雙語·《伊索寓言》 墨丘利和商販

MERCURY AND THE TRADESMEN

When Jupiter was creating man, he told Mercury to make an infusion of lies, and to add a little of it to the other ingredients which went to the making of the Tradesmen. Mercury did so, and introduced an equal amount into each in turn—the tallow-chandler, and the greengrocer, and the haberdasher, and all, till he came to the horse-dealer, who was last on the list, when, finding that he had a quantity of the infusion still left, he put it all into him. This is why all Tradesmen lie more or less, but they none of them lie like a horse-dealer.

墨丘利和商販

在朱庇特造人的時(shí)候，他讓墨丘利加入了一些謊言，來作為制造商人的原料。墨丘利遵命照辦，挨個(gè)兒給所有的商人分配了相同的比例，牛油商、菜販、服裝商……全都處理完了。最后，他遇到了名單上的最后一個(gè)，馬販子，發(fā)現(xiàn)還剩下一些謊言，于是就都放到了馬販子身上。所以，所有的商販都會(huì)或多或少地撒些謊，但是卻沒有像馬販子這樣會(huì)撒謊。