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It was called Felix María Serafín Sánchez de Samaniego and was born in Laguardia, Álava, on a day like today 1745. It is considered as one of the most prominent characters of the letters of the Age of Enlightenment. And he was also a musician, essayist and playwright.
How to Live Aligned with poet we know him for being author of very popular fables that served to transmit the enlightened and reformist ideas of his time. Today I remember some of those fables in his memory.
Fables of Samaniego
Were published in 1784 although he had finished them in 1777. They collect 157 compositions, in 9 books and preceded by a prologue. He composed them for Vergara College students to those who formed. His influences clearer is that of the French Fountain and its intention has the didactic character of the illustrated literature in which it was pursued teach while having fun.
3 chosen fables
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Singing the Cicada
spent the whole summer,
without making provisions
there for the winter;
the cold forced her
to keep the silence
and to take shelter
of his narrow chamber.
I was deprived
of precious sustenance:
no fly, no worm,
no wheat, no rye.
The Ant dwelt
there partition in the middle,
and with a thousand expressions
of attention and respect
He said to her: «Doña Hormiga,
Well, in your barn
supplies are left over
for your food,
lend something
with what live this winter
this sad Cicada,
how happy in another time,
never knew the damage,
he never knew how to fear it.
Do not hesitate to lend me;
that I faithfully promise
pay you with profit,
by the name that I have. "
The Greedy Ant
he answered boldly,
hiding behind the back
the keys to the barn:
«I lend what I earn
with a huge job!
Tell me then, lazy girl,
What have you done in good weather? »
«I, said the Cicada,
to all passengers
he sang happily,
without ceasing for a moment. "
"Hello! So you sang
when I was rowing?
Well now that I eat
dance, despite your body. "
The boy and the sheep
A young man herding his cattle,
he shouted from the top of a hill:
"Please! The wolf is coming, farmers."
These, abandoning their work,
come promptly,
and they find it to be a joke only.
He cries out again, and they fear misfortune;
second time mocks them. Nice grace!
But what happened the third time?
Actually came hungry beast.
Then the Zagal is disappointed,
and no matter how much he kicks, cries and screams,
the chastened people do not move,
and the wolf devours the pack.
How many times is it a deception,
against the deceiver the greatest harm!
The Milkmaid
He wore in his head
a milk jug to the market
with that alacrity,
that simple air, that pleasure,
What is he saying to everyone who notices him?
"I am happy with my luck!"
Because I didn't feel like
more company than your thought,
how happy he offered her
innocent ideas of contentment,
the happy Milkmaid marched alone,
and said to each other like this:
«This milk sold,
in fair it will give me so much money,
and with this game
I want to buy a basket of eggs,
to get a hundred chickens, that in the summer
Surround me singing the pio, Pio.
Of the amount achieved
from so much chicken I will buy a pig;
with acorn, bran,
cabbage, chestnut will grow fat without wisdom,
so much that I might get
watch your belly crawl.
I'll take it to the market
I will certainly get good money from him;
I will buy cash
a robust cow and a calf,
to jump and run the whole campaign,
to the mountain near the cabin. "
With this thought
alienated, she jumps so
that in his violent leap
the pitcher fell. Poor Milkmaid!
What compassion! Goodbye milk, money,
eggs, chickens, piglet, cow and calf.
Oh crazy fantasy!
What palaces factories in the wind!
Moderate your joy,
lest jumping for joy,
when I happily contemplate your move,
let hope break its song.
Don't be ambitious
of better or more prosperous fortune,
that you will live anxious
without anything being able to satisfy you.
Do not eagerly yearn for the fiat good;
look that not even the present is safe.