Book V: The Doctors
The selfsame patient put to testTwo doctors, Fear-the-worst and Hope-the-best.The latter hoped; the former did maintainThe man would take all medicine in vain.By different cures the patient was beset,But erelong cancell'd nature's debt,While nursedAs was prescribed by Fear-the-worst.But over the disease both triumph'd still.Said one, 'I well foresaw his death.''Yes,' said the other, 'but my pillWould certainly have saved his breath.'
Words in this poem
- selfsame a.
- Precisely the same; the very same; identical. [Self, a. + same.]
- erelong adv.
- Before the ere long.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book V: The Doctors 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 V: The Doctors, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/5-12.html, id L28304.
Form and metre
Book V: The Doctors is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEFEF testA · bestA · maintainB · vainB · besetC · debtC · nursedD · worstD · stillE · deathF · pillE · breathF
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The selfsame patient put to test | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Two doctors, Fear-the-worst and Hope-the-best. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The latter hoped; the former did maintain | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| The man would take all medicine in vain. | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| By different cures the patient was beset, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| But erelong cancell'd nature's debt, | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| While nursed | 2 | ·· |
| As was prescribed by Fear-the-worst. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| But over the disease both triumph'd still. | 9 | ···˘/·/˘· |
| Said one, 'I well foresaw his death.' | 8 | ·····/·· |
| 'Yes,' said the other, 'but my pill | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Would certainly have saved his breath.' | 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.