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The most famous use of this fable in literature is found in the Satires of the great Roman poet, Horace (b.c. 65-8). He is regarded as one of the most polished of writers, and the ancient world's most truthful painter of social life and manners. Horace had a country seat among the Sabine hills to which he could retire from the worries and distractions of the world. His delight in his Sabine farm is shown clearly in his handling of the story. The passage is a part of Book II, Satire 6, and is in Conington's translation. Some well-known appearances of this same fable in English poetry may be found in Prior and Montagu's City Mouse and Country Mouse and in Pope's Imitations of Horace.

The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse

HORACE

One day a country mouse in his poor home
Received an ancient friend, a mouse from Rome.
The host, though close and careful, to a guest
Could open still; so now he did his best.
He spares not oats or vetches; in his chaps
Raisins he brings, and nibbled bacon-scraps,
Hoping by varied dainties to entice
His town-bred guest, so delicate and nice.
Who condescended graciously to touch
Thing after thing, but never would take much,
While he, the owner of the mansion, sate
On threshed-out straw, and spelt and darnels ate.
At length the town mouse cries, "I wonder how
You can live here, friend, on this hill's rough brow!
Take my advice, and leave these ups and downs,
This hill and dale, for humankind and towns.
Come, now, go home with me; remember, all
Who live on earth are mortal, great and small.
Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short, 'twere wrong to lose a day."
This reasoning made the rustic's head turn round;
Forth from his hole he issues with a bound,
And they two make together for their mark,
In hopes to reach the city during dark.
The midnight sky was bending over all,
When they set foot within a stately hall,
Where couches of wrought ivory had been spread
With gorgeous coverlets of Tyrian red,
And viands piled up high in baskets lay,
The relics of a feast of yesterday.
The town mouse does the honors, lays his guest
At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed,
Then nimbly moves in character of host,
And offers in succession boiled and roast;
Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents,
And tastes before the titbits he presents.
The guest, rejoicing in his altered fare,
Assumes in turn a genial diner's air,
When, hark, a sudden banging of the door!
Each from his couch is tumbled on the floor.
Half dead, they scurry round the room, poor things,
While the whole house with barking mastiffs rings.
Then says the rustic, "It may do for you,
This life, but I don't like it; so, adieu.
Give me my hole, secure from all alarms;
I'll prove that tares and vetches still have charms."