The Old Man and the Three Young Ones

The Old Man and the Three Young Ones

An eighty-year-old man plants trees while three young men mock him for undertaking work whose fruits and shade he may never enjoy. They tell him to leave long-term hopes and plans to the young and to think instead of his past errors. The old man, healthy and firm, answers that youth gives no security against death. Since no one knows who will live longest or see another day, the future is equally uncertain for all. He explains that his descendants will benefit from the trees’ fruit and cooling shade, and that serving the happiness of others is itself a present reward. He says he may live long enough to enjoy the trees himself, perhaps even to see the young men die before him. His words prove true. One youth drowns in the harbour while setting out to visit foreign lands. Another dies from a random blow while seeking honour at court and encountering his country’s enemy. The third falls to his death from a tree he intended to graft. The old man mourns them and has monuments made for them, inscribed with the lesson of doing good.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1678 · Genre: Fable, Moral Literature, Didactic Poetry · 576 words

First lines

A man was planting at fourscore. / Three striplings, who their satchels wore, / 'In building,' cried, 'the sense were more; / But then to plant young trees at that age! / The man is surely in his dotage. / Pray, in the name of common sense, / What fruit can he expect to gather / Of all this labour and expense? / Why, he must live like Lamech's father! / What use for thee, grey-headed man, / To load the remnant of thy span / With care for days that never can be thine? / Thyself to thought of errors past resign. / Long-growing hope, and lofty plan, / Leave thou to us, to whom such things belong. ' / 'To you! ' replied the old man, hale and strong; / 'I dare pronounce you altogether wrong. / The settled part of man's estate / Is very brief, and comes full late. / To those pale, gaming sisters trine, / Your lives are stakes as well as mine. / While so uncertain is the sequel, / Our terms of future life are equal; / For none can tell who last shall close his eyes / Upon the glories of these azure skies; / Nor any moment give us, ere it flies, / Assurance that another such shall rise, / But my descendants, whosoe'er they be, / Shall owe these cooling fruits and shades to me. / Do you acquit yourselves, in wisdom's sight, / From ministering to other hearts delight? / Why, boys, this is the fruit I gather now; / And sweeter never blush'd on bended bough. / Of this, to-morrow, I may take my fill; / Indeed, I may enjoy its sweetness till / I see full many mornings chase the glooms / From off the marble of your youthful tombs. ' / The grey-beard man was right. One of the three, / Embarking, foreign lands to see, / Was drown'd within the very port. / In quest of dignity at court, / Another met his country's foe, / And perish'd by a random blow. / The third was kill'd by falling from a tree / Which he himself would graft. The three / Were mourn'd by him of hoary head, / Who chisel'd on each monument -- / On doing good intent -- / The things which we have said.[1]

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French fable · verse narrative · seventeenth-century literature · moral allegory · old age · youth and age · planting trees · generational legacy · posterity · selfless service · doing good · mortality

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The Old Man and the Three Young Ones is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1678 CE.

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