The Oak and the Reed
Sometimes, something that looks big and strong is fragile; for example, FTX. And something that is not so big is adaptable and antifragile, such as Hive.
I bend and do not break could be the motto of our favorite blockchain.
Le Chêne et le Roseau
Le chêne un jour dit au roseau :
Vous avez bien sujet d’accuser la nature ;
Un roitelet pour vous est un pesant fardeau :
Le moindre vent qui d’aventure
Fait rider la face de l’eau,
Vous oblige à baisser la tête ;
Cependant que mon front, au Caucase pareil,
Non content d’arrêter les rayons du soleil,
Brave l’effort de la tempête.
Tout vous est aquilon,
tout me semble zéphyr.
Encor si vous naissiez à l’abri du feuillage
Dont je couvre le voisinage,
Vous n’auriez pas tant à souffrir,
Je vous défendrais de l’orage :
Mais vous naissez le plus souvent
Sur les humides bords des royaumes du vent.
La nature envers vous me semble bien injuste.
Votre compassion, lui répondit l’arbuste,
Part d’un bon naturel ; mais quittez ce souci :
Les vents me sont moins qu’à vous redoutables ;
Je plie et ne romps pas. Vous avez jusqu’ici
Contre leurs coups épouvantables
Résisté sans courber le dos ;
Mais attendons la fin.
Comme il disait ces mots,
Du bout de l’horizon accourt avec furie
Le plus terrible des enfants
Que le Nord eût portés
jusque-là dans ses flancs.
L’arbre tient bon ; le roseau plie.
Le vent redouble ses efforts,
Et fait si bien qu’il déracine
Celui de qui la tête au ciel était voisine,
Et dont les pieds touchaient à
l’empire des morts.
The Oak and the Reed
The oak once said to the reed:
You have good reason to accuse nature;
A wren for you is a heavy burden:
The slightest wind that by chance
Makes the face of the water wrinkle,
Forces you to lower your head;
While my forehead, in the Caucasus the same,
Not only stops the rays of the sun,
But braves the effort of the storm.
Everything is Aquilon to you,
everything seems zephyr to me.
If you were born in the shelter of the foliage
Whose neighborhood I cover,
You wouldn't have to suffer so much,
I would defend you from the storm:
But you are most often born
On the damp edges of the realms of the wind.
Nature towards you seems to me very unjust.
Your compassion, replied the shrub,
Starts from a good nature, but leave this worry:
The winds are less formidable to me than to you;
I bend and do not break. You have so far
Against their dreadful blows
Resisted without bending the back;
But let's wait for the end.
As he said these words,
From the end of the horizon runs furiously
The most terrible of children
That the North would have carried
so far in its flanks.
The tree stands firm; the reed bends.
The wind redoubles its efforts,
And does so well that it uproots
He whose head in heaven was near,
And whose feet touched
the empire of the dead.
First Fable: The Circada and the Ant
Previous fable: The Hornets and the Bees
Next fable: The two Bulls and the Frog
The Life of Aesop, by Jean de La Fontaine - part 6
Xantus, Aesop's master, had told him: Find me a man who doesn't worry about anything. Aesop went the next day to the square, and seeing a peasant who looked at all things with the coldness and indifference of a statue, he brought this peasant to the house. There, he said to Xantus, is the carefree man you ask for. Xantus ordered his wife to heat some water, put it in a basin, and then wash the feet of his new guest herself. The peasant let her, although he knew very well that he did not deserve this honor; but he was saying to himself: Perhaps it is the custom to do so. They made him sit at the high end; he took his place without ceremony. During the meal, Xantus did nothing but blame his cook; nothing pleased him: what was sweet he found too salty; and what was too salty he found sweet. The carefree man allowed it to be said and ate with all his teeth. At dessert, they put on the table a cake that the philosopher's wife had made: Xantus thought it bad, although it was very good. This, he said, is the nastiest pastry I have ever eaten; the baker must be burned, for she will do nothing worthwhile with her life: bring faggots. Wait, said the peasant; I'm going to fetch my wife: we'll only make a stake for both of them. This last trait disconcerted the philosopher and deprived him of the hope of ever catching the Phrygian.
However, it was not only with his master that Aesop found occasions to laugh. Xantus had sent him to a certain place: he met the magistrate on the way, who asked him where he was going. Either Aesop was distracted, or for some other reason, he replied that he did not know. The magistrate, holding this reply with contempt and irreverence, had him taken to prison. As the ushers led him: Don't you see, he said, that I have answered very well? Did I know I would be taken where I am going? The magistrate had him released and said that Xantus should be happy to have such a witty slave.