WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Oak and the Reed

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

In today’s episode of The Poetry Fix, join Erika Kyba for a bilingual episode. She reads La Fontaine's "The Oak and the Reed" in French and English, exploring a poem-parable that discusses the fall of the mighty and the survival of the humble.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading another one of La Fontaine's parable poems called The Oak and the Read. This is a poem about the fall of the mighty. The poet explores how those who are biggest, strongest, and most apparently secure, are sometimes the biggest targets for the catastrophes of life. Because it was written in French, we'll read the original, Followed by a translation.

With all that said, let's dive in. Le Chene and the Rousseau by La Fontaine. The chain on jure di Rosso, You have been the subject of accuser the nature. Enroatele for you is in peasant fardot. The moward of an event who, you obliges to beckes the head. Sipendon, that my fron,

or coccas paris, not content to arreter the rayons of the sun, brave the force of the tempete. You you are at Kiyon, you me seem, Zephyr. Again, if you nessier

at the brie of voyage, don't you cover the boasinage, you'd not be soffr to suffer.

I will befriendry to the orage. But you nests the more often on the humid boards

of the Ruehom of Vand. The nature over you seem well unjust. Your compassion

he responded, the arbust, part in a bon natural, but quitted this sui. The vans are more than you're reducible. I plie and not romp. You have, just here, counter their coup-effauntable, resisted

his corpey the do. But, but, as we said his mo, the bud of the horizon at course with fury the the most terrible of the the north would ported just like in its flanks.

The arpren the roseau plie, the wind reduble these efforts, He did so, He deracine Theeathe the Thule of the Tate of the

Pyele of The Eauce The Oak and the Reade Translated by Walter Thornberry The Oaks said one day to a river reed, You have a right with nature

to fall out. Even a wren for you is a weight indeed. The slightest breeze that wanders round about Makes you first bow, then bend While my proud forehead Like an Alp braves awe,

Whether the sunshine or the tempest fall. A gale to you, to me as ever is, is. Come near my shelter, you'll escape from this. You'll suffer less, and everything will mend. I'll keep you warm from every storm. And yet, you foolish creatures need must go, and on the frontiers of old Boreas grow. Nature to you has been, I think, unjust. Your sympathy, replied the reed, is kind, and to my mind your heart is good. And yet dismiss your thought For us, no more than you, the winds are fraught with danger For I bend but do not break

As yet a stout resistance you can make And never stoop your back my friend But wait a bit and let us see the end Black, furious, raging swelling as he spoke The fiercest wind that ever yet had broke from the north's caverns bellowed through the sky The oak held firm, the reed bent quietly down The wind blew faster and more furiously then rooted up the tree that with its head had touched the high clouds in its majesty

and stretched far downwards to the realms of dead. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to the Poetry Fix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading La Fontaine's Famous, The Grasshopper, and the Ant.