The Burier and his Comrade

A miser, unable to keep his growing hoard at home and unwilling to trust a banker, decides to bury his money in the earth with the help of his most trusted friend, a shovel-bearing companion. Though the poem observes that wealth is valuable only when one can share or spend it, the miser hides his treasure and soon returns to find it gone. Suspecting his friend, he tells him that he has more coins to add to the buried store. Hoping to steal these as well, the friend replaces the money he took and hastens back. The miser then carries the entire treasure home, having learned to save himself by spending or using his wealth rather than hoarding or burying it. The thief is left humiliated, and the poem concludes that knaves are easily deceived.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1678 · Genre: Fable, Moral Literature, Verse Narrative · 574 words

First lines

A close-fist had his money hoarded / Beyond the room his till afforded. / His avarice aye growing ranker, / (Whereby his mind of course grew blanker,) / He was perplex'd to choose a banker; / For banker he must have, he thought, / Or all his heap would come to nought. / 'I fear,' said he, 'if kept at home, / And other robbers should not come, / It might be equal cause of grief / That I had proved myself the thief. ' / The thief! Is to enjoy one's pelf / To rob or steal it from one's self? / My friend, could but my pity reach you, / This lesson I would gladly teach you, / That wealth is weal no longer than / Diffuse and part with it you can: / Without that power, it is a woe. / Would you for age keep back its flow? / Age buried 'neath its joyless snow? / With pains of getting, care of got / Consumes the value, every jot, / Of gold that one can never spare. / To take the load of such a care, / Assistants were not very rare. / The earth was that which pleased him best. / Dismissing thought of all the rest, / He with his friend, his trustiest, -- / A sort of shovel-secretary, -- / Went forth his hoard to bury. / Safe done, a few days afterward, / The man must look beneath the sward -- / When, what a mystery! behold / The mine exhausted of its gold! / Suspecting, with the best of cause, / His friend was privy to his loss, / He bade him, in a cautious mood, / To come as soon as well he could, / For still some other coins he had, / Which to the rest he wish'd to add. / Expecting thus to get the whole, / The friend put back the sum he stole, / Then came with all despatch. / The other proved an overmatch: / Resolved at length to save by spending, / His practice thus most wisely mending, / The total treasure home he carried -- / No longer hoarded it or buried. / Chapfallen was the thief, when gone / He saw his prospects and his pawn.

• Open reader

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Genres

• Fable — The poem presents a brief illustrative tale involving a miser, a thief, and a clear concluding moral: deceitful people can themselves be deceived.
• Moral Literature — Its central purpose is didactic, condemning avarice, useless hoarding, and dishonest conduct while advocating the sensible use of wealth.
• Verse Narrative — The work tells a complete sequence of events through rhymed poetic lines rather than prose narration.
• Satire — It humorously ridicules the miser's irrational obsession with buried money and the thief's expectation of profiting from dishonesty.

Tags

French fable · seventeenth-century literature · verse narrative · moral tale · satirical tone · avarice · miserliness · hoarded wealth · buried treasure · gold coins · theft · betrayal of trust

What this Textopian page supports

The Burier and his Comrade is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1678 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

• Work type: Fable
• Author: Jean de La Fontaine
• Date: 1678 CE
• Language: English
• Genres: Fable, Moral Literature, Verse Narrative, Satire, Didactic Poetry
• Length: 574 words
• Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
• Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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• Work identity for The Burier and his Comrade by Jean de La Fontaine
• Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
• Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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More by Jean de La Fontaine

• To Monseigneur the Dauphin (1668)
• The Grasshopper and the Ant (1668)
• The Raven and the Fox (1668)
• The Frog that Wished to be as Big as the Ox (1668)
• The Two Mules (1668)
• The Wolf and the Dog (1668)
• The Heifer, the Goat, and the Sheep, in Company with the Lion (1668)
• The Wallet (1668)
• All works by Jean de La Fontaine