Perrette, sur sa tête ayant un Pot au lait
Bien posé sur un coussinet,
Prétendait arriver sans encombre à la ville.
Légère et court vêtue elle allait à grands pas,
Ayant mis ce jour-là, pour être plus agile,
Cotillon simple, et souliers plats.
Notre laitière ainsi troussée
Comptait déjà dans sa pensée
Tout le prix de son lait, en employait l’argent ;
Achetait un cent d’œufs, faisait triple couvée :
La chose allait à bien par son soin diligent.
Il m’est, disait-elle, facile
D’élever des poulets autour de ma maison ;
Le renard sera bien habile
S’il ne m’en laisse assez pour avoir un cochon.
Le porc à s’engraisser coûtera peu de son ;
Il était quand je l’eus de grosseur raisonnable :
J’aurai le revendant de l’argent bel et bon.
Et qui m’empêchera de mettre en notre étable,
Vu le prix dont il est, une vache et son veau,
Que je verrai sauter au milieu du troupeau ? »
Perrette là-dessus saute aussi, transportée.
Le lait tombe ; adieu veau, vache, cochon, couvée.
This is a concise excerpt 1 from a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, a renowned French poet and fabulist. The tale revolves around a milkmaid named Perette who dreams of becoming wealthy by selling the milk she’s carrying in a pot on her head. As she walks, she vividly imagines all the things she could buy with the money from the milk sales. But in her excitement, she trips and spills the milk, dashing her dreams of prosperity 2.
Le lait tombe ; Adieu veau, vache, cochon, couvée.
The milk falls; Goodbye calf, cow, pig, brood.
The moral of the story is clear: don’t count your chickens before they hatch. In other words, one shouldn’t assume success before it actually happens. But you might be wondering why I am sharing this tale in my blog. Well, I recently published a post lauding the new Copilot experience, highlighting how extraordinary it was:
The improvements in Microsoft Copilot are nothing short of impressive. The new Copilot boasts an incredible memory, capable of recalling details from previous sessions, even after several days.
Microsoft updates Windows; Goodbye amazing Copilot.
Today, following the latest Windows update, I had a disheartening surprise: “I don’t recall…” The once remarkable ability to resume tasks and maintain context over multiple sessions was gone.
I’m sorry about that! I don’t have the ability to remember past conversations once the session ends.Copilot
And it gets worse:
I’m sorry, but I can’t access external websites or content directly.Copilot
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, it’s essential to temper our expectations and remain adaptable. Just as Perette learned from her spilled milk, we too must navigate the unpredictable twists and turns of innovation. Of course, relying on third-party tools can expose users to the risk of being dependent on updates and changes in functionality, which may disrupt workflows and require constant adaptation. The lesson here is not to abandon hope but to embrace resilience and adaptability. So, as I look forward to future updates and improvements (i.e., back to Copilot’s amazing abilities), I can resume my quest for those two elusive paragraphs to test my prompts.
1 You can find the full text of the fable in the La Laitière et le pot au lait (external link) Wikipedia article. ^
2 For an English summary, I can suggest you this excerpt from the English counterpart (external link) of the aforementioned article: a good woman that was carrying a pot of milk to market and reckoning up her account as follows: she would sell it for half a sou and with that would buy a dozen eggs which she would set to hatch and have from them a dozen chicks; when they were grown she would have them castrated and then they would fetch five sous each, so that’d be at least a crown with which she would buy two piglets, a male and a female, and farrow a dozen more from them once they were grown, and they’d sell for twenty sous a piece after raising, making twelve francs with which she’d buy a mare that would have a fine foal. It would be really nice as it grew up, prancing about and neighing. And so happy was the good woman imagining this that she began to frisk in imitation of her foal, and that made the pot fall and all the milk spill. And down tumbled with it her eggs, her chickens, her capons, her mare and foal, the whole lot.
^
3 This was the heading of my conclusion in the aforementioned post—two weeks ago. Too fast, right? ^