The Peasant of the Danube

The Peasant of the Danube by Jean de La Fontaine

The fable warns against judging a person by outward appearance through the example of a rough-looking peasant from the banks of the Danube. Hairy, ill-clothed, squint-eyed, and seemingly savage, he is nevertheless chosen to speak for towns oppressed by Roman avarice. Before the Roman senate, he invokes the gods and accuses Rome of becoming powerful through the crimes of those it has conquered rather than through its own valour. He warns that Heaven may one day arm Rome’s victims against it. The peasant asks what right Rome has to disturb peoples who once cultivated their land and practised their arts in peace. He condemns Roman praetors for profaning altars, plundering both gods and men, and pursuing gain so greedily that neither human labour nor nature can satisfy them. He declares that the oppressed people are abandoning their fields, homes, wives, and children to flee into the mountains and live among wild beasts rather than produce future prey for Rome. Roman rule, he says, drives parents to wish even for their children’s short lives. He urges the senate to recall its officials, who teach luxury, vice, and merciless avarice. He further charges that justice in Rome is inaccessible to anyone unable to offer gifts or purple to judges, since legal officers create endless obstacles for the poor. Though he expects his frankness may bring death, the peasant finishes his complaint without fear. The senate admires his powerful thought, eloquence, and courage. He is knighted, the corrupt praetors are removed and replaced by better men, and the senate asks for a copy of his speech as a model for future speakers.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1678 · Genre: Fable, Satire, Political Satire · 1,253 words

First lines

To judge no man by outside view, / Is good advice, though not quite new. / Some time ago a mouse's fright / Upon this moral shed some light. / I have for proof at present, / With, Aesop and good Socrates,[1] / Of Danube's banks a certain peasant, / Whose portrait drawn to life, one sees, / By Marc Aurelius, if you please. / The first are well known, far and near: / I briefly sketch the other here. / The crop upon his fertile chin / Was anything but soft or thin; / Indeed, his person, clothed in hair, / Might personate an unlick'd bear. / Beneath his matted brow there lay / An eye that squinted every way; / A crooked nose and monstrous lips he bore, / And goat-skin round his trunk he wore, / With bulrush belt. And such a man as this is / Was delegate from towns the Danube kisses, / When not a nook on earth there linger'd / By Roman avarice not finger'd. / Before the senate thus he spoke: -- / 'Romans and senators who hear, / I, first of all, the gods invoke, / The powers whom mortals justly fear, / That from my tongue there may not fall / A word which I may need recall. / Without their aid there enters nought / To human hearts of good or just: / Whoever leaves the same unsought, / Is prone to violate his trust; / The prey of Roman avarice, / Ourselves are witnesses of this. / Rome, by our crimes, our scourge has grown, / More than by valour of her own. / Romans, beware lest Heaven, some day, / Exact for all our groans the pay, / And, arming us, by just reverse, / To do its vengeance, stern, but meet, / Shall pour on you the vassal's curse, / And place your necks beneath our feet! / And wherefore not? For are you better / Than hundreds of the tribes diverse / Who clank the galling Roman fetter? / What right gives you the universe? / Why come and mar our quiet life? / We till'd our acres free from strife; / In arts our hands were skill'd to toil, / As well as o'er the generous soil. / What have you taught the Germans brave? / Apt scholars, had but they / Your appetite for sway, / They might, instead of you, enslave, / Without your inhumanity. / That which your praetors perpetrate / On us, as subjects of your state, / My powers would fail me to relate. / Profaned their altars and their rites, / The pity of your gods our lot excites. / Thanks to your representatives, / In you they see but shameless thieves, / Who plunder gods as well as men. / By sateless avarice insane, / The men that rule our land from this / Are like the bottomless abyss. / To satisfy their lust of gain, / Both man and nature toil in vain. / Recall them; for indeed we will / Our fields for such no longer till. / From all our towns and plains we fly / For refuge to our mountains high. / We quit our homes and tender wives, / To lead with savage beasts our lives -- / No more to welcome into day / A progeny for Rome a prey. / And as to those already born -- / Poor helpless babes forlorn! -- / We wish them short career in time: / Your praetors force us to the crime. / Are they our teachers? Call them home, -- / They teach but luxury and vice, -- / Lest Germans should their likes become, / In fell remorseless avarice. / Have we a remedy at Rome? / I'll tell you here how matters go. / Hath one no present to bestow, / No purple for a judge or so, / The laws for him are deaf and dumb; / Their minister has aye in store / A thousand hindrances or more. / I'm sensible that truths like these / Are not the things to please. / I've done. Let death avenge you here / Of my complaint, a little too sincere.'

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French fable · verse narrative · Roman Empire · Roman Senate · Danube frontier · Germanic provinces · imperial oppression · Roman avarice · corrupt praetors · colonial exploitation · political satire · social injustice

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The Peasant of the Danube is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1678 CE.

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