In a quiet pool of the river
lived scientist catfish.
Dissertation once
he defended it successfully
by the number of corners of a square
and the number of sides,
could scientifically prove
how much is five five
and he could do it easily
one hundred and two to divide in the mind.
In this with him other fish
you couldn't have done it,
in the whole river on the mind
he had no equal.
To his misfortune, however,
he met a cancer once.
The one with the mustache hiding a grin,
offered him a task:
"Subtracting a zero from a ten,
what will you get in the balance?»
Catfish thought seriously,
he put his glasses on his nose
and all day I searched for an answer
to the question posed.
In the course of careful calculations
he wrote down five notebooks.
After all, in the end it will turn out
can either unit,
or exactly the same ten.
We need to weigh everything better!
His brow furrowed in annoyance,
thought catfish until the night
and came to a standstill from the crustacean
a tricky task.
I met him this morning.
and said literally so:
"You are weak in mathematics,
you've been made famous for nothing.
Justify it in practice
you, in fact, failed."
About the shame that happened
fish all learned soon.
Catfish was morally broken
I lost my appetite.
Starving for three weeks,
he roach became thinner,
out of the river into the sea
and he married moiva there.
(Translation from Polish by Jan Brzechwa)