Explore "The Ass Dressed in the Lion's Skin" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Clad in a lion's shaggy hide, / An ass spread terror far and wide, / And, though himself a coward brute, / Put all the world to scampering rout: / But, by a piece of evil luck, / A portion of an ear outstuck, / Which soon reveal'd the error / Of all the panic-terror. / Old Martin did his office quick. / Surprised were all who did not know the trick, / To see that Martin,[1] at his will, / Was driving lions to the mill!
[1]: _Martin_. -- Martin-bâton, again as in Fable V., Book IV.
In France, the men are not a few / Of whom this fable proves too true; / Whose valour chiefly doth reside / In coat they wear and horse they ride.[2]
[2]: Aesop, and Avianus.