The Women and the Secret by Jean de La Fontaine

There's nothing like a secret weighs; / Too heavy 'tis for women tender; / And, for this matter, in my days, / I've seen some men of female gender.

To prove his wife, a husband cried, / (The night he knew the truth would hide,) / 'O Heavens! What's this? O dear -- I beg -- / I'm torn -- O! O! I've laid an egg! ' / 'An egg? ' 'Why, yes, it's gospel-true. / Look here -- see -- feel it, fresh and new; / But, wife, don't mention it, lest men / Should laugh at me, and call me hen: / Indeed, don't say a word about it. ' / On this, as other matters, green and young, / The wife, all wonder, did not doubt it, / And pledged herself by Heaven to hold her tongue. / Her oath, however, fled the light / As quick as did the shades of night. / Before Dan Phoebus waked to labour / The dame was off to see a neighbour. / 'My friend,' she said, half-whispering. / 'There's come to pass the strangest thing -- / If you should tell, 'twould turn me out of door: -- / My husband's laid an egg as big as four! / As you would taste of heaven's bliss, / Don't tell a living soul of this. ' / 'I tell! why if you knew a thing about me, / You wouldn't for an instant doubt me; / Your confidence I'll ne'er abuse. ' / The layer's wife went home relieved; / The other broil'd to tell the news; / You need not ask if she believed. / A dame more busy could not be; / In twenty places, ere her tea, / Instead of one egg, she said three! / Nor was the story finish'd here: / A gossip, still more keen than she, / Said four, and spoke it in the ear -- / A caution truly little worth, / Applied to all the ears on earth. / Of eggs, the number, thanks to Fame, / As on from mouth to mouth she sped, / Had grown a hundred, soothly said, / Ere Sol had quench'd his golden flame! [1]