The Hare and the Sparrow
Still to give cautions, as a friend,And not one's own affairs attend,Is but impertinent and vain,As these few verses will explain.A Sparrow taunted at a HareCaught by an eagle high in air,And screaming loud-- "Where now," says she,"Is your renown'd velocity?Why loiter'd your much boasted speed?"Just as she spake, an hungry gledeDid on th' injurious railer fall,Nor could her cries avail at all.The Hare, with its expiring breath,Thus said: "See comfort ev'n in death!She that derided my distressMust now deplore her own no less."
Words in this poem
- screaming a.
- Uttering screams; shrieking.
- glede n.
- The common European kite (Milvus ictinus). This name is also sometimes applied to the buzzard. [Written also glead, gled, gleed, glade, and glide.] [AS. glida, akin to Icel. gle,, Sw. glada. Cf. Glide, v. i.]
- railer n.
- One who rails; one who scoffs, insults, censures, or reproaches with opprobrious language.
- expiring a.
- Breathing out air from the lungs; emitting fluid or volatile matter; exhaling; breathing the last breath; dying; ending; terminating.
- deplore v. t.
- To feel or to express deep and poignant grief for; to bewail; to lament; to mourn; to sorrow over. [L. deplorare; de- + plorare to cry out, wail, lament; prob. akin to pluere to rain, and to E. flow: cf. F. déplorer. Cf. Flow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Hare and the Sparrow 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 Hare and the Sparrow, in The Fables of Phaedrus (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #25512, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/phaedrus-fables/the-hare-and-the-sparrow.html, id L21242.
Form and metre
The Hare and the Sparrow 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 86%).
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 AABBCC--DDEEFFGG friendA · attendA · vainB · explainB · hareC · airC · she · velocity · speedD · gledeD · fallE · allE · breathF · deathF · distressG · lessG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Still to give cautions, as a friend, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And not one's own affairs attend, | 8 | ····˘/˘/ |
| Is but impertinent and vain, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘·· |
| As these few verses will explain. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| A Sparrow taunted at a Hare | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Caught by an eagle high in air, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And screaming loud-- "Where now," says she, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| "Is your renown'd velocity? | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Why loiter'd your much boasted speed?" | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Just as she spake, an hungry glede | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Did on th' injurious railer fall, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| Nor could her cries avail at all. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| The Hare, with its expiring breath, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Thus said: "See comfort ev'n in death! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| She that derided my distress | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| Must now deplore her own no less." | 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.