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ΗΟΜΕ
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selected extracts
"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.
But, after some thought, he added:
"What does that mean-- 'tame'?"
"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"
"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--
'tame'?"
"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing.
They also raise chickens.
These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"
"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that
mean-- 'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little
boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no
need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am
nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you
tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all
the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower...
I think that she has tamed me..."
"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."
[...]
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure
drew near--
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort
of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat
fields." And then he added:
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is
unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will
make you a present of a secret."
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No
one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox
when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other
foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the
world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die
for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose
looked just like you-- the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she
is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is
she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass
globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it
is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that
we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said
nothing. Because she is my rose.
And he went back to meet the fox.
"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple
secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential
is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so
that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so
important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he
would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are
responsible for your rose..."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would
be sure to remember...
[...]
And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will
be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You
will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window,
so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to
see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them,
'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy.
It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...
[...]
“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people.
For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no
more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are
problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as
no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them
I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing
when you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can
laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows)
you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my
friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open
your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I
had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh”
[...]
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