The poem The Raven and the Fox was written by the famous author Jean de La Fontaine.
Mr Raven was perched high on a tree branch holding a morsel of food in his beak.
A cunning fox named Reynard looked up and wanted to obtain the raven's piece of food.
The fox used flattering words to praise the raven's handsome looks and beautiful feathers.
Reynard told the raven that the birds in the woods would call him king if he sang.
The raven was filled with foolish pride and forgot that his voice was merely a harsh croak.
When the raven opened his beak to sing, the delicious morsel of food dropped to the ground.
The clever fox laughed and quickly secured the food that he had eyed from below.
The fox advised the raven never to trust flattering words that make a person glow with pride.
The central moral of the fable shows that excessive pride and vanity are unwise.
In the vocabulary of the poem, a limb means a tree branch and a morsel means food.
The word eyed means looking at something with great interest or desire.
Pairs of rhyming words in the poem include limb and him, as well as joke and croak.
The repetition of the beginning sound in the phrase big beak is an example of alliteration.
The foolish raven learned a surprising and valuable lesson after losing his meal to the cunning fox.