Explore "Death and the Woodman" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A poor wood-chopper, with his fagot load, / Whom weight of years, as well as load, oppress'd, / Sore groaning in his smoky hut to rest, / Trudged wearily along his homeward road. / At last his wood upon the ground he throws, / And sits him down to think o'er all his woes. / To joy a stranger, since his hapless birth, / What poorer wretch upon this rolling earth? / No bread sometimes, and ne'er a moment's rest; / Wife, children, soldiers, landlords, public tax, / All wait the swinging of his old, worn axe, / And paint the veriest picture of a man unblest. / On Death he calls. Forthwith that monarch grim / Appears, and asks what he should do for him. / 'Not much, indeed; a little help I lack -- / To put these fagots on my back.'
Death ready stands all ills to cure; / But let us not his cure invite. / Than die, 'tis better to endure, -- / Is both a manly maxim and a right.[1]
[1]: Aesop: it is also in Corrozet's fables.