A Subtle Distinction

By luigi_pagano

Tue, 03 Aug 2021
  • 981 reads
4 comments
 
"A fox is subtlety itself"
Aristophanes wrote.
We know that he was
a playwright of note.
 
But Aesop, the fabulist,
had very little regard
for that wild creature,
the shifty Reynard.
 
He describes the beast
as cunning but never,
in many of his tales,
he says that he's clever.
 
Take for instance
the behaviour that
the protagonists show
in the 'Fox and the Cat'.
 
The former's ploys
from which he can pick
are more than the latter's
who has just one trick.
 
Chased by hunters,
the cat climbs a tree,
the fox, undecided,
is stuck and can't flee.
 
In other fables
got himself into scrapes
like the episode
of the Fox and the Grapes.
 
Couldn't reach the fruit
as it was far too high;
"no matter, it's sour"
he was heard to cry.
 
 
 
 
© Luigi Pagano 2021v

 

Certificate U
Poem
Mutevoli pensieri
Surreal
Fantasy
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Ah, that's where sour grapes comes from? Every poem of yours I learn something :0)

"the car climbs a tree" is this a typo?

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Sorry about the typo; I am waiting for new glasses that will allow me not to make a spectacle of myself. Yes, Di, that's, where that phrase is from.

Luigi x

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Don't apologise! I am just happy to have found someone else apart from me who presses the wrong key by mistake :0)

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Easy mistake to make.  I just noticed that the letters r and t are next to each other on the keyboard.