The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox

A lion, old, and impotent with gout, / Would have some cure for age found out. / Impossibilities, on all occasions, / With kings, are rank abominations. / This king, from every species, -- / For each abounds in every sort, -- / Call'd to his aid the leeches. / They came in throngs to court, / From doctors of the highest fee / To nostrum-quacks without degree, -- / Advised, prescribed, talk'd learnedly; / But with the rest / Came not Sir Cunning Fox, M. D. / Sir Wolf the royal couch attended, / And his suspicions there express'd. / Forthwith his majesty, offended, / Resolved Sir Cunning Fox should come, / And sent to smoke him from his home. / He came, was duly usher'd in, / And, knowing where Sir Wolf had been, / Said, 'Sire, your royal ear / Has been abused, I fear, / By rumours false and insincere; / To wit, that I've been self-exempt / From coming here, through sheer contempt. / But, sire, I've been on pilgrimage, / By vow expressly made, / Your royal health to aid, / And, on my way, met doctors sage, / In skill the wonder of the age, / Whom carefully I did consult / About that great debility / Term'd in the books senility, / Of which you fear, with reason, the result. / You lack, they say, the vital heat, / By age extreme become effete. / Drawn from a living wolf, the hide / Should warm and smoking be applied. / The secret's good, beyond a doubt, / For nature's weak, and wearing out. / Sir Wolf, here, won't refuse to give / His hide to cure you, as I live. ' / The king was pleased with this advice. / Flay'd, jointed, served up in a trice, / Sir Wolf first wrapp'd the monarch up, / Then furnish'd him whereon to sup.

Beware, ye courtiers, lest ye gain, / By slander's arts, less power than pain; / For in the world where ye are living, / A pardon no one thinks of giving.[1]