noyait son souci dans les pots.
Esope seul trouvait que les gens étaient sots
De témoigner tant d'allégresse.
Le Soleil, disait-il, eut dessein autrefois
De songer à l'Hyménée.
Aussitôt on ouït d'une commune voix
Se plaindre de leur destinée
Les Citoyennes des Etangs.
Que ferons-nous, s'il lui vient des enfants ?
Dirent-elles au Sort, un seul Soleil à peine
Se peut souffrir. Une demi-douzaine
Mettra la Mer à sec et tous ses habitants.
Adieu joncs et marais : notre race est détruite.
Bientôt on la verra réduite
A l'eau du Styx. Pour un pauvre Animal,
Grenouilles, à mon sens, ne raisonnaient pas mal.

 

 

The Sun and the Frogs. (40)

 

Long from the monarch of the stars
The daughters of the mud received
Support and aid; nor dearth nor wars,
Meanwhile, their teeming nation grieved.
They spread their empire far and wide
Through every marsh, by every tide.
The queens of swamps--I mean no more
Than simply frogs (great names are cheap)--
Caball'd together on the shore,
And cursed their patron from the deep,
And came to be a perfect bore.
Pride, rashness, and ingratitude,
The progeny of fortune good,
Soon brought them to a bitter cry,--
The end of sleep for earth and sky.
Their clamours, if they did not craze,
Would truly seem enough to raise
All living things to mutiny
Against the power of Nature's eye.
The sun,[41] according to their croak,
Was turning all the world to smoke.
It now behoved to take alarm,
And promptly powerful troops to arm.
Forthwith in haste they sent
Their croaking embassies;
To all their states they went,
And all their colonies.
To hear them talk, the all
That rides upon this whirling ball,
Of men and things, was left at stake
Upon the mud that skirts a lake!
The same complaint, in fens and bogs,
Still ever strains their lungs;
And yet these much-complaining frogs
Had better hold their tongues;
For, should the sun in anger rise,
And hurl his vengeance from the skies,
That kingless, half-aquatic crew
Their impudence would sorely rue.

[40] Phaedrus, I., 6. Fable XII., Book VI., gives another version of the same story.
[41] The sun.--This fable has reference to the current troubles between France and the Dutch. Louis XIV. is the sun. He had adopted the sun as his emblem.

Il Sole e le Rane.

 

Le rauche degli stagni abitatrici
al Sol d'ogni soccorso e protezione
andavan debitrici.
Né povertà, né guerra, né disastri,
mercé questo gran re di tutti gli astri,
turbavan degli stagni la nazione.
Queste Rane (chiamandole alla fine
col nome lor non reca disonore),
quest'umide regine
osaron contro il Sol levar le ciglia
e maledire al lor benefattore.

Imprudenza, superbia, ingratitudine,
e quanti mali aduna
dentro i cuori leggieri la fortuna,
fecer tanto gridar questa insolente
razza, che il sonno ne perdé la gente.

Sollevar esse credevano
ogni buona creatura
col gracchiar, col rauco stridere
contro l'occhio di natura.
Chi credeva alle parole,
sgocciolar dovea del Sole
la candela e in un momento
spuntar schiere a cento a cento.
E se un cenno, un piccol passo
ei faceva a quei rumori,
era un correre
di gracchianti ambasciatori,
spaventati
degli stagni per gli Stati.
A sentirle in conclusione
iva il mondo in gran sconquasso
per tre rane cicalone.

Non sperar mai di vedere
che le rane un giorno imparino
l'arte bella di tacere.
Ma se il Sole un dì si mette
sui puntigli, poverette!