Book III: The Fox and the Grapes
A fox, almost with hunger dying,Some grapes upon a trellis spying,To all appearance ripe, clad inTheir tempting russet skin,Most gladly would have eat them;But since he could not get them,So far above his reach the vine--'They're sour,' he said; 'such grapes as these,The dogs may eat them if they please!'
Did he not better than to whine?
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book III: The Fox and the Grapes is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Fables of La Fontaine, Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, the Elizur Wright translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jean de La Fontaine, Book III: The Fox and the Grapes, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/3-11.html, id L28263.
Form and metre
Book III: The Fox and the Grapes is 10 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See 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 AABBCCBDD dyingA · spyingA · inB · skinB · themC · themC · vineB · theseD · pleaseD
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 fox, almost with hunger dying, | 9 | ··/··/˘/˘ |
| Some grapes upon a trellis spying, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| To all appearance ripe, clad in | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Their tempting russet skin, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Most gladly would have eat them; | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| But since he could not get them, | 7 | ······· |
| So far above his reach the vine-- | 8 | ········ |
| 'They're sour,' he said; 'such grapes as these, | 8 | ·/······ |
| The dogs may eat them if they please!' | 8 | ········ |
| Did he not better than to whine? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.