Explore "The Rat and the Elephant" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One's own importance to enhance, / Inspirited by self-esteem, / Is quite a common thing in France; / A French disease it well might seem. / The strutting cavaliers of Spain / Are in another manner vain. / Their pride has more insanity; / More silliness our vanity. / Let's shadow forth our own disease -- / Well worth a hundred tales like these.
A rat, of quite the smallest size, / Fix'd on an elephant his eyes, / And jeer'd the beast of high descent / Because his feet so slowly went. / Upon his back, three stories high, / There sat, beneath a canopy, / A certain sultan of renown, / His dog, and cat, and concubine, / His parrot, servant, and his wine, / All pilgrims to a distant town. / The rat profess'd to be amazed / That all the people stood and gazed / With wonder, as he pass'd the road, / Both at the creature and his load. / 'As if,' said he, 'to occupy / A little more of land or sky / Made one, in view of common sense, / Of greater worth and consequence! / What see ye, men, in this parade, / That food for wonder need be made? / The bulk which makes a child afraid? / In truth, I take myself to be, / In all aspects, as good as he. ' / And further might have gone his vaunt; / But, darting down, the cat / Convinced him that a rat / Is smaller than an elephant.