N° 997 Le Renard et les Poulets d'Inde, 2016

R. Cavalié  

Against the assaults of a Fox.
A tree with turkeys served as a citadel.
The perfidious one, having gone all around the rampart
And saw everyone on guard,
Cried out, "What! These people will laugh at me!
They alone shall be exempt from the common law!
No, by all the Gods! No. " He fulfilled his saying.
The moon, then glowing, seemed, against the sire,
To favour the turkey gent.
He, who was a novice in the profession of besieger,
Had recourse to his bag of wicked tricks,
Pretended to want to climb up, and stood on his feet,
Then counterfeited the dead, then the resurrected.
Harlequin would not have executed
So many different characters.
He raised his tail, he made it shine,
And a hundred thousand other tricks.
During which no turkey would have dared to slumber:
The enemy wearied them by holding their sight
On the same object always stretched.
The poor people being in the long run dazzled,
There was always someone who fell: as many were taken,
As many as are set apart; nearly half succumb.
The companion carries them in his pantry.

The too much attention for the danger
Most often makes that one falls there.

Jean DE LA FONTAINE Les Fables. Book XII (1693).