We quit our homes and tender wives, To lead with savage beasts our lives-- No more to welcome into day A progeny for Rome a prey. And as to those already born-- Poor helpless babes forlorn!-- We wish them short career in time: Your praetors force us to the crime. Are they our teachers? Call them home,-- They teach but luxury and vice,-- Lest Germans should their likes become, In fell remorseless avarice. Have we a remedy at Rome? I'll tell you here how matters go. Hath one no present to bestow, No purple for a judge or so, The laws for him are deaf and dumb; Their minister has aye in store A thousand hindrances or more. I'm sensible that truths like these Are not the things to please. I've done. Let death avenge you here Of my complaint, a little too sincere.' He said no more; but all admired The thought with which his speech was fired; The eloquence and heart of oak With which the prostrate savage spoke. Indeed, so much were all delighted, As due revenge, the man was knighted. The praetors were at once displaced, And better men the office graced. The senate, also, by decree, Besought a copy of the speech, Which might to future speakers be A model for the use of each. Not long, howe'er, had Rome the sense To entertain such eloquence. [11] La Fontaine got the historical story embodied in this fable from Marcus Aurelius (as he acknowledges), probably through François Cassandre's "Parallèles Historiques," 1676, and the translation (from the Spanish of Guevara) titled the "Horloge des Princes," which Grise and De Heberay published at Lyons in 1575. [12] Aesop and Socrates are usually represented as very ugly. VIII.--THE OLD MAN AND THE THREE YOUNG ONES.[13]