Haec Fabula Docet
A rat who'd gorged a box of baneAnd suffered an internal pain,Came from his hole to die (the labelRequired it if the rat were able)And found outside his habitatA limpid stream. Of bane and rat'T was all unconscious; in the sunIt ran and prattled just for fun.Keen to allay his inward throes,The beast immersed his filthy noseAnd drank--then, bloated by the stream,And filled with superheated steam,Exploded with a rascal smell,Remarking, as his fragments fellAstonished in the brook: "I'm thinkingThis water's damned unwholesome drinking!"
Words in this poem
- gorged a.
- Having a gorge or throat.
- bane v. t.
- To be the bane of; to ruin. Fuller.
- habitat n.
- The natural abode, locality or region of an animal or plant. [L., it dwells, fr. habitare. See Habit, v. t.]
- drank n.
- Wild oats, or darnel grass. See Drake a plant. [Cf. 3d Drake.]
- damned a.
- Sentenced to punishment in a future state; condemned; consigned to perdition.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Haec Fabula Docet is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, Haec Fabula Docet, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/haec-fabula-docet.html, id L28205.
Form and metre
Haec Fabula Docet is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH baneA · painA · labelB · ableB · habitatC · ratC · sunD · funD · throesE · noseE · streamF · steamF · smellG · fellG · thinkingH · drinkingH
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A rat who'd gorged a box of bane | 8 | ········ |
| And suffered an internal pain, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Came from his hole to die (the label | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Required it if the rat were able) | 9 | ˘/·····/˘ |
| And found outside his habitat | 8 | ··//·/˘· |
| A limpid stream. Of bane and rat | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| 'T was all unconscious; in the sun | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| It ran and prattled just for fun. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Keen to allay his inward throes, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| The beast immersed his filthy nose | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And drank--then, bloated by the stream, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And filled with superheated steam, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Exploded with a rascal smell, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Remarking, as his fragments fell | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Astonished in the brook: "I'm thinking | 9 | ˘/˘····/˘ |
| This water's damned unwholesome drinking!" | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.