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Your search returned 52 results in 19 document sections:
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, Prologue. (search)
Prologue.
WHAT from the founder Esop fell,
In neat familiar verse I tell:
Twofold's the genius of the page,
To make you smile and make you sage.
But if the critics we displease,
By wrangling brutes and talking trees,
Let them remember, ere they blame,
We're working neither sin nor shame;
'Tis but a play to form the youth
By fiction, in the cause of truth.
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, The Frogs Desiring a King (search)
The Frogs Desiring a King
With equal laws when Athens throve,
The petulance of freedom drove
Their state to license, which overthrew
Those just restraints of old they knew.
Hence, as a factious discontent
Through every rank and order went,
Pisistratus the tyrant form'd
A party, and the fort he storm'd:
Which yoke, while all bemoaned in grief
(Not that he was a cruel chief,
But they unused to be controlled)
Then Esop thus his fable told:
The Frogs, a freeborn people made,
From out their marsh with clamor pray'd
That Jove a monarch would assign
With power their manners to refine.
The sovereign smiled, and on their bog
Bent his petitioners a log,
Which, as it dash'd upon the place,
At first alarm'd the tim'rous race.
But ere it long had lain to cool,
One slily peep'd out of the pool,
And finding it a king in jest,
He boldly summoned all the rest.
Now, void of fear, the tribe advance,
And on the timber leap'd and danced,
And having let their fury loose,
In gross affronts and rank abuse,
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, The Vain Jackdaw (search)
The Vain Jackdaw
Lest any one himself should plume,
And on his neighbour's worth presume;
But still let Nature's garb prevail-
Esop has left this little tale:
A Daw, ambitious and absurd,
Pick'd up the quills of Juno's bird;
And, with the gorgeous spoil adorn'd,
All his own sable brethren scorn'd,
And join'd the peacocks-who in scoff
Stripp'd the bold thief; and drove him off
The Daw, thus roughly handled, went
To his own kind in discontent:
But they in turn contemn the spark,
And brand with many a shameful mark.
Then one he formerly disdain'd,
"Had you," said he, "at home remain'd--
Content with Nature's ways and will,
You had not felt the peacock's bill;
Nor 'mongst the birds of your own dress
Had been deserted in distress."
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, The Frogs and Sun (search)
The Frogs and Sun
When Esop saw, with inward grief,
The nuptials of a neighboring thief,
He thus his narrative begun:
Of old 'twas rumor'd that the Sun
Would take a wife: with hideous cries
The quer'lous Frogs alarm'd the skies.
Moved at their murmurs, Jove inquired
What was the thing that they desired?
When thus a tenant of the lake,
In terror, for his brethren spake:
"Ev'n now one Sun too much is found,
And dries up all the pools around,
Till we thy creatures perish here;
But oh, how dreadfully severe,
Should he at length be made a sire,
And propagate a race of fire !"
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, The Wolf and Fox, with the Ape for Judge (search)
The Wolf and Fox, with the Ape for Judge
Whoe'er by practice indiscreet
Has pass'd for a notorious cheat,
Will shortly find his credit fail,
Though he speak truth, says Esop's tale.
The Wolf the Fox for theft arraigned;
The Fox her innocence maintained:
The Ape, as umpire, takes his seat;
Each pleads his cause with skill and heat.
Then thus the Ape, with aspect grave,
The sentence from the hustings gave:
"For you, Sir Wolf, I do descry
That all your losses are a lie-
And you, with negatives so stout,
0 Fox! have stolen the goods no doubt."
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 1, The Stag at the Fountain (search)
The Stag at the Fountain
FULL often what you now despise
Proves better than the things you prize;
Let Esop's narrative decide:
A Stag beheld, with conscious pride,
(As at the fountain-head he stood)
His image in the silver flood,
And there extols his branching horns,
While his poor spindle-shanks he scorns-
But, lo! he hears the hunter's cries,
And, frightened, o'er the champaign flies--
His swiftness baffles the pursuit:
At length a wood receives the brute,
And by his horns entangled there,
The pack began his flesh to tear:
Then dying thus he wail'd his fate:
"Unhappy me! and wise too late!
How useful what I did disdain!
How grievous that which made me vain!
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 2, Prologue (search)
Prologue
THE way of writing Esop chose,
Sound doctrine by example shows;
For nothing by these tales is meant
So much as that the bad repent;
And by the pattern that is set,
Due diligence itself should whet.
Wherefore, whatever arch conceit
You in our narratives shall meet
(If with the critic's ear it take,
And for some special purpose make),
Aspires by real use to fame,
Rather than from an author's name.
In fact, with all the care I can,
I shall abide my Esop's plan:
But if at times I intersperake,
And for some special purpose make),
Aspires by real use to fame,
Rather than from an author's name.
In fact, with all the care I can,
I shall abide my Esop's plan:
But if at times I intersperse
My own materials in the verse,
That sweet variety may please
The fancy, and attention ease;
Receive it in a friendly way;
Which grace I purpose to repay
By this consciousness of my song;
Whose praises, lest they be too long,
Attend, why you should stint the sneak,
But give the modest, ere they seek.
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 2, The Man and the Dog (search)
The Man and the Dog
Torn by a Cur, a man was led
To throw the snappish thief some bread
Dipt in the blood, which, he was told,
Had been a remedy of old.
Then Esop thus: - "Forbear to show
A pack of dogs the thing you do,
Lest they should soon devour us quite,
When thus rewarded as they bite."
One wicked miscreant's success
Makes many more the trade profess.
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 2, Epilogue (search)
Epilogue
A STATUE of great cost and fame
Th' Athenians raised to Esop's name,
Him setting on th' the eternal base,
Whom servile rank could not disgrace;
That they might teach to all makind
The way to honor's unconfined,
That glory's due to rising worth,
And not alone to pomp and birth.
Since then another seized the post
Lest I priority should boast,
This pow'r and praise was yet my own,
That he should not excel alone:
Nor is this Envy's jealous ire,
But Emulation's genuine fire.
And if Rome should approve my piece,
She'll soon have more to rival Greece.
But should th' invidious town declare
Against my plodding over-care,
They cannot take away, nor hurt
Th' internal conscience of desert.
If these my studies reach their aim,
And, reader, your attention claim,
If your perception fully weighs
The drift of these my labour'd lays;
Then such success precludes complaint.
But if the Picture which I paint
Should happen to attract their sight,
Whom luckless Nature brought to light,
Who scorn the
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus (ed. Christopher Smart, Christopher Smart, A. M.), book 3, Prologue, To Eutychus. (search)