The Man and the Adder by Jean de La Fontaine

'You villain! ' cried a man who found / An adder coil'd upon the ground, / 'To do a very grateful deed / For all the world, I shall proceed. ' / On this the animal perverse / (I mean the snake; / Pray don't mistake / The human for the worse) / Was caught and bagg'd, and, worst of all, / His blood was by his captor to be spilt / Without regard to innocence or guilt. / Howe'er, to show the why, these words let fall / His judge and jailor, proud and tall: -- / 'Thou type of all ingratitude! / All charity to hearts like thine / Is folly, certain to be rued. / Die, then, / Thou foe of men! / Thy temper and thy teeth malign / Shall never hurt a hair of mine. ' / The muffled serpent, on his side, / The best a serpent could, replied, -- / 'If all this world's ingrates / Must meet with such a death, / Who from this worst of fates / Could save his breath? / Upon thyself thy law recoils; / I throw myself upon thy broils, / Thy graceless revelling on spoils; / If thou but homeward cast an eye, / Thy deeds all mine will justify. / But strike: my life is in thy hand; / Thy justice, all may understand, / Is but thy interest, pleasure, or caprice: -- / Pronounce my sentence on such laws as these. / But give me leave to tell thee, while I can, / The type of all ingratitude is man. ' / By such a lecture somewhat foil'd, / The other back a step recoil'd, / And finally replied, -- / 'Thy reasons are abusive, / And wholly inconclusive. / I might the case decide / Because to me such right belongs; / But let's refer the case of wrongs. ' / The snake agreed; they to a cow referr'd it. / Who, being called, came graciously and heard it. / Then, summing up, 'What need,' said she, / 'In such a case, to call on me? / The adder's right, plain truth to bellow; / For years I've nursed this haughty fellow, / Who, but for me, had long ago / Been lodging with the shades below. / For him my milk has had to flow, / My calves, at tender age, to die. / And for this best of wealth, / And often reëstablished health, / What pay, or even thanks, have I? / Here, feeble, old, and worn, alas! / I'm left without a bite of grass. / Were I but left, it might be weather'd, / But, shame to say it, I am tether'd. / And now my fate is surely sadder / Than if my master were an adder, / With brains within the latitude / Of such immense ingratitude. / This, gentles, is my honest view; / And so I bid you both adieu. ' / The man, confounded and astonish'd / To be so faithfully admonish'd, / Replied, 'What fools to listen, now, / To this old, silly, dotard cow! / Let's trust the ox. ' 'Let's trust,' replied / The crawling beast, well gratified. / So said, so done; / The ox, with tardy pace, came on / And, ruminating o'er the case, / Declared, with very serious face, / That years of his most painful toil / Had clothed with Ceres' gifts our soil -- / Her gifts to men -- but always sold / To beasts for higher cost than gold; / And that for this, for his reward, / More blows than thanks return'd his lord; / And then, when age had chill'd his blood, / And men would quell the wrath of Heaven, / Out must be pour'd the vital flood, / For others' sins, all thankless given. / So spake the ox; and then the man: -- / 'Away with such a dull declaimer! / Instead of judge, it is his plan / To play accuser and defamer. ' / A tree was next the arbitrator, / And made the wrong of man still greater. / It served as refuge from the heat, / The showers, and storms which madly beat; / It grew our gardens' greatest pride, / Its shadow spreading far and wide, / And bow'd itself with fruit beside: / But yet a mercenary clown / With cruel iron chopp'd it down. / Behold the recompense for which, / Year after year, it did enrich, / With spring's sweet flowers, and autumn's fruits, / And summer's shade, both men and brutes, / And warm'd the hearth with many a limb / Which winter from its top did trim! / Why could not man have pruned and spared, / And with itself for ages shared? -- / Much scorning thus to be convinced, / The man resolved his cause to gain. / Quoth he, 'My goodness is evinced / By hearing this, 'tis very plain; ' / Then flung the serpent bag and all, / With fatal force, against a wall.

So ever is it with the great, / With whom the whim doth always run, / That Heaven all creatures doth create / For their behoof beneath the sun -- / Count they four feet, or two, or none. / If one should dare the fact dispute, / He's straight set down a stupid brute. / Now, grant it so, -- such lords among, / What should be done, or said, or sung? / At distance speak, or hold your tongue.[1]