Explore "The Muff, the Fan, and the Umbrella" by Tomás de Iriarte on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If some absurd presumption show -- / In seeking everything to know, / To serve but for a single use / May also be without excuse.
Upon a table, once, together lay / A Muff, Umbrella, and a Fan.
In dialect such as, in a former day, / The Pot unto the Kettle spoke.
The Umbrella silence broke, / And to his two companions thus began:
"Now pretty articles are not ye both!
You, Muff, in winter serve your purpose well; / But, when spring comes about, in idle sloth / In a dark corner must forgotten dwell.
You, Fan, an useless thing become, in turn, / When heat declines in summer's glowing urn,
And cold winds take your office quite away.
Learn now, from me, a broader part to play.
To shield the head from rains of wintry skies, / I, as Umbrella, serve the turn; / Again, like praise I earn / When summer's ardent rays the Parasol defies. "