The Raven and the Fox.

 

Master raven, on a perched tree, Held a cheese in his beak.

Master Renard, by the enticing smell, spoke to him something like this:

"Hey! Hello, Monsieur du Corbeau,

How pretty you are! how handsome you seem to me!

Without lying, if your boughing relates to your plumage, you are the phoenix of the guests of these woods. »

At these words, the raven could not have felt more joy.

And to show his beautiful voice, he opens a wide beak, drops his prey.

The fox seized it, and said: "My good sir,

Learn that every flatterer lives at the expense of the one who listens to him.

This lesson is worth a cheese, no doubt. »

The crow, ashamed and confused, swore, but a little late, that he would not be caught again.

 

Jean de La Fontaine, "Le corbeau et le renard", complete works, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-five.