The Scythian Philosopher by Jean de La Fontaine

A Scythian philosopher travels through Greece and meets a calm, rustic sage whose small plot of land prospers under his care. The Scythian finds the man pruning his fruit trees, cutting barren branches and removing excess growth. Shocked, he calls the work needless violence and urges him to leave the trees to time and nature. The gardener explains that he removes only what is excessive so that the remaining branches may become more fruitful. After returning to his cold country, the Scythian adopts the gardener’s practice but applies it without judgment. He prunes his orchard freely and severely, advises friends and neighbours to do likewise, and spares not even the finest branches. Ignoring proper times and seasons, he destroys the trees until they wither, droop, and die. The poet compares this Scythian to the undiscriminating Stoic, who cuts away every desire and passion from the human spirit, whether harmful or harmless. Such severity, the poet argues, mutilates the heart, dulls its strongest and perhaps best impulses, and makes people cease living before death.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1693 · Genre: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Philosophical Satire · 515 words

First lines

A Scythian philosopher austere, / Resolved his rigid life somewhat to cheer, / Perform'd the tour of Greece, saw many things, / But, best, a sage, -- one such as Virgil sings, -- / A simple, rustic man, that equal'd kings; / From whom, the gods would hardly bear the palm; / Like them unawed, content, and calm. / His fortune was a little nook of land; / And there the Scythian found him, hook in hand, / His fruit-trees pruning. Here he cropp'd / A barren branch, there slash'd and lopp'd, / Correcting Nature everywhere, / Who paid with usury his care. / 'Pray, why this wasteful havoc, sir? ' -- / So spoke the wondering traveller; / 'Can it, I ask, in reason's name, / Be wise these harmless trees to maim? / Fling down that instrument of crime, / And leave them to the scythe of Time. / Full soon, unhasten'd, they will go / To deck the banks of streams below. ' / Replied the tranquil gardener, / 'I humbly crave your pardon, sir; / Excess is all my hook removes, / By which the rest more fruitful proves. ' / The philosophic traveller, -- / Once more within his country cold, -- / Himself of pruning-hook laid hold, / And made a use most free and bold; / Prescribed to friends, and counsel'd neighbours / To imitate his pruning labours. / The finest limbs he did not spare, / But pruned his orchard past all reason, / Regarding neither time nor season, / Nor taking of the moon a care. / All wither'd, droop'd, and died.

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Genres

• Fable — The work is a brief moral tale in which a Scythian philosopher misunderstands a gardener's prudent pruning, producing a cautionary outcome and an explicit lesson about Stoicism.
• Didactic Poetry — Written in verse, the poem aims to teach a philosophical and ethical lesson: the repression of every desire and passion can be as destructive as indiscriminate pruning.
• Philosophical Satire — La Fontaine uses the Scythian's disastrous imitation of gardening to criticize extreme Stoic self-denial and its attempt to eliminate both harmful and harmless emotions.
• Allegory — The orchard and its pruning operate allegorically: branches represent human desires and passions, while excessive cutting represents rigid philosophical asceticism.

Tags

French fable · verse fable · seventeenth-century literature · ancient Greece · Scythia · Scythian philosopher · Stoicism · critique of Stoicism · gardening · orchard pruning · fruit trees · rustic sage

What this Textopian page supports

The Scythian Philosopher is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1693 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: 1693 CE
• Language: English
• Genres: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Philosophical Satire, Allegory, Moral Poetry
• Length: 515 words
• Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
• Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

Good citation fit

• Work identity for The Scythian Philosopher by Jean de La Fontaine
• Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
• Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
• Readability and classroom-planning context
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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