Napoleonic Fable Poem by gershon hepner

A fable that’s agreed upon
according to Napoleon
is what we should call history,
but ascribe its mystery
to recollections that are wrong
of brief events stretched into long,
in contrast to the brief report
that should, like our own lives, be short.

About this poem’s serious moral
A good historian would not quarrel:
Your history, if you are able
to write it up, is just a fable.


Napoleon once asked rhetorically: “What is history but a fable that is agreed upon? ”

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