The Nightingale and the Glow Worm
A kind of Aesop’s Fable in verse, about mutual respect among those with different talents.
1782
A kind of Aesop’s Fable in verse, about mutual respect among those with different talents.
1782
This post is number 7 in the series William Cowper
This Aesop-style fable was composed in Latin by schoolmaster Vincent Bourne (1695-1747) and later translated by his pupil William Cowper (pronounced ‘cooper’), one of Jane Austen’s favourite poets, and a devout Christian remembered for his tireless campaign against slavery. A rather self-important nightingale is taught a lesson in humility and mutual respect by a little glow-worm.
‘The Nightingale and the Glow Worm’
A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long
Had cheered the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark;
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, right eloquent:
‘Did you admire my lamp,’ quoth he,
‘As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For ’twas the self-same power divine,
Taught you to sing and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.’
The songster heard his short oration,
And warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,
And found a supper somewhere else.*
* Like Cowper’s verses on The Jackdaw, this poem is a translation from the Latin of Vincent Bourne (1695-1747), who many years earlier had been Cowper’s master at Westminster School. Aesop’s fable of The Lion and the Mouse tells a similar story of mutual dependence; Ramaswami Raju’s Indian fable of The Glow Worm and the Jackdaw is altogether more practical.
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.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What made the nightingale peckish?
Singing all day and through the evening.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
A nightingale sang all day. Night came. He felt hungry.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IFall. IIEat. IIISpend.