Prevod

(However ridiculous a bombastic style may be, there will always be fools who applaud it for the very reason that they cannot understand it.) The fact is that some animals are most scientific In treating themselves with remedies specific, And keeping their organic constitution sound, Being skilled in all the plants that grow around; For they know herbs diuretic, 5 Cathartic, narcotic, emetic, Febrifugal, styptic, prolific, Cephalic too, and sudorific. A master of this art, in practice and in theory, Was a Cat, a rhetorician pedantic to a degree, 10 Who spoke in accents as emphatic As the stuffiest professor, stiff and dogmatic. While hunting plants of virtue salutiferous, He said to a lizard: “What anguish most mortiferous! To relieve my swellings semihydropic, 15 I wish to sip the juice of leaves heliotropic.” The Lizard, stunned by the exotic Sound of this whole preamble so chaotic, Understood no more of that phrase macaronic Than if the Cat had spoken Babylonic. 20 But he noticed that the mountebank ridiculous Filled his stomach with leaves of sunflower, And said: “At last, my good sir hydropic, I understand what you mean by juice heliotropic.” And would you believe it? A Cricket, hearing their dialogue, Though he made nothing of that catalogue 26 Of terms so rare and so magnificent, Lavished on the Cat a tribute most munificent! Yes, some take swollen language for a virtue, And plain and simple speech for a defect. 30 But since these lovers of hyperbolic Clauses and metaphors diabolic Exhaust the whole repository Of booming words, though the result be nonsense, Let there descend upon their style problematic 35 This dactylic fable, enigmatic.