The Man and the Dog
Torn by a Cur, a man was ledTo throw the snappish thief some breadDipt in the blood, which, he was told,Had been a remedy of old. ThenEsop thus:-- "Forbear to showA pack of dogs the thing you do,Lest they should soon devour us quite,When thus rewarded as they bite."One wicked miscreant's successMakes many more the trade profess.
Words in this poem
- snappish a.
- Apt to snap at persons or things; eager to bite; as, a snapping cur.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Man and the 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 Man and the Dog, in The Fables of Phaedrus (1765), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #25512, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/phaedrus-fables/the-man-and-the-dog.html, id L21266.
Form and metre
The Man and the Dog is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 AA----BBCC ledA · breadA · told · then · show · do · quiteB · biteB · successC · professC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Torn by a Cur, a man was led | 8 | ········ |
| To throw the snappish thief some bread | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Dipt in the blood, which, he was told, | 8 | ········ |
| Had been a remedy of old. Then | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Esop thus:-- "Forbear to show | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| A pack of dogs the thing you do, | 8 | ········ |
| Lest they should soon devour us quite, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| When thus rewarded as they bite." | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| One wicked miscreant's success | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘˘/ |
| Makes many more the trade profess. | 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.