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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=415303" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Wolf And Shepherds. A Fable</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Laws, as we read in ancient sages,<br>Have been like cobwebs in all ages:<br>Cobwebs for little flies are spread,<br>And laws for little folks are made;<br>But if an insect of renown,<br>Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,<br>Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,<br>The flimsy fetter flies in sunder.<br>Your simile perhaps may please one<br>With whom wit holds the place of reason:<br>But can you prove that this in fact is<br>Agreeable to life and practice?<br>Then hear, what in his simple way<br>Old Æsop told me t' other day.<br>In days of yore, but (which is very odd)<br>Our author mentions not the period,<br>We mortal men, less given to speeches,<br>Allow'd the beasts sometimes to teach us.<br>But now we all are prattlers grown,<br>And suffer no voice but our own;<br>With us no beast has leave to speak,<br>Although his honest heart should break.<br>'Tis true, your asses and your apes,<br>And other brutes in human shapes,<br>And that thing made of sound and show,<br>Which mortals have misnamed a beau,<br>(But in the language of the sky<br>Is call'd a two-legg'd butterfly),<br>Will make your very heartstrings ache<br>With loud and everlasting clack,<br>And beat your auditory drum,<br>Till you grow deaf, or they grow dumb.<br>But to our story we return:<br>'Twas early on a Summer morn,<br>A Wolf forsook the mountain den,<br>And issued hungry on the plain.<br>Full many a stream and lawn he past<br>And reach'd a winding vale at last;<br>Where from a hollow rock he spied<br>The shepherds drest in flowery pride.<br>Garlands were strew'd, and all was gay,<br>To celebrate a holiday.<br>The merry tabor's gamesome sound<br>Provoked the sprightly dance around.<br>Hard by a rural board was rear'd,<br>On which in fair array appear'd<br>The peach, the apple, and the raisin,<br>And all the fruitage of the season.<br>But, more distinguish'd than the rest,<br>Was seen a wether ready drest,<br>That smoking, recent from the flame,<br>Diffused a stomach-rousing steam.<br>Our Wolf could not endure the sight,<br>Courageous grew his appetite:<br>His entrails groan'd with tenfold pain,<br>He lick'd his lips, and lick'd again:<br>At last, with lightning in his eyes,<br>He bounces forth, and fiercely cries:<br>'Shepherds, I am not given to scolding,<br>But now my spleen I cannot hold in.<br>By Jove, such scandalous oppression<br>Would put an elephant in passion.<br>You, who your flocks (as you pretend)<br>By wholesome laws from harm defend,<br>Which make it death for any beast,<br>How much soe'er by hunger press'd,<br>To seize a sheep by force or stealth,<br>For sheep have right to life and health;<br>Can you commit, uncheck'd by shame,<br>What in a beast so much you blame?<br>What is a law, if those who make it<br>Become the forwardest to break it?<br>The case is plain: you would reserve<br>All to yourselves, while others starve.<br>Such laws from base self-interest spring,<br>Not from the reason of the thing—'<br>He was proceeding, when a swain<br>Burst out,—'And dares a wolf arraign<br>His betters, and condemn their measures,<br>And contradict their wills and pleasures?<br>We have establish'd laws, 'tis true,<br>But laws are made for such as you.<br>Know, sirrah, in its very nature<br>A law can't reach the legislature.<br>For laws, without a sanction join'd,<br>As all men know, can never bind;<br>But sanctions reach not us the makers,<br>For who dares punish us, though breakers?<br>'Tis therefore plain, beyond denial,<br>That laws were ne'er design'd to tie all;<br>But those, whom sanctions reach alone:<br>We stand accountable to none.<br>Besides, 'tis evident, that, seeing<br>Laws from the great derive their being,<br>They as in duty bound should love<br>The great, in whom they live and move,<br>And humbly yield to their desires:<br>'Tis just what gratitude requires.<br>What suckling, dandled on the lap,<br>Would tear away its mother's pap?<br>But hold—Why deign I to dispute<br>With such a scoundrel of a brute?<br>Logic is lost upon a knave,<br>Let action prove the law our slave.'<br>An angry nod his will declared<br>To his gruff yeoman of the guard;<br>The full-fed mongrels, train'd to ravage,<br>Fly to devour the shaggy savage.<br>The beast had now no time to lose<br>In chopping logic with his foes;<br>'This argument,' quoth he, 'has force,<br>And swiftness is my sole resource.'<br>He said, and left the swains their prey,<br>And to the mountains scour'd away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Beattie">James Beattie</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=415303" data-title="The Wolf And Shepherds. A Fable de James Beattie" data-description="Laws, as we read in ancient sages,
Have been like cobwebs in all ages:
Cobwebs for little flies are spread,
And laws for little folks are made;
But if an insect of renown,
Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,
Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,
Th..."></div>
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