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The Ass And The Flute

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Tomas de Iriarte

Literary Fables of Yriarte

Ticknor And Fields, London

1855

Spain

The Ass And The Flute: chance success, accidental talent, vanity, false merit, luck, self-deception, appearance versus reality, artistic pretension, misunderstanding, satire

Public Domain (copyright expired)

n/a

The Ass And The Flute

Be it good or bad,
This little lay
To me occurred to-day,
By chance.

Through a field in our village
A wandering ass
One day did pass,
By chance.

Left by a careless swain,
Forgotten on the ground,
There a flute he found,
By chance.

As he stopped to smell it--
This donkey grave--
A snort he gave,
By chance.

Into the flute his breath
Happened to find its way,
And the flute began to play,
By chance.

"Oho!" said the wise beast,
"How well I can play!
Who will say me nay?
By chance.".

* * * * *

There are donkeys plenty,
Who, without one jot of art,
May, for once, well play a part,
By chance.

Folktales, Fairytales, myths, legends, stories, fantasy