The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse, as told by Quintus Horatius Flaccus

❰

1 2

❱

THESE words so impressed the countryman that he left his hole with a light heart, and together they took to the road, eager to creep under the city walls by night.

Night reigned in the vault of heaven when the two mice crossed the threshold of some plutocrat’s house. Crimson coverlets gleamed on ivoried couches, and a great banquet of many courses, leftovers from the night before, was heaped up in baskets off to one side. The country mouse lay back on plush covers while his host, girded like a waiter, resumed the feast, doing the offices of a domestic slave and tasting beforehand everything he served.* The other was revelling in his happy state, and rejoicing in the blessings of his changed fortunes, when suddenly a terrific banging of doors tumbled them both off their couches. Panic-stricken they scuttled the full length of the dining-room, their fears doubling when the barking of Molossian mastiffs* resounded through the lofty palace. “This carry-on” panted the country mouse “is no life for me. Goodbye! A bit of vetch* in my own wood and hole, with no nasty surprises, is all the comfort I want.”*

as told by Quintus Horatius Flaccus 65-8 BC

Based on ‘Satires’ Book II No. 6 by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC) as collected in ‘Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica’ (1942) edited with a translation by H. Rushton Fairclough. With acknowledgements to ‘The Works of Horace’ translated by C. Smart, and ‘Aesop’s Fables: A New Version’ (1911) by Thomas James.

* To prove it was still good to eat, since food did not keep well in the days before refrigeration; or, in more elevated circles, to prove it had not been poisoned. See also Stale and Hearty.

* A now extinct breed of mastiff associated with the ancient Molossians from Epirus, on the western side of the Greek mainland. They were kept for hunting, for herding and for guarding, and were a byword for strength, endurance and courage.

* Vicia sativa or poor-man’s peas, a barely edible legume. See a picture at Geograph.

* See also The Sword of Damocles.

Précis

The city mouse was so persuasive that the country mouse followed him to a luxurious townhouse, where they found last night’s supper waiting to be cleared away. They were just tucking in when the householder came home with his dogs. The two mice scampered to safety, but the country mouse had seen enough to put him off city life forever.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Précis

Questions for Critics

Tags

Read Next