The Faithful House-Dog
A Man that's gen'rous all at onceMay dupe a novice or a dunce;But to no purpose are the snaresHe for the knowing ones prepares.When late at night a felon triedTo bribe a Dog with food, he cried,"What ho! do you attempt to stopThe mouth of him that guards the shop?You 're mightily mistaken, sir,For this strange kindness is a spur,To make me double all my din,Lest such a scoundrel should come in."
Words in this poem
- bribe n.
- A gift begged; a present. [F. bribe a lump of bread, scraps, leavings of meals (that are generally given to a beggar), LL. briba scrap of bread; cf. OF. briber, brifer, to eat gluttonousl]
- mightily adv.
- In a mighty manner; with might; with great earnestness; vigorously; powerfully. [From Mighty.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Faithful House-Dog 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 Faithful House-Dog, in The Fables of Phaedrus (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #25512, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/phaedrus-fables/the-faithful-house-dog.html, id L21255.
Form and metre
The Faithful House-Dog is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 --AABBCCDDEE once · dunce · snaresA · preparesA · triedB · criedB · stopC · shopC · sirD · spurD · dinE · inE
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 Man that's gen'rous all at once | 8 | ········ |
| May dupe a novice or a dunce; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But to no purpose are the snares | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| He for the knowing ones prepares. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| When late at night a felon tried | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To bribe a Dog with food, he cried, | 8 | ········ |
| "What ho! do you attempt to stop | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| The mouth of him that guards the shop? | 8 | ········ |
| You 're mightily mistaken, sir, | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
| For this strange kindness is a spur, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To make me double all my din, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Lest such a scoundrel should come in." | 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.