The Dog in the Manger (play)
The Dog in the Manger or The Gardener's Dog (
De Vega's title relates to the parallel European idiom current in Dutch, Danish, German, French, Portuguese, Polish and Italian as well. It refers to a variant story in which a gardener sets his dog to guard his cabbages (or lettuces). After the gardener's death the dog continues to forbid people access to the beds, giving rise to the simile "he's like the gardener's dog that eats no cabbage and won't let others either" or, for short, "playing the gardener's dog" (Spanish: ser el perro del hortelano, French: faire le chien du jardinier, Polish: (być jak) pies ogrodnika, etc.).[2]
The play was adapted for Russian TV as Собака на сене (Sobaka na sene) in 1977 and released in the USA as The Dog in the Manger. The same title was applied to the Spanish film made of the play, released in 1996.