Travaillez, prenez de la peine :
        C'est le fonds qui manque le moins.

Un riche laboureur, sentant sa mort prochaine,
Fit venir ses enfants, leur parla sans témoins.
Gardez-vous, leur dit-il, de vendre l'héritage
        Que nous ont laissé nos parents :
        Un trésor est caché dedans.
Je ne sais pas l'endroit ; mais un peu de courage
Vous le fera trouver : vous en viendrez à bout.
Remuez votre champ dès qu'on aura fait l'oût :
Creusez, fouillez, bêchez ; ne laissez nulle place
        Où la main ne passe et repasse.
Le père mort, les fils vous retournent le champ,
Deçà, delà, partout ; si bien qu'au bout de l'an
        Il en rapporta davantage.
D'argent, point de caché. Mais le père fut sage
        De leur montrer, avant sa mort,
        Que le travail est un trésor.

Confirmed with Jean de la Fontaine, Œuvres complètes, Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1840, Page 48.

Note for stanza 2, line 8, "l'oût": the harvest. The word is an old spelling of the French name for the month of August, août (which since the spelling reforms of 1990 can also be written without the circumflex accent).

Text Authorship:

• by Jean de La Fontaine (1621 - 1695), "Le laboureur et ses enfants", written 1668, appears in Fables [author's text checked 2 times against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Isabelle Aboulker (b. 1938), "Le Laboureur et ses enfants", 2002?, published 2002 [ medium voice and piano ], from La Cigale et le Pot au Lait, 16 mélodies pour voix moyennes d'après les Fables de Jean de La Fontaine, no. 13, Éditions Notissimo [sung text not yet checked]
• by Melchior Alexandre Bruneau (1823 - 1898), "Le laboureur et ses enfants", op. 377 no. 12 (1879) [ high voice and piano or harmonium ], from 25 fables de La Fontaine, no. 12 [sung text not yet checked]
• by Philippe Mazé (b. 1954), "Le laboureur et ses enfants", 2009, published 2016 [ medium voice and piano ], from 9 Fables de Jean de La Fontaine pour une voix et piano, no. 4, Clichy, Éd. Musicales Artchipel [sung text not yet checked]
• by Guy Miaille (b. 1930), "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants" [ medium voice and piano ], from 8 Fables de La Fontaine, no. 5, Édition Les Escholiers [sung text not yet checked]
• by Claude Torrent (b. 1944), "Le laboureur et ses enfants" [ voice and piano ], from 5 Fables de La Fontaine, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "The Farmer and His Children", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2015-04-13
Line count: 18
Word count: 129

       Work, and take pains:
        It is the resource least apt to fail.

A rich farmer, sensing his impending death,
Called together his children, and spoke to them without witnesses.
"Be sure," he told them, "not to sell the inheritance 
        That our forebears have left us:
        A treasure is hidden therein.
I don't know the location; but with a little fortitude
You will find it: you will get through the task.
Dig up your field after the harvest is done;
Burrow, delve, shovel; leave not a single spot
        Your hand has not gone over and over."
When their father was dead, the sons turned over the field,
Here, there, everywhere; so well that at the end of the year 
        Its yield increased as a result.
Of hidden money there was none. But the father was wise
        To show them, before his death,
        That work itself is a treasure.