{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/haec-fabula-docet",
 "title": "Haec Fabula Docet",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.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"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A rat who’d gorged a box of bane",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And suffered an internal pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came from his hole to die (the label",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Required it if the rat were able)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found outside his habitat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A limpid stream. Of bane and rat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas all unconscious; in the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It ran and prattled just for fun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Keen to allay his inward throes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beast immersed his filthy nose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And drank⁠—then, bloated by the stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And filled with superheated steam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exploded with a rascal smell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remarking, as his fragments fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Astonished in the brook: “I’m thinking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This water’s damned unwholesome drinking!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}