Democritus and the People of Abdera

Democritus and the People of Abdera

Jean de La Fontaine condemns vulgar opinion for distorting truth according to its own childish and unjust notions. He presents Democritus as a wise man judged mad by his fellow citizens of Abdera, while the truly deluded multitude believes lies. Alarmed by his studies, the people send messengers to Hippocrates, begging him to cure Democritus. They complain that he imagines innumerable worlds, perhaps inhabited by beings as wise as themselves; that he fills his mind with invisible atoms possessing immortal life; and that he studies the stars and the universe while supposedly failing to understand himself. They add that he has become silent after once enjoying conversation. Hippocrates doubts their account but goes to see Democritus. He finds him calmly seated in the shade beside murmuring brooks, absorbed in investigating where reason resides in animals: in the head, the heart, or elsewhere. Democritus studies the convolutions of a brain, surrounded by writings of sages on the soul, and is initially too intent on his work to notice his visitor. When the two meet, they exchange brief courtesies and immediately turn to serious discussion of human life, the soul, and the laws governing mankind, ranging from physical to moral questions. Their learned conversation demonstrates that Democritus is not mad and that the people who condemned him understand little. The poem ends by questioning the proverb that calls the people’s voice the voice of God.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1678 · Genre: Fable, Verse Fable, Satire · 793 words

First lines

How do I hate the tide of vulgar thought! / Profane, unjust, with childish folly fraught; / It breaks and bends the rays of truth divine, / And by its own conceptions measures mine. / Famed Epicurus' master[1] tried / The power of this unstable tide. / His country said the sage was mad -- / The simpletons! But why? / No prophet ever honour had / Beneath his native sky. / Democritus, in truth, was wise; / The mass were mad, with faith in lies. / So far this error went, / That all Abdera sent / To old Hippocrates / To cure the sad disease. / 'Our townsman,' said the messengers, / Appropriately shedding tears, / 'Hath lost his wits! Democritus, / By study spoil'd, is lost to us. / Were he but fill'd with ignorance, / We should esteem him less a dunce. / He saith that worlds like this exist, / An absolutely endless list, -- / And peopled, even, it may be, / With countless hosts as wise as we! / But, not contented with such dreams, / His brain with viewless "atoms" teems, / Instinct with deathless life, it seems. / And, never stirring from the sod below, / He weighs and measures all the stars; / And, while he knows the universe, / Himself he doth not know. / Though now his lips he strictly bars, / He once delighted to converse. / Come, godlike mortal, try thy art divine / Where traits of worst insanity combine! ' / Small faith the great physician lent, / But still, perhaps more readily, he went. / And mark what meetings strange / Chance causes in this world of change! / Hippocrates arrived in season, / Just as his patient (void of reason! ) / Was searching whether reason's home, / In talking animals and dumb, / Be in the head, or in the heart, / Or in some other local part. / All calmly seated in the shade, / Where brooks their softest music made, / He traced, with study most insane, / The convolutions of a brain; / And at his feet lay many a scroll -- / The works of sages on the soul. / Indeed, so much absorb'd was he, / His friend, at first, he did not see. / A pair so admirably match'd, / Their compliments erelong despatch'd. / In time and talk, as well as dress, / The wise are frugal, I confess. / Dismissing trifles, they began / At once with eagerness to scan / The life, and soul, and laws of man; / Nor stopp'd till they had travell'd o'er all / The ground, from, physical to moral. / My time and space would fail / To give the full detail.

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French fable · verse satire · classical antiquity · Abdera · ancient Greece · Democritus · Hippocrates · Epicurean philosophy · atomism · multiple worlds · science and reason · madness and sanity

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Democritus and the People of Abdera is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1678 CE.

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