The Old Woman and her Two Servants

Name: The Old Woman and her Two Servants
Author: Jean de La Fontaine

An old woman employs two highly skilled maid-servants who spin from dawn onward, driving them relentlessly to their work. Each morning a punctual cock crows at daybreak, waking the old woman, who immediately rouses the exhausted servants. Resenting the bird’s call, the maids decide to kill it, hoping to gain more sleep. But after they cut its throat, their condition worsens: the anxious old woman, fearing that she will oversleep, begins waking them even earlier herself. Their attempt to escape one hardship thus leads them into a greater one.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1668 · Genre: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Narrative Poetry · 403 words

First lines

A beldam kept two spinning maids, / Who plied so handily their trades, / Those spinning sisters down below / Were bunglers when compared with these. / No care did this old woman know / But giving tasks as she might please. / No sooner did the god of day / His glorious locks enkindle, / Than both the wheels began to play, / And from each whirling spindle / Forth danced the thread right merrily, / And back was coil'd unceasingly. / Soon as the dawn, I say, its tresses show'd, / A graceless cock most punctual crow'd. / The beldam roused, more graceless yet, / In greasy petticoat bedight, / Struck up her farthing light, / And then forthwith the bed beset, / Where deeply, blessedly did snore / Those two maid-servants tired and poor. / One oped an eye, an arm one stretch'd, / And both their breath most sadly fetch'd, / This threat concealing in the sigh -- / 'That cursed cock shall surely die! ' / And so he did: -- they cut his throat, / And put to sleep his rousing note. / And yet this murder mended not / The cruel hardship of their lot; / For now the twain were scarce in bed / Before they heard the summons dread. / The beldam, full of apprehension / Lest oversleep should cause detention, / Ran like a goblin through her mansion. / Thus often, when one thinks / To clear himself from ill, / His effort only sinks / Him in the deeper still. / The beldam, acting for the cock, / Was Scylla for Charybdis' rock.[1]

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Genres

Fable — The poem is a short moral tale in the Aesopic tradition: the servants' attempt to solve their problem by killing the cock makes their condition worse, and the ending explicitly states the lesson.
Didactic Poetry — Its central purpose is instruction, warning that attempts to escape one hardship can produce a greater one.
Narrative Poetry — The work tells a complete, compact story through verse, with characters, action, conflict, consequence, and a concluding moral.
Moral Tale — The plot illustrates a practical ethical lesson about unintended consequences, poor judgment, and misdirected action.

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The Old Woman and her Two Servants is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1668 CE.

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Work type: Fable
Author: Jean de La Fontaine
Date: 1668 CE
Language: English
Genres: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Moral Tale, Satire
Length: 403 words
Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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