Explore "The Gods Wishing to Instruct a Son of Jupiter" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For Monseigneur The Duke Du Maine.
To Jupiter was born a son,[1] / Who, conscious of his origin, / A godlike spirit had within. / To love, such age is little prone; / Yet this celestial boy / Made love his chief employ, / And was beloved wherever known. / In him both love and reason / Sprang up before their season. / With charming smiles and manners winning, / Had Flora deck'd his life's beginning, / As an Olympian became: / Whatever lights the tender flame, -- / A heart to take and render bliss, -- / Tears, sighs, in short the whole were his. / Jove's son, he should of course inherit / A higher and a nobler spirit / Than sons of other deities. / It seem'd as if by Memory's aid -- / As if a previous life had made / Experiment and hid it -- / He plied the lover's hard-learn'd trade, / So perfectly he did it. / Still Jupiter would educate / In manner fitting to his state. / The gods, obedient to his call, / Assemble in their council-hall; / When thus the sire: 'Companionless and sole, / Thus far the boundless universe I roll; / But numerous other offices there are, / Of which I give to younger gods the care. / I'm now forecasting for this cherish'd child, / Whose countless altars are already piled. / To merit such regard from all below, / All things the young immortal ought to know. ' / No sooner had the Thund'rer ended, / Than each his godlike plan commended; / Nor did the boy too little yearn / His lesson infinite to learn. / Said fiery Mars, 'I take the part / To make him master of the art / Whereby so many heroes high / Have won the honours of the sky. ' / 'To teach him music be my care,' / Apollo said, the wise and fair; / 'And mine,' that mighty god replied, / In the Nemaean lion's hide, / 'To teach him to subdue / The vices, an envenom'd crew, / Like Hydras springing ever new. / The foe of weakening luxury, / The boy divine will learn from me / Those rugged paths, so little trod, / That lead to glory man and god. ' / Said Cupid, when it came his turn, / 'All things from me the boy may learn.'