Explore "The Bitch and her Friend" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A bitch, that felt her time approaching, / And had no place for parturition, / Went to a female friend, and, broaching / Her delicate condition, / Got leave herself to shut / Within the other's hut. / At proper time the lender came / Her little premises to claim. / The bitch crawl'd meekly to the door, / And humbly begg'd a fortnight more. / Her little pups, she said, could hardly walk. / In short, the lender yielded to her talk. / The second term expired; the friend had come / To take possession of her house and home. / The bitch, this time, as if she would have bit her, / Replied, 'I'm ready, madam, with my litter, / To go when you can turn me out. ' / Her pups, you see, were fierce and stout.
The creditor, from whom a villain borrows, / Will fewer shillings get again than sorrows. / If you have trusted people of this sort, / You'll have to plead, and dun, and fight; in short, / If in your house you let one step a foot, / He'll surely step the other in to boot.[1]