Book V: The Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin
Clad in a lion's shaggy hide,An ass spread terror far and wide,And, though himself a coward brute,Put all the world to scampering rout:But, by a piece of evil luck,A portion of an ear outstuck,Which soon reveal'd the errorOf all the panic-terror.Old Martin did his office quick.Surprised were all who did not know the trick,To see that Martin, at his will,Was driving lions to the mill!
In France, the men are not a fewOf whom this fable proves too true;Whose valour chiefly doth resideIn coat they wear and horse they ride.
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Book V: The Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin 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 Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin, in The Fables of La Fontaine (1841), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7241, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/la-fontaine-fables/5-21.html, id L28313.
Form and metre
Book V: The Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin is 16 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFF hideA · wideA · bruteB · routB · luckC · outstuckC · errorD · terrorD · quickE · trickE · willF · millF
- 2 AABB fewA · trueA · resideB · rideB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Clad in a lion's shaggy hide, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| An ass spread terror far and wide, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And, though himself a coward brute, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Put all the world to scampering rout: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But, by a piece of evil luck, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A portion of an ear outstuck, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Which soon reveal'd the error | 7 | ··˘/·/˘ |
| Of all the panic-terror. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Old Martin did his office quick. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Surprised were all who did not know the trick, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| To see that Martin, at his will, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Was driving lions to the mill! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| In France, the men are not a few | 8 | ········ |
| Of whom this fable proves too true; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Whose valour chiefly doth reside | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| In coat they wear and horse they ride. | 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.