The Bitch and Her Puppies
Bad men have speeches smooth and fair,Of which, that we should be aware,And such designing villains thwart,The underwritten lines exhort.A Bitch besought one of her kinFor room to put her Puppies in:She, loth to say her neighbour nay,Directly lent both hole and hay.But asking to be repossess'd,For longer time the former press'd,Until her Puppies gather'd strength,Which second lease expired at length;And when, abused at such a rate,The lender grew importunate,"The place," quoth she, "I will resignWhen you're a match for me and mine."
Words in this poem
- designing a.
- Intriguing; artful; scheming; as, a designing man.
- bitch n.
- The female of the canine kind, as of the dog, wolf, and fox. [OE. biche, bicche, AS. bicce; cf. Icel. bikkja, G. betze, peize.]
- neighbour v. i.
- To dwell in the vicinity; to be a neighbor, or in the neighborhood; to be near.
- quoth v. t.
- Said; spoke; uttered; -- used only in the first and third persons in the past tenses, and always followed by its nominative, the word or words said being the object; as, quoth I. quoth he. [AS.cweedhan, imp cwæedh, pl. cwædon; akin to OS. queedhan, OHG. quethan, quedan, Icel. kveedha, Goth. qiþan. sq. root22. Cf. Bequeath.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Bitch and Her Puppies is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes, Project Gutenberg ebook #25512; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Phaedrus, The Bitch and Her Puppies, in The Fables of Phaedrus (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #25512, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/phaedrus-fables/the-bitch-and-her-puppies.html, id L21251.
Form and metre
The Bitch and Her Puppies is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 88% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFF--GG fairA · awareA · thwartB · exhortB · kinC · inC · nayD · hayD · repossess'dE · press'dE · strengthF · lengthF · rate · importunate · resignG · mineG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bad men have speeches smooth and fair, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Of which, that we should be aware, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And such designing villains thwart, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| The underwritten lines exhort. | 8 | ·/˘·˘·˘/ |
| A Bitch besought one of her kin | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| For room to put her Puppies in: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| She, loth to say her neighbour nay, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Directly lent both hole and hay. | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| But asking to be repossess'd, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| For longer time the former press'd, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Until her Puppies gather'd strength, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Which second lease expired at length; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| And when, abused at such a rate, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| The lender grew importunate, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| "The place," quoth she, "I will resign | 8 | ······˘/ |
| When you're a match for me and mine." | 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.