The Woman Drowned by Jean de La Fontaine — Read

I hate that saying, old and savage, / "Tis nothing but a woman drowning. " / That's much, I say. What grief more keen should have edge / Than loss of her, of all our joys the crowning? / Thus much suggests the fable I am borrowing. / A woman perish'd in the water, / Where, anxiously, and sorrowing, / Her husband sought her, / To ease the grief he could not cure, / By honour'd rites of sepulture. / It chanced that near the fatal spot, / Along the stream which had / Produced a death so sad, / There walk'd some men that knew it not. / The husband ask'd if they had seen / His wife, or aught that hers had been. / One promptly answer'd, 'No! / But search the stream below: / It must nave borne her in its flow. ' / 'No,' said another; 'search above. / In that direction / She would have floated, by the love / Of contradiction. ' / This joke was truly out of season; -- / I don't propose to weigh its reason. / But whether such propensity / The sex's fault may be, / Or not, one thing is very sure, / Its own propensities endure. / Up to the end they'll have their will, / And, if it could be, further still.[1]

[1]: Verdizotti.