The Bat, the Bush, and the Duck

Name: The Bat, the Bush, and the Duck
Author: Jean de La Fontaine

The bush, duck, and bat form a trading partnership after finding too little profit in commerce limited to their own country. They pool their money, hire agents carefully, and keep exact accounts. Their business prospers until an argosy carrying goods worth more than all their capital is lost while passing a dangerous strait, taking passengers, sailors, and freight down with it. The partners regret the disaster but try to conceal it, knowing that a merchant’s credit depends on hiding losses. Their ruin nevertheless becomes known, and they can obtain neither money nor loans. Threatened by debts, bailiffs, lawsuits, and harsh creditors, they are constantly harassed. The bush catches passers-by by their skirts and asks whether they know where the treacherous sea has hidden the firm’s stolen goods. A diver goes down to search for them. The bat avoids going out by day, thereby keeping out of the bailiffs’ reach. The poem observes that many insolvents, including grand seigniors, conceal themselves or evade consequences through boldness and private exits.

By Jean de La Fontaine · First published 1693 · Genre: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Animal Tale · 588 words

First lines

A bush, duck, and bat, having found that in trade, / Confined to their country, small profits were made, / Into partnership enter'd to traffic abroad, / Their purse, held in common, well guarded from fraud. / Their factors and agents, these trading allies / Employ'd where they needed, as cautious as wise: / Their journals and ledgers, exact and discreet, / Recorded by items expense and receipt. / All throve, till an argosy, on its way home, / With a cargo worth more than their capital sum, / In attempting to pass through a dangerous strait, / Went down with its passengers, sailors, and freight, / To enrich those enormous and miserly stores, / From Tartarus distant but very few doors. / Regret was a thing which the firm could but feel; / Regret was the thing they were slow to reveal; / For the least of a merchant well knows that the weal / Of his credit requires him his loss to conceal. / But that which our trio unluckily suffer'd / Allow'd no repair, and of course was discover'd. / No money nor credit, 'twas plain to be seen / Their heads were now threaten'd with bonnets of green; [1] / And, the facts of the case being everywhere known, / No mortal would open his purse with a loan. / Debts, bailiffs, and lawsuits, and creditors gruff, / At the crack of day knocking, / (Importunity shocking! ) / Our trio kept busy enough. / The bush, ever ready and on the alert, / Now caught all the people it could by the skirt: -- / 'Pray, sir, be so good as to tell, if you please, / If you know whereabout the old villanous seas / Have hid all our goods which they stole t' other night. / The diver, to seek them, went down out of sight. / The bat didn't venture abroad in the day, / And thus of the bailiffs kept out of the way.

Open reader

Similar titles

Genres

Fable — The poem uses personified animals and a bush to dramatize a moral lesson about commercial failure, debt, and attempts to evade creditors.
Didactic Poetry — Its narrative is explicitly instructive, ending in a generalized observation about insolvents and powerful people who escape financial consequences.
Animal Tale — The principal characters are a bat and duck, joined by a personified bush, whose actions carry the narrative and symbolic meaning.
Satire — The work satirizes merchants who conceal losses, debtors who avoid bailiffs, and privileged grandees who evade accountability through influence.

What this Textopian page supports

The Bat, the Bush, and the Duck is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jean de La Fontaine, dated 1693 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Fable
Author: Jean de La Fontaine
Date: 1693 CE
Language: English
Genres: Fable, Didactic Poetry, Animal Tale, Satire, Allegory
Length: 588 words
Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

Good citation fit

Work identity for The Bat, the Bush, and the Duck by Jean de La Fontaine
Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
Readability and classroom-planning context
Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph