Explore "The Stag Seeing himself in the Water" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Beside a placid, crystal flood, / A stag admired the branching wood / That high upon his forehead stood, / But gave his Maker little thanks / For what he call'd his spindle shanks. / 'What limbs are these for such a head! -- / So mean and slim! ' with grief he said. / 'My glorious heads o'ertops / The branches of the copse; / My legs are my disgrace. ' / As thus he talk'd, a bloodhound gave him chase. / To save his life he flew / Where forests thickest grew. / His horns, -- pernicious ornament! -- / Arresting him where'er he went, / Did unavailing render / What else, in such a strife, / Had saved his precious life -- / His legs, as fleet as slender. / Obliged to yield, he cursed the gear / Which nature gave him every year.
Too much the beautiful we prize; / The useful, often, we despise: / Yet oft, as happen'd to the stag, / The former doth to ruin drag.[1]
[1]: Aesop; also Phaedrus, I.12.