Explore "The Satyr and the Traveller" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Within a savage forest grot / A satyr and his chips / Were taking down their porridge hot; / Their cups were at their lips.
You might have seen in mossy den, / Himself, his wife, and brood; / They had not tailor-clothes, like men, / But appetites as good.
In came a traveller, benighted, / All hungry, cold, and wet, / Who heard himself to eat invited / With nothing like regret.
He did not give his host the pain / His asking to repeat; / But first he blew with might and main / To give his fingers heat.
Then in his steaming porridge dish / He delicately blew. / The wondering satyr said, 'I wish / The use of both I knew.'
'Why, first, my blowing warms my hand, / And then it cools my porridge. ' / 'Ah! ' said his host, 'then understand / I cannot give you storage. / 'To sleep beneath one roof with you, / I may not be so bold. / Far be from me that mouth untrue / Which blows both hot and cold. '[1]
[1]: Aesop.