Perle: inspections or not, let's hit Saddam!

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Thu Nov 21 18:01:39 PST 2002


On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Alexandre Fenelon wrote:


> > Mirror (London) - November 21, 2002
> > Bush aide: Inspections or not, we'll attack Iraq
>
> It reminds one of LaFontaine´s fable of the wolf and the lamb (although
> it remains open for discussion whether Saddam qualifies as a lamb...)

True. But it's a pretty picture of the Gang of Four's approach to international relations generally:

[English verse translation follows]

http://lafontaine.mmlc.nwu.edu/fables/loup_agneau_vv.html

Le Loup et l'Agneau

La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure:

Nous l'allons montrer tout à l'heure.

Un Agneau se désaltérait

Dans le courant d'une onde pure.

Un Loup survient à jeun qui cherchait aventure,

Et que la faim en ces lieux attirait.

"Qui te rend si hardi de troubler mon breuvage?"

Dit cet animal plein de rage:

Tu seras châtié de ta témérité.

-- Sire, répond l'Agneau, que Votre Majesté

Ne se mette pas en colère;

Mais plutôt qu'elle considère

Que je me vas désaltérant

Dans le courant,

Plus de vingt pas au-dessous d'Elle;

Et que par conséquent, en aucune façon

Je ne puis troubler sa boisson.

-- Tu la troubles, reprit cette bête cruelle;

Et je sais que de moi tu médis l'an passé.

-- Comment l'aurais-je fait si je n'étais pas né?

Reprit l'Agneau; je tette encor ma mère.

-- Si ce n'est toi, c'est donc ton frère.

-- Je n'en ai point. -- C'est donc quelqu'un des tiens;

Car vous ne m'épargnez guère,

Vous, vos bergers, et vos chiens.

On me l'a dit: il faut que je me venge."

Là-dessus, au fond des forêts

Le Loup l'emporte, et puis le mange,

Sans une autre forme de procès.

The Wolf and the Lamb

The strong are always best at proving they're right.

Witness the case we're now going to cite.

A Lamb was drinking, serene,

At a brook running clear all the way.

A ravenous Wolf happened by, on the lookout for the prey,

Whose sharp hunger drew him to the scene.

"What makes you so bold as to muck up my beverage?"

This creature snarled in rage.

"You will pay for your temerity!"

"Sire," replied the Lamb, "let not Your Majesty

Now give in to unjust ire,

But rather do consider, Sire:

I'm drinking -- just look --

In the brook

Twenty feet farther down, if not more,

And therefore in no way at all, I think,

Can I be muddying what you drink."

"You're muddying it!" insisted the cruel carnivore.

"And I know that, last year, you spoke ill of me."

"How could I do that? Why I'd not yet even come to be,"

Said the Lamb. "At my dam's teat I still nurse."

"If not you, then your brother. All the worse."

"I don't have one." "Then it's someone else in your clan,

For to me you're all of you a curse:

You, your dogs, your shepherds to a man.

So I've been told; I have to pay you all back."

With that, deep into the wood,

The Wolf dragged and ate his midday snack.

So trial and judgment stood.

English translations reprinted from The Complete Fables of Jean de la

Fontaine by Norman B. Spector, with permission from the Northwestern

University Press

La Fontaine et La Cuisine, Chicago/Northern Illinois Chapter of the

American Association of Teachers of French with the Assistance of the

Multimedia Learning Center, Northwestern University



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