Poem: ‘The Eagle and the Beetle’
Jean de La Fontaine, translated by Gordon Pirie, 7 February 2008
An eagle once swooped down to catch A rabbit, who made off with due dispatch Towards his lair. It wasn’t near, And he despaired of getting there In time, when going past a beetle’s hole, He thought: ‘Why not?’ And in he shot. Don’t ask me how a beetle’s hole Could possibly accommodate a rabbit. It couldn’t; and the eagle, landing there, could grab it...
