Explore "The Wolf and the Shepherd" by Tomás de Iriarte on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Wolf a Shepherd blandly once addressed: / "Friend -- let me say I really do not know / Why you will view me always as a pest; / You think me a bad fellow. Faith, I am not so.
What a warm coat my skin in winter yields!
It shelters many a man from cold and wetting; / Moreover, too, from sting of flea it shields, / And other insects vile your couch besetting.
Against the withering blight of evil eye / My claws will screen you -- counter charm secure.
My fat for hurts a sovereign remedy -- / The uses of my teeth you know, I'm sure."
The Shepherd answered: "Animal perverse!
Upon thy head be Heaven's eternal curse!
On endless mischief bent -- no thanks to you / If, now and then, some good you chance to do."
To many books, in these our days, my verse / Allots the Wolf's foul character and curse.