Page:Fables by La Fontaine translated by Elizur Wright.djvu/89

BOOK ONE. 21 As those of Austria, Turkey, Hungary. (Instead of two, I 've quoted three, — Enough of such commodity.) These powers engaged in war all, Some fourth thief stops the quarrel, According all to one key, By riding off the donkey. XIV. SIMONIDES PRESERVED BY THE GODS.^8 Three sorts there are, as Malherbe^^ says, Which one can never overpraise, — The gods, the ladies, and the king ; And I, for one, indorse the thing. The heart, praise tickles and entices ; Of fair one's smile, it oft the price is. See how the gods sometimes repay it. Simonides — the ancients say it — Once undertook, in poem lyric. To write a wrestler's panegyric ; Which, ere he had proceeded far in, He found his subject somewhat barren. No ancestors of great renown ; His sire of some unnoted town ;