Book V: The Hen with the Golden Eggs
How avarice loseth all,By striving all to gain,I need no witness callBut him whose thrifty hen,As by the fable we are told,Laid every day an egg of gold.'She hath a treasure in her body,'Bethinks the avaricious noddy.He kills and opens--vexed to findAll things like hens of common kind.Thus spoil'd the source of all his riches,To misers he a lesson teaches.In these last changes of the moon,How often doth one seeMen made as poor as heBy force of getting rich too soon!
Words in this poem
- avarice n.
- An excessive or inordinate desire of gain; greediness after wealth; covetousness; cupidity. [F. avaritia, fr. avarus avaricious, prob. fr. av to covert, fr. a root av to satiate one's self: cf. Gr. av to satiate one's self, rejoice, protect.]
- avaricious a.
- Actuated by avarice; greedy of gain; immoderately desirous of accumulating property. [Cf. F. avaricieux.]
- noddy n.
- A simpleton; a fool. L'Estrange. [Prob. fr. nod to incline the head, either as in assent, or from drowsiness.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book V: The Hen with the Golden Eggs 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 Hen with the Golden Eggs, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/5-13.html, id L28305.
Form and metre
Book V: The Hen with the Golden Eggs is 16 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 A-A-BBCCDD--EFFE allA · gain · callA · hen · toldB · goldB · bodyC · noddyC · findD · kindD · riches · teaches · moonE · seeF · heF · soonE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How avarice loseth all, | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| By striving all to gain, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I need no witness call | 6 | ···/˘· |
| But him whose thrifty hen, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| As by the fable we are told, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Laid every day an egg of gold. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| 'She hath a treasure in her body,' | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Bethinks the avaricious noddy. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| He kills and opens--vexed to find | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| All things like hens of common kind. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thus spoil'd the source of all his riches, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| To misers he a lesson teaches. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| In these last changes of the moon, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| How often doth one see | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Men made as poor as he | 6 | ······ |
| By force of getting rich too soon! | 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.