[[20]] Aesop.
[XVII].--THE DOG THAT DROPPED THE SUBSTANCE FOR THE SHADOW.[[21]]
This world is full of shadow-chasers,
Most easily deceived.
Should I enumerate these racers,
I should not be believed.
I send them all to Aesop's dog,
Which, crossing water on a log,
Espied the meat he bore, below;
To seize its image, let it go;
Plunged in; to reach the shore was glad,
With neither what he hoped, nor what he'd had.
[[21]] Aesop; also Phaedrus, I. 4.
[XVIII].--THE CARTER IN THE MIRE.[[22]]
The Phaëton who drove a load of hay
Once found his cart bemired.
Poor man! the spot was far away
From human help--retired,
In some rude country place,
In Brittany, as near as I can trace,
Near Quimper Corentan,--
A town that poet never sang,--
Which Fate, they say, puts in the traveller's path,
When she would rouse the man to special wrath.
May Heaven preserve us from that route!
But to our carter, hale and stout:--
Fast stuck his cart; he swore his worst,
And, fill'd with rage extreme,
The mud-holes now he cursed,
And now he cursed his team,
And now his cart and load,--
Anon, the like upon himself bestow'd.
Upon the god he call'd at length,
Most famous through the world for strength.
'O, help me, Hercules!' cried he;
'For if thy back of yore
This burly planet bore,
Thy arm can set me free.'
This prayer gone up, from out a cloud there broke
A voice which thus in godlike accents spoke:--
'The suppliant must himself bestir,
Ere Hercules will aid confer.
Look wisely in the proper quarter,
To see what hindrance can be found;
Remove the execrable mud and mortar,
Which, axle-deep, beset thy wheels around.
Thy sledge and crowbar take,
And pry me up that stone, or break;
Now fill that rut upon the other side.
Hast done it?' 'Yes,' the man replied.
'Well,' said the voice, 'I'll aid thee now;
Take up thy whip.' 'I have ... but, how?
My cart glides on with ease!
I thank thee, Hercules.'
'Thy team,' rejoin'd the voice, 'has light ado;
So help thyself, and Heaven will help thee too.'
[[22]] Avianus; also Faerno; also Rabelais, Book IV., ch. 23, Bohn's edition.
[XIX].--THE CHARLATAN.[[23]]
The world has never lack'd its charlatans,
More than themselves have lack'd their plans.
One sees them on the stage at tricks
Which mock the claims of sullen Styx.
What talents in the streets they post!
One of them used to boast
Such mastership of eloquence
That he could make the greatest dunce
Another Tully Cicero
In all the arts that lawyers know.
'Ay, sirs, a dunce, a country clown,
The greatest blockhead of your town,--
Nay more, an animal, an ass,--
The stupidest that nibbles grass,--
Needs only through my course to pass,
And he shall wear the gown
With credit, honour, and renown.'
The prince heard of it, call'd the man, thus spake:
'My stable holds a steed
Of the Arcadian breed,[[24]]
Of which an orator I wish to make.'
'Well, sire, you can,'
Replied our man.
At once his majesty
Paid the tuition fee.
Ten years must roll, and then the learned ass
Should his examination pass,
According to the rules
Adopted in the schools;
If not, his teacher was to tread the air,
With halter'd neck, above the public square,--
His rhetoric bound on his back,
And on his head the ears of jack.
A courtier told the rhetorician,
With bows and terms polite,
He would not miss the sight
Of that last pendent exhibition;
For that his grace and dignity
Would well become such high degree;
And, on the point of being hung,
He would bethink him of his tongue,
And show the glory of his art,--
The power to melt the hardest heart,--
And wage a war with time
By periods sublime--
A pattern speech for orators thus leaving,
Whose work is vulgarly call'd thieving.
'Ah!' was the charlatan's reply,
'Ere that, the king, the ass, or I,
Shall, one or other of us, die.'
And reason good had he;
We count on life most foolishly,
Though hale and hearty we may be.
In each ten years, death cuts down one in three.
[[23]] Abstemius.
[[24]] Steed of the Arcadian breed.--An ass, as in [Fable XVII, Book VIII].