Quarreling and Going to Court1
Only a Fool Sues
(from Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools)
| English | Original German |
| Now of that fool I would report Who always wants to go to court, And amicably end no suit Before he’s had a hot dispute. When cases would protracted be, And men from justice hide or flee, They must be summoned, warned, apprized, Banned, outlawed, even ostracized, They hope that then they’ll twist the law And come out free through any flaw, As though the law a was nose were, Not realizing they’re the hare, That goes into the law clerk’s soup. The judge, attorney ─ all the group Of jurists feed from clients’ dish And win a handsome mess of fish; Delay, protraction is their aim, ’Tis thus they trap and catch their game: Small cases e’en like big ones look, A trickle’s made into a brook, A foreign speaker must be brought, Imported here from far-off port, That he may well pervert the case, And cheat the judges to their face. Full many hearings there must be, So that there’ll be an ample fee, And greater sums red tape will take Than all the sums we have at stake. The money won in lawsuits will Ofttimes not pay your parsley bill. They think that truth can never see When suits are lengthened endlessly. The man who’d rather sue than eat Should have some nettles on his seat. | Von den narren will ich ouch sagen Die jnn eynr yeden sach went tagen Vnd nüt mit lieb lont kumen ab Do man nit vor |
Endnotes
1 Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools (New York: Dover1944), 236-38 (Edwin Zeydel, trans.). Ancient German text from http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/15Jh/Brant/bra_n000.html. ⇑
