The rats were devouring the house

by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), as Mark Twain

The rats were devouring the house

Language: English

Available translation(s): FRE

The rats were devouring the house, 
but instead of examining the cat's teeth 
and the cat's claws, 
they only concerned themselves 
to find out if it was a holy cat, 
a pious cat, a moral cat...

About the headline (FAQ)

Note: this is a prose text. The line breaks were added to make it possible to show translations in parallel.

Authorship:

by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 - 1910), as Mark Twain, appears in Recollections of Joan of Arc [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Elizabeth Walton Vercoe (b. 1941), "The rats were devouring the house", 1986 [mezzo-soprano or soprano and piano], from the a play - incidental music Herstory III: Jehanne de Lorraine, no. 8, confirmed with composer's website [ sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2019-02-16
Line count: 6
Word count: 36