Le lion abbattu par l’homme

On exposait une peinture
Où l’artisan avait tracé
Un lion d’immense stature
Par un seul homme terrassé.
Les regardants en tiraient gloire.
Un lion, en passant, rabattit leur caquet.
Je vois bien, dit-il, qu’en effet
On vous donne ici la victoire:
Mais l’ouvrier vous a déçus;
Il avait liberté de feindre.
Avec plus de raison nous aurions le dessus,
Si mes confrères savaient peindre.

peinture: [f] painting
artisan: [m] artisan, craftsman
tracer: trace, draw
terrasser: defeat
rabattit (rabattre) : shut down, slake
caquet: [m] cackle
déçus: décevoir-disappoint
feindre: feign
confrères: [m] colleague

It’s a fable written by La Fontaine, telling that people is proudly enjoying a painting on which a huge lion is defeated by a warrior, then a lion passes by and mocks at them, saying if they lions can paint, they can do the same.
I love it, only because this French text is short enough for me to understand. Actually I hate reading, especially the long ones, ever since by childhood. I read only because I have no choice: have to learn to pass the examinations, have to equip myself with enough knowledge to understand more about the mysteries nature or to attract smart girls, have to fulfill and correct my two hemispheres that the right one is nothing left and the left one is nothing right (please laugh, if not, I really doubt about the solid constitutes of your brain). But they who master the language master the civilization, and they who control the language, control the world: our history is recorded by language by historiographer, but can you completely trust what they have written down, and tell which are true and which are faked or modified? And the law, the combination of language that restrains the so-called crimes, actually serves for the ones that legislate it. And the media, which control the public opinion and common culture, is doing what they want to do, and serving for whom they want to. This is the power of language, this is the reason why we should well master it, avoiding deception and fake. So that’s why as we grow older, we are more capable of truth distinguishing, only because we are more knowledgeable and learn more about language.