{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/fig-leaf",
 "title": "Fig Leaf",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 31,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 38,
    "field": "indent",
    "was": 0,
    "now": 1,
    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 2.7 character advances (~1.4 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   },
   {
    "line": 39,
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    "was": 0,
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    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 2.8 character advances (~1.4 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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   {
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    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 2.9 character advances (~1.4 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "An artist’s trick by which the Nude’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Protected from the eyes of prudes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which else with their peculiar flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might scorch the canvass in its frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or melt the bronze, or burn to lime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The marble, in a minute’s time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For sparks are sometimes seen to dance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where falls a dame’s offended glance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And little curls of smoke to rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From fingers veiling virgin eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O prudes I know you⁠—once you made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among us here a fool crusade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against some casts from the antique,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great, naked, natural and Greek,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereto you flocked, a prurient crush,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And diligently tried to blush,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half strangled in the vain attempt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till someone (may the wretch be hemped!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Depressed his lordly length of ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your loud lubricity to hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then took his chisel up and dealt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At Art a blow below the belt.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Insulted, crimson with the shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her cheeks aglow, her eyes aflame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The goddess spread her pinions bright,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprang, and the town was left in night!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Since then in vain the painter toils:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His canvass still repels the oils.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain with melancholy sighs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His burin the engraver plies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lines multiply beneath his hand⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their meaning none can understand.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With stubborn clay and unsubdued.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sculptor shapes his fancies crude,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unable to refine the work,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And makes a god look like a Turk.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To marble grown, or metal, still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The monstrous image makes him ill,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till, crazed with rage, the damaged lot",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He breaks, or sells to Irving Scott.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}