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THE HEN WITH THE
GOLDEN EGGS
Take all that is there and forfeit increment,
Is a truth too clear for argument
In the old fairy tale in which golden eggs were laid,
One a day. The poor owner would stare
At the hen , till sure there was gold in her to share,
Then killed , spread out the bird. And of course was repaid
By no more than would be found in an ordinary hen.
He had cut the magic chain and she’d never lay again.
Think of this when covetous!
How many we have seen in our own century
Reduced to poverty by striving hard to be
Prematurely Prosperous.
01
ANALYSIS
La Fontaine’s fable begins by introducing this theme of greed to the reader, to take everything one will lose what shall come in the future. He goes on to reference Aesop’s original directly; “In the old fairy tale in which golden eggs were laid.” We are then introduced to the character of the poor owner of the hen which would lay a gold egg everyday.
The man desires to increase the amount of riches received immediately by killing the hen and searching within it directly.The man then realizes that there was not a wealth of gold within the hen, and he has now destroyed whatever wealth he would have received in the future.
Instead of nurturing the resource which was given to him, the man exploited its benefits to the point where there was nothing left for the resource to offer.
The fable ends with “prematurely prosperous,” which can be seen as our pushing for wealth through industrial or harmful means without setting up sustainable practices regarding natural resources. The Hen with the Golden Eggs is the most well known out of the three selected and is also the most simple. This fable sets the base moral lessons in place for the next two tales.