The Miser who had Lost his Treasure

The Miser who had Lost his Treasure

The fable argues that possession has value only through use, since a miser who gathers wealth without spending it lives like a beggar. A man with a great estate buries his cash beneath the ground, treating it as a sacred treasure and visiting it constantly, though he appears poor in eating, drinking, and travel. A ditcher notices these visits, discovers the hidden deposit, and steals it. When the miser finds the hiding place empty, he wails, groans, and tears his hair. A passing man learns that the gold was buried under a stone and points out that, since the miser never touched it, replacing the stone will serve him just as well as the money did.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1668 · Genre: Fable, Didactic Literature, Moral Tale · 635 words

First lines

'Tis use that constitutes possession. / I ask that sort of men, whose passion / It is to get and never spend, / Of all their toil what is the end? / What they enjoy of all their labours / Which do not equally their neighbours? / Throughout this upper mortal strife, / The miser leads a beggar's life. / Old Aesop's man of hidden treasure / May serve the case to demonstrate. / He had a great estate, / But chose a second life to wait / Ere he began to taste his pleasure. / This man, whom gold so little bless'd, / Was not possessor, but possess'd. / His cash he buried under ground, / Where only might his heart be found; / It being, then, his sole delight / To ponder of it day and night, / And consecrate his rusty pelf, / A sacred offering, to himself. / In all his eating, drinking, travel, / Most wondrous short of funds he seem'd; / One would have thought he little dream'd / Where lay such sums beneath the gravel. / A ditcher mark'd his coming to the spot, / So frequent was it, / And thus at last some little inkling got / Of the deposit. / He took it all, and babbled not. / One morning, ere the dawn, / Forth had our miser gone / To worship what he loved the best, / When, lo! he found an empty nest! / Alas! what groaning, wailing, crying! / What deep and bitter sighing! / His torment makes him tear / Out by the roots his hair. / A passenger demandeth why / Such marvellous outcry. / 'They've got my gold! it's gone -- it's gone! ' / 'Your gold! pray where? ' -- 'Beneath this stone. ' / 'Why, man, is this a time of war, / That you should bring your gold so far? / You'd better keep it in your drawer; / And I'll be bound, if once but in it, / You could have got it any minute. ' / 'At any minute! Ah, Heaven knows / That cash comes harder than it goes! / I touch'd it not. ' -- 'Then have the grace / To explain to me that rueful face,' / Replied the man; 'for, if 'tis true / You touch'd it not, how plain the case, / That, put the stone back in its place, / And all will be as well for you! '[1]

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fable · verse narrative · moral allegory · French classical literature · seventeenth-century literature · Aesopic tradition · miser · avarice · greed · hidden treasure · buried gold · wealth without use

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The Miser who had Lost his Treasure is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1668 CE.

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