Baldo: BALDO NOUUS ESOPUS

UERSIBVS istud opus, cuius fuit auctor ESOPVS,
BALDO, quod exegit rudis eius musa, coegit.
Artis adhuc prisce quod fictum tempore disce,
Simplicitate stili, nouitatis origine uili;
Et licet arte foris nullius id esse decoris
Ante uideretur nec ob hoc placuisse putetur,
Vt tamen agnouit, quid agendum mystice promit
Interiusque geri documenta simillima ueri,
Traxit ab enormi sub forma carminis [h]orni,
Plus blandimenti quia dant noua carmina menti;
Quod licet esset ei graue pondus materiei,
Qui pedibus senis strictisque cucurrit habenis
Per tam dumosi nemoris loca tamque fragosi,
Vis imitandi, rei iocus insitus et speciei
Exhibuere tamen scribendi grande leuamen,
[H]ac ut morosa prodesset et arte iocosa.
[C]arminibus quisquis tangi dignaberis istis,
Ne pociora petas quam que prior edidit aetas:
Si qua tamen digne sumenda putaueris inde,
Non fugia[n]t mentem scriptorem propter inertem!

In verses this work, whose author was Aesop,
Baldo, whom his rough Muse drove, has compiled.
Learn what was fashioned in the time of art still ancient,
in simplicity of style, with novelty of ignoble origin;
and although by outward art it might have seemed of no decorum
before, and for this reason be thought not to have pleased,
yet, since it recognized what ought to be done, it promises mystically
and shows within documents most similar to truth,
he has drawn it from the shapeless into the form of a [h]recent poem,
because new songs give more blandishment to the mind;
although the weight of the material was heavy for him,
who ran with six feet and tightened reins
through such bushy places of a forest and so rugged,
the force of imitating, the jest inherent in the thing and in the look,
nevertheless afforded a great alleviation of writing,
so that by this painstaking and jocose art it might profit.
[C]hoever will deign to be touched by these songs,
do not seek better things than what the prior age put forth:
if, however, you judge there are certain things to be taken thence worthily,
let them not flee the mind on account of an inert writer!

In quibus accures, quod inest ut rite figures,
Cantus et in partes, quibus hoc bene congruit, aptes:
Nec sermone rudi, nec uilis ymagine ludi
Quominus utaris his versibus, ammonearis,
Si quid in his cernis, quod opus sit habere modernis.

In which you will apply yourself, so that you may duly figure what is within,
fit also the song into parts to which this is well congruent;
neither by rude discourse, nor by a cheap image of play
let yourself be hindered from using these verses—be admonished—,
if you discern anything in them which it is needful for moderns to have.

I. [De cane et umbra prede.]

1. [Of the dog and the shadow of the prey.]

ANXIVS in cellam natorum carnis offellam
Dum canis ex more fluuium prope ferret in ore,
Eius ut est umbra uisa maiore sub unda,
Hanc post dimissam festinus anhelat ad ipsam,
Dumque cupita petit, dederat quod sors sibi, demit,
Morte cadens iusta carnis per inania frusta.
[S]ic habuisse parum, quod habet, discatis auarum,
Cui nichil usque satis fore constat in anteparatis:
Vnde fit, ut demens augendo peculia preceps,
Omnibus amissis, pereat delusus ab ipsis.

ANXIOUS to the cell of his whelps a morsel of flesh,
while the dog, according to habit, was carrying it in his mouth near a river,
when its shadow is seen larger beneath the wave,
after he has let this go, he hastens, panting, to that very one;
and while he seeks the desired, he loses what Fortune had given him,
falling by a just death through empty scraps of flesh.
[S]o learn that the greedy man deems too little what he has,
for whom it is evident that nothing ever will be enough among things laid in beforehand:
whence it comes about that, demented, headlong in augmenting his peculium (private wealth),
with everything lost, he perishes, deluded by those very things.

II. [De agricola, qui thesaurum inuenit.]

2. [On the farmer, who found a treasure.]

COTIBVS in duris fodiens rudis incola ruris,
Cespite sub lauri uas plenum repperit auri;
Cuius erat uotum, soli sit ut hoc sibi totum.
Dumque timet partem cuiuis dare, respuit artem
Consiliumque uiri cuiuslibet inde requiri,
Credulus unius per opem fore, quod sit alius.
Eligit ipse tamen sibi, quos ad tale iuuamen
Esse putat iustos, his gazis quos tot (h)onustos
Dirigat uxori, ratus est ubi cuncta reponi.

COTIBVS in hard clods digging, a raw inhabitant of the countryside,
beneath a laurel sod found a vessel full of gold;
whose vow was that this be wholly to himself alone.
And while he fears to give a share to anyone, he spurns the art
and the counsel of any man to be sought therein,
Credulous that through the aid of one it would suffice, rather than that there be another.
He himself nevertheless chooses for himself those whom for such a help
he thinks to be just, whom, with such treasures (h)laden,
he directs to his wife, where he thought everything should be reposed.

Quod sic dum credit, procul in sua quisque recedit,
His opibus partis solitae sibi fraudibus artis,
Moris ut est cautos fatui fore rebus adauctos.
Nec minus ipse quidem manet ambiciosus ibidem,
Denuo maius humus reputans quod det sibi munus;
Sicque laborando, nichil inueniensque morando,
Nocte domum tristis remeans, se sentit ab istis
Verba per uxoris fructu caruisse laboris.
Sic defraudari spes improba sueuit auari,
Cui cor inardescit, quo plus sibi copia crescit,
Ydropis exemplo, qui plus sitit usque bibendo.

While he believes thus, each withdraws far away to his own,
with these resources divided by the customary fraud of their craft,
as it is the custom that fools suppose the cautious to be increased in their goods.
Nonetheless he himself remains ambitious in the same place,
reckoning that the ground will give him anew a greater gift;
and thus by toiling, and by lingering finding nothing,
returning home sad at night, he perceives that through those men
and by the message for his wife he has been deprived of the fruit of his labor.
Thus the wicked hope of the avaricious is wont to be defrauded,
whose heart burns the more, the more abundance grows for himself,
by the example of dropsy, who ever thirsts the more by drinking.

Cui magis hoc aequum fuerat coniungere secum
Participem notum quam soli perdere totum.

For whom it would have been more equitable to conjoin with himself a known participant,
than, alone, to lose the whole.

III. [De fatuo, qui sapienciam acquirit.]

3. [On the fool, who acquires wisdom.]

[V]IR fatuus quidam, sapienter ducere uitam
Dum cupit atque parum petit addiscenda morarum
Haec documenta sibi, doctoris ab ore periti
Sumit, ut hec cordi studeat sex uerba reponi:
"Istud et illud agas; huc, illuc quandoque uadas;
Inferius, sursum, uaria uice, dirige cursum;
In quibus ad plenum latet alta sciencia rerum".
Hac breuitate more confisus in artis amore,
Instat ad hoc solum, labiis memor ut sit eorum,
Non ut rimetur, quod in his, quid agatur, habetur,
Speque breuis cartae, quia sic confidit in arte,
Nulli prudentum similem se iactat habendum.
Quadam forte die meditantibus alta sophiae
Sex sua uerba refert; his se simul et sua prefert:
In quibus hunc uere patuit racionis egere.
Hic patet intentis, quod opus sit inane legentis:
Ni, quod in ore sonat, mens intus id omne reponat,
Ne uelut hic dudum faciat de se fore ludum.

[M]AN, a certain fool, while he desires to lead life wisely
and seeks too little the lessons to be learned by delaying,
takes these documents for himself, from the mouth of a skilled doctor,
that he may strive to lay up these six words in his heart:
“Do this and that; here, thither at times you should go;
Lower, upward, in varied turn, direct your course;
in which to the full lies hidden the high science of things.”
Trusting in this brevity of method, in love of the art,
he presses only upon this: to be mindful of them on his lips,
not to scrutinize what is contained in these, what is being done;
and with the hope of a brief card, since thus he trusts in the art,
he vaunts that he should be held like to none of the prudent.
On a certain day, as the heights of philosophy were being meditated,
he recites his six words; by these he puts himself and his matters first as well:
in which it was evident that he truly lacked reason.
Here it is clear to the attentive that the toil of the reader is empty:
unless what sounds on the lips the mind within lays all of it up,
lest, just as this man a moment ago, he make of himself a game.

IV. [De sompnolento et fure.]

4. [On the somnolent and the thief.]

CLAM dum latro pedem cuiusdam ferret in edem,
Surgit, ut exploret, quid fur temptare laboret,
Ne quid in hac dampni pateretur fraude tyranni;
Quem cito punisset, si forte quid inde tulisset.
Haec exploranti, furi quoque multa minanti,
Mole grauis sompni ceperunt menbra resolui;
Hocque soporato, compos redit in sua latro,
Arte sua demptis, quaecumque fuere iacentis.
Mane uir hic facto surgens, iam limine fracto,
Flebilis et mestus dat inanes undique questus,
Hisque dolet tegnis male sic sua perdita segnis.

Secretly, while a thief was putting his foot into someone’s house,
He rises, to explore what the thief strives to attempt,
Lest he suffer any damage in this fraud of the tyrant;
Whom he would have quickly punished, if by chance he had carried anything out from there.
As he explores these things, and also threatens many things to the thief,
By the mass of heavy sleep his limbs began to be loosened;
And with him thus lulled, the thief returns, in control, to his own,
By his art removing whatever things there were of the one lying down.
In the morning this man, the deed done, rising, now with the threshold broken,
Doleful and mournful he gives empty complaints on every side,
And over these coverlets he grieves that, being sluggish, he thus badly lost his own.

Legeris hec quisquis, uerbis monearis in istis,
Vt uigili cura caueas, que sunt nocitura,
Ne pateat predae locus usquam mentis in aede,
Semper et insistas, ut ei uigilando resistas;
Perque probos mores nocturnos pelle timores.
Cuius enim cordis fuerit domus inscia sordis
Integer et uitae qui se reget et sua rite,
Nec mala cuiusquam meditando peregerit usquam,
Non ope loricae nec egebit acumine sicae
More nec hostili cuiusque iuuamine pili:
Solo uirtutum quem constat robore tutum.

Whoever you are that will have read these things, be admonished in these words,
That with vigilant care you beware the things that are noxious,
Lest anywhere there lie open for prey a place in the shrine of the mind,
And always insist, so that by keeping vigil you may resist it;
And through probity of morals drive out nocturnal fears.
For the house of whose heart shall be unaware of sordidness,
He who, entire in life, will govern himself and his own duly,
Nor by meditating evils against anyone will he have carried them through anywhere,
He will not need the help of a cuirass nor the acumen of a dagger,
Nor, in hostile fashion, the aid of any javelin:
Whom it is agreed is safe by the sole strength of virtues.

V. [De paupere et fure.]

5. [On the pauper and the thief.]

MENBRA fouens lecto quidam sub paupere tecto,
Cui nichil est plus quam cereris cadus et domus usquam,
Prorsus adempturum quendam sibi talia furum
Dum presentiret, surrexit, ut obuius iret.
Sed, quia cognoscit, nichil hic quod perdere possit,
Ad requiem tandem rediit securus eandem.
Quo fur, captato pro uoto tempore grato,
Dempsit pauxillum cereris, quod habebat, et illum,
Veste superiecta, detexit et abstulit extra.

Warming his members on the bed, a certain man beneath a poor roof,
to whom there is nothing more than a jar of Ceres and a dwelling at all,
that some thief would utterly take away such things from him,
while he fore-sensed it, he rose, so that he might go to meet him.
But, since he realizes there is nothing here that he can lose,
he returned at length, secure, to the same rest.
Whereupon the thief, having seized a welcome time according to his wish,
removed a very little of Ceres which he had, and it as well,
with a garment thrown over, he uncovered it and carried it away outside.

Continuo surgens clamore nimisque perurgens,
Multatum faede compellit cedere predae,
Vique facit multa, sibi reddat ut omnia tulta;
Moxque, suis letus sumptis, redit intro quietus,
Nec uiolenter eum quis adit post tale tropheum.
Nunquam iustus ita spem ponat in hac sibi uita,
Nec se uirtutum credat munimine tutum,
Negligat ut contra uigilare nocencia monstra
Insidiatoris hominis magis interioris:
Cui ne quid possit contingere tale, quod obsit,
Sit racione pari catus et uigil hunc imitari.

Immediately rising with a shout and pressing exceedingly,
he compels the foully-maltreated one to yield the prey,
and by force he does many things, that he may render back to him all the things taken;
and soon, glad with his own things taken up, he returns inside, tranquil,
nor does anyone approach him violently after such a trophy.
Never let the just man place hope thus in this life for himself,
nor let him believe himself safe by the muniment of virtues,
so as to neglect to keep vigil against noxious monsters
of the more inward ambusher of man;
lest anything of such a kind that may harm might befall him,
let him, by like reason, be shrewd and vigilant to imitate this man.

VI. [De fure, qui radium lunae equitauit.]

6. [On the thief, who rode the moon’s ray.]

DIVITIS ante fores uigilantes nocte latrones
Semet adhortantur, huc prorsus ut ingrediantur.
Quos id conari dum sensit et ista minari,
Clam monuit talem per fraudem collateralem,
Querat ut hic alte, tot opes qua repperit arte;
Hisque requisitus, dedit haec responsa peritus:
"More iuuentutis comes olim furta secutis,
Per radium lunae tute, quasi tramite fune
Qualibet a rima tecti ducebar ad ima;
Quo radio sursum referebam denuo cursum,
Diues et intactus tales plerumque per actus".
Huius ouans dictis, temerarius unus in istis
Tecta domus scandit, radioque foramina paadit,
Cuique manu nisus, pronus ruit intus, relisus,
Suppliciumque satis tantae dedit improbitatis.
Hac racione uides arti succumbere uires,
Qui fueras tantae racionis nescius ante.

Before the rich man’s doors, robbers keeping vigil by night exhort themselves to enter here outright.
When he perceived that they were attempting this and menacing such things, he secretly advised such a collateral fraud, that one should inquire closely by what art he had found so many riches; and, being thus asked, the skilled man gave these replies:
“In the manner of youth, once as a companion following thefts, by the ray of the moon safely, as by a path like a rope, I was led down from any crack of the roof to the depths; by which ray I would carry my course back up again, rich and untouched through such acts for the most part.”
Rejoicing at his words, one rash fellow among them climbs the house’s roof, and with the ray he opens the apertures, and, bracing himself with his hand, he falls headlong inside, rebounded, and he paid punishment enough for such shamelessness.
By this rationale you see strength succumb to art, you who had been previously ignorant of such a rationale.

VII. [De fraudulento, qui sua fraude decipitur.]

7. [On the fraudulent man, who is deceived by his own fraud.]

BINI collegae parili duo dolia lege
Distribuunt lentis, racione sed impare mentis,
Alter ut aequalis sua pars foret atque sodalis,
Alter ut excedat solitaque cupidine ledat;
Deque sua parte clam iecit in illius arte,
Vasque suo texit uelamine sicque recessit,
Rursus ut huc tandem uenientibus hic ad eandem
Cercior accedat, socio pars altera cedat.
Quo uir ut accessit simplex, dum talia nescit,
Vas uidet addictum sibi ueste sodalis amictum;
Quod factum digna quia credit et arte benigna,
Cogitat, unde quidem par reddere possit eidem.
Ergo suae testae detracta preside ueste,
Texit amore pari uas inde sodalis auari;
Quod dum nesciret, parat improbus, huc ut abiret,
Speque sui signi breuior pars accidit illi.

Two colleagues, by a par (equal) law, distribute two jars
of lentils, but with a reasoning unequal of mind,
one so that his part might be equal to his comrade’s,
the other so that it might exceed and strike by accustomed cupidity;
and from his own portion he secretly cast into the other’s by craft,
and he covered the vessel with his own veil and thus withdrew,
so that when at length, returning here to the same place,
he might approach more certain, and the other portion might yield to the partner.
When the simple man came to it, while he knew nothing of such things,
he sees the vessel assigned to himself clothed with the comrade’s covering;
which deed, because he believes worthy and with benign art,
he considers whence indeed he might be able to render an equal to the same.
Therefore, the presiding covering drawn off from his own pot,
with equal love he covered in turn the jar of his avaricious companion;
which, while he knew it not, the wicked man prepares, that he may come here,
and, in hope of his own sign, the shorter portion fell to him.

Quisque tuis gaudes sociis pretendere fraudes,
Id tibi contingat, quod ficta parabola signat!
Inpactus pici, uulgo solet utpote dici,
Omne retorquetur, quodcumque dolare uidetur.

Whoever delights to put forth frauds upon your associates,
may that befall you which the feigned parable signifies!
Pitch-impacted, as it is vulgarly wont to be said,
everything is retorted, whatever seems to be planed.

VIII. [De simia, que secare uoluit.]

8. [On the ape, who wished to cut.]

STARET in arbusto dum simia more uetusto,
Arte uidet serrae pro consuetudine terrae
Grande procul scindi robur super ardua Pindi:
Protinus affectat, dum tale quid inuida spectat;
Cominus accessit, mox sector ut inde recessit,
Incubuitque super temptatque, quod hic quoque nuper,
Dumque sedendo secat lignum, quod forte patebat,
Testiculos rima concluserat eius in ima.
Quod cum nesciret, sectorque repente ueniret,
Surgere conatur; sed rimula clausa moratur.
Huius namque modi specie se nescia prodi,
Sic inopinato perimi nec credula fato,
Proicie[n]s extra cuneum, femur angit et exta,
Liquerat inmissum quem truncum sector in ipsum.

While a monkey stood in a grove, according to ancient custom,
she sees, by the craft of the saw, as is the country’s usage,
a great oak being split far off upon the lofty heights of Pindus:
straightway she aims at it, while the envious creature gazes on such a thing;
she came up close, as soon as the cutter withdrew from there,
and she leaned upon it and tries what he too just now here had done,
and while by sitting she cuts the wood, which chanced to lie open,
the crack at the bottom had enclosed her testicles.
When she did not know this, and the cutter suddenly arrived,
she tries to rise; but the closed little-crack delays her.
For, unaware that she had betrayed herself by an appearance of this sort,
nor credulous that she would thus be destroyed by an unlooked-for fate,
by throwing the wedge out from between, she pinches her thigh and her entrails,
which wedge the cutter had left inserted into the trunk itself.

Cuius opus stultum rediens ne linquat inultum,
Verbere cum uerbis super hanc his instat acerbis:
"Dic, age: qua causa sic sunt tua uiscera clausa?
Non est naturae, tibi sint ut talia curae".
Tristis ad hec infit: "Mea me demencia strinxit,
Tale per inuentum dum facta relinquo parentum".
Prouidus accuret sibi lector, ut ista figuret
Officiumque sequi naturae, iuris et aequi;
Sitque dehinc cure patrum sibi uiuere iure,
Ne cupidus sector, hominumque sub infima uector,
Intra scissuras solitas nos claudere curans,
Callidus illudat, sub Tartara nosque retrudat
Suppliciis dignis astrictos uindicis ignis,
Quo male gestorum nos sero denique morum
Penitet, et frustra, digressos lege uetusta.

Returning, that he might not leave her foolish deed unavenged,
with a beating and with words he presses upon her with these bitter rebukes:
"Speak, come now: for what cause are your viscera thus shut up?
It is not of nature that such cares should be yours."
Sorrowful at these, she begins: "My own dementia has constrained me,
through such an invention while I leave the deeds of my parents."

Let the provident reader hasten to himself, so that he may fashion from this
to follow the office of nature, of right and of equity;
and let it thereafter be a care to him to live by the law of the fathers,
lest the greedy cutter (sector), and a vector beneath the lowest regions of men,
striving to shut us within the accustomed clefts,
cunningly mock, and thrust us back beneath Tartarus,
bound with punishments worthy of the avenging fire,
where of ill-conducted morals we at last, too late, repent—
and in vain—having departed from the ancient law.

IX. [De duobus ursis et rege eorum.]

9. [On two bears and their king.]

GRATOS esse parum coram se rege ferarum
Sunt duo conquesti nimis ursi, mutuo mesti.
Cui sint ut cari, ceperunt talia fari,
Maior, ut est moris, factus suadela minoris:
"Cur non eniti uolumus famulamine miti,
Simus ut huic grati, iubet ad quaecumque, parati?"
Quem minor hortatur, ne quid sibi tale loquatur:
"Propria sectemur magis huic quam sic famulemur".
Maior, ut ignauus, nequiquam talia suasus
Instat, ut e cunctis, fuerant tunc que sibi, iunctis
Equalis, librae sub pondere, pars sit utrique.
Qua minor accepta, letus redit in sua septa,
Integra seruando sua semper et amplificando.

Two bears, too little pleasing to be before the king of the wild beasts,
complained exceedingly, mutually mournful. To the end that they might be dear to him, they began to speak such things,
the elder, as is the custom, having been made so by the persuasion of the younger:
“Why do we not strive, by gentle service,
that we may be grateful to him, ready for whatever he orders?”
The younger urges him not to say anything of such a kind to himself:
“Let us follow our own things rather than thus be his servants.”
The elder, as a sluggard, vainly persuaded to such things,
presses that, from all things—and what then had been his—being joined,
equal, under the weight of the balance, a share be to each.
Which, having been accepted by the younger, happy he returns to his pen,
always keeping his own intact and making them greater.

Maior, collegis ut par sit ad omnia regis,
Quicquid habet census, dat eis sicut intimus eius,
Plus aliis factus sibi consiliarius aptus.
Ob quam rem miram gregis istius unus, in iram
Actus, torquetur, quod sic nouus ursus ametur;
Quem nimis astutum perhibent sic esse locutum:
"Proximus est, o rex, homini magis austure sorex;
Hunc tamen inuentum studet ocius esse peremptum.
Accipitrem blando moderamine nutrit ouando
Atque manu missum reuocat cito nutibus ipsum".
Ceperat interea bos hac mugire platea.

The elder, so that he may be equal to the king’s colleagues in everything,
whatever his revenue has, he gives to them like the king’s intimate,
becoming, more than the others, a counselor apt to him.
On account of which marvel, one of that herd, driven into wrath,
is tormented, because a new bear is loved thus;
whom they declare to be very astute, having spoken thus:
"Nearest to man, O king, more austerely, is the shrew;
yet, when it is found, one is eager that it be done to death more swiftly.
He nurtures the hawk with coaxing governance by egging,
and, sent from the hand, he quickly recalls it with signals."
Meanwhile an ox had begun to low along this plaza.

Qua nouitate soni prius hac regione leoni
Prorsus inaudita, pelli timet arce potita.
Ne formidandum sit ob hec sibi uel dubitandum,
Admonet ursus herum tali sub ymagine rerum:
"Vis metuenda parum, uox est ubi tanta minarum.
Arbore suspensus uter olim, flamine tensus,
Vt terreret aues, crepitus iactabat inanes.

By this novelty of sound, previously in this region utterly unheard to the lion,
he fears for his pelt, though holding the citadel.
So that he need neither fear nor doubt on account of these things,
the bear admonishes his lord under such an image of matters:
"Force is little to be feared, where there is so great a voice of menaces.
A bladder once, suspended from a tree, tautened by the breeze,
so as to terrify the birds, was throwing out empty crepitations.

Hic quoque fit terror uulpi, dum nescit, et error;
Quem pede dum tangit sollers et dentibus angit,
Intus inanescit, uis illa tumoris ut exit".
Cui non credenti regnoque sibique timenti,
Vrso dante fidem, bos supplex ducitur idem.
Cui tam sincere studuit per cuncta placere,
Ne comes huic rursus foret iste miserrimus ursus,
Quodque fuit peius, complexibus excidit eius.
Victus ad extremum per tanta pericula rerum,
Se doluit frustra liquisse domestica lustra,
Denique certatim satagit sua commoda statim,
Ad modicum factus par fratris et ipsius actus.

Here too terror befalls the fox, while it does not know, and a misjudgment;
whom, while the clever one touches with a foot and grips with teeth,
inside it becomes empty, as that force of swelling goes out."
To him not believing and fearing for the kingdom and for himself,
with the bear giving a pledge, that same ox is led in as a suppliant.
To whom he strove so sincerely to be pleasing in all things,
so that this most wretched bear might not again be companion to him,
and, what was worse, he fell out of his embraces.
Overcome at the end by such great perils of affairs,
he grieved that in vain he had left his domestic lairs,
Finally, he strives in rivalry at once for his own advantages,
made, in small measure, a peer of his brother and even of his own deeds.

[V]t fore discatis contenti iure paratis,
Haec uos ursorum doceant figmenta duorum,
Ne, quae sunt extra, faciant uos linquere uestra.

That you may learn to be content with what is rightfully provided,
let these figments of two bears teach you,
lest the things outside make you relinquish what is yours.

X. [De columba, mure, coruo, testudine et capreolo.]

10. [On the dove, the mouse, the raven, the tortoise, and the roebuck.]

SVMMA columbarum, licet in grege dux sit earum,
Rite per antiquum murem sibi faecit amicum.
Que uelut incaute legerent dum semina caute,
Arte solo iactis cohibentur retibus artis;
Cumque laborarent, ut se simul inde leuarent,
Antra petunt muris quodam sub cespite ruris.
Quas ibi mus uolui miserans, parat inde resolui,
Cassibus abrosis solito sibi more dolosis.

THE CHIEF of the doves, though in the flock she is their leader,
duly made for herself the ancient mouse a friend.
And, as they, as if incautious, were carefully gathering the seeds,
they are confined by cunning nets, cast upon the ground by art;
and when they were toiling to lift themselves from there together,
they seek the caves of a certain mouse beneath a clod of the countryside.
Whom there the mouse, pitying, prepares then to unloose,
the crafty snares gnawed through, in his wonted manner.

Qua specie facti coruus testudoque capti,
In supradicti sunt federe soricis icti.
His simul unitis, datur huic id soluere litis:
Censeat ut gnarus, quid largo distet auarus,
Inter eos ortum, quod adhuc contingere portum
Non poterat tutum, fuerat nec ante solutum.
Hec raesponsa catus mus reddidit ille rogatus:
"Horrea cuiusdam cum muribus ipse quibusdam
Ingrediens quondam, uas plenum semine quoddam
Cum sociis scandi, nec erat locus hic penetrandi;
Pars igitur nostrum solito magis undique rostrum
Inprimit et mandit multoque foramine pandit.

By what manner of deed the raven and the tortoise, captured,
were struck into the covenant of the aforesaid shrew;
with these united together, it is granted to this one to resolve that litigation:
that, as one knowledgeable, he may assess how the miser differs from the liberal,
a quarrel arisen between them, which hitherto to reach a safe harbor
could not securely, nor had it previously been resolved.
These responses the shrewd mouse, that one when asked, rendered:
"Once, entering the granaries of a certain man with certain mice,
I, going in once, found a certain vessel full of grain
to be climbed with my companions, and there was here no place for getting inside;
therefore some of us press our snout more than usual on every side
and gnaw, and with many a hole open it."

Vas quoniam largi fuerat sine tegmine spargi,
Non fuit his menti, sed ali de uase fluenti.
Sic manet intactum prius in nichilumque redactum".
Quorum capreolus, fugiendo per auia solus,
Foedus init, subitusque sinit, mox rete subiuit;
Cumque moras uinctus pateretur longius intus,
Poenitet afflictum sic foedus id esse relictum.
Mus tamen ille uetus, sociis succurrere suetus,
Hunc uenatoris statuit dissoluere loris.

Since the vessel of a liberal man had been without a covering, to be scattered,
this was not in their mind, but rather of another, flowing from a vessel.
Thus the former remains untouched and reduced to nothing.

Of whom the roebuck, fleeing alone through trackless places,
enters a pact, and suddenly allows it, soon he passed under a net;
and while, bound, he was suffering delays farther within,
it grieves the afflicted one that such a pact had been left behind.
Yet that old mouse, accustomed to succor his allies,
decided to dissolve him from the hunter’s thongs.

Qui, dum peruerse raptus foret ante super se
Dumque superbiret, quod cunctis forcior iret,
Iam facile captus, tam pene repente subactus,
Omne suum sane didicit fore robur inane.
Hoc tibi commentum, lector, sit ut in monimentum:
Sic adeo noli tibimet confidere soli,
Cuilibet ipse pari contempseris ut sociari,
Sed nec amicorum cuiquam tamen inferiorum;
Nam quod neglectum solet et procul esse reiectum,
Summam sepe satis uim continet utilitatis.

He, who, while perversely rapt before beyond himself,
and while he grew proud that he went stronger than all,
now easily captured, so almost suddenly subdued,
indeed learned that all his own vigor was vain.
Let this device, reader, be to you as a monument:
thus do not trust yourself alone so far
that you yourself despise to be associated with any peer,
nor yet with any of your friends, even the inferior;
for that which is wont to be neglected and cast far away
often contains the highest force of utility.

XI. [De bubonibus et coruis.]

11. [On eagle-owls and ravens.]

IVNXIT eo toruos bubonibus unio corvos,
Vt possit dici, stabiles iam sint quod amici;
Sed, uelut est moris bubones noctis in horis
Fortiter inpelli magis ad certamina belli,
Arce suae sedis communis et ante quietis
Turpiter hos pellunt, nidos et ab arbore uellunt.
Sic grex coruorum superatus uiribus horum
Ante suum regem peciit super his sibi legem.
Mox percontatur rex, qualiter hos tueatur,
Presidio Martis uel spe cuiuslibet artis.

IVNXIT thereupon grim crows to the owls a union,
So that it can be said that now they are stable friends;
But, as it is the custom that owls in the hours of night
Are more strongly impelled to the battles of war,
From the citadel of their seat, common and formerly quiet,
They shamefully drive these out, and pluck the nests from the tree.
Thus the flock of crows, overpowered by the strengths of these,
Before its king sought for itself a law about these matters.
Soon the king inquires how he may protect them,
By the protection of Mars, or by the hope of any art.

Vnus ad hoc fatur, qui doctior esse putatur:
"Hinc assentemur, quo non licet, ut minitemur.
Palma datur quando magis assentaminine blando;
Nam, si luctemur, superari posse ueremur.
Est in luctando fatum uariabile quando,
Et gladius nunc hinc, aliquando seuit et illinc.

One to this speaks, who is thought to be more learned:
“Let us therefore assent, where it is not permitted, so that we may menace.
The palm is given more by bland assentation;
for, if we wrestle, we fear that we can be overcome.
In wrestling the fate is variable at times,
and the sword now on this side, sometimes also on that side, rages.”

Sepe fit, ut nostis, quod transfuga preda sit hostis.
Si facimus pactum, nostrum decus est male fractum;
Blandimenta precum uertunt in candida tetrum.
His reor ulcisci facti discrimina prisci".
Ipse dehinc coruus, leso quasi corpore prorsus,
Squalidus et tristis, bubonibus incipit istis,
Prostratus terrae, sua quaeque pudenda referre:
"En miserandus ego, maciae confectus et aeuo!

Often it happens, as you know, that the transfuge is the prey of the enemy.
If we make a pact, our honor is badly broken;
The blandishments of prayers turn the foul into candid fairness.
By these I think to avenge the injuries of the ancient deed".
The raven himself then, as though with body wounded outright,
Squalid and sad, begins to these owls,
Prostrate to the earth, to recount each of his own shames:
"Lo, pitiable I, worn out by emaciation and by age!

Quo michi pergendum dubito, uel quid sit agendum.
Quis michi tecta dabit, defectaque membra iuuabit?"
Cuius molliti bubones famine miti,
Hunc secretorum socium fecere suorum,
Crebroque ducebant, ubi nidificare uolebant.
Cumque locus criptae nulli superabilis ipse
Ante uideretur, uinci tamen arte docetur.

I doubt whither I must proceed, or what is to be done.
Who will give me shelter, and will aid my worn‑out limbs?"
The owls, softened by his gentle speech,
made him a companion of their secrets,
and often they led him to where they wished to nest.
And although the place of the crypt itself had seemed surmountable to no one
before, yet it is demonstrated to be overcome by art.

Quod queat ut credi, facit hic, qui presidet edi,
Pandit et id totum, soli quod erat sibi notum,
Hocque docet signo, quid agatur ab hoste maligno:
"Si fruticum fragmen uolucrum deduxerit agmen
Vnguibus aut rostris, solus patet hic ubi postis,
Moxque datis lignis aliis si subditur ignis,
Hac cadet arte doli domus ista suique coloni."
Credulus hic ales rediens docet ista sodales.
Coruorum coetus, satis hoc hortamine letus,
Ore ferens stramen caueae breuis ante foramen.
Qua simul inuenti fuerant sub nocte silenti,
Vssit eos digne, succenso deforis igne,
Indiciis horum, sic dedecus ultus auorum.

So that it may be believed, this one who presides at the eating does this,
and he lays open the whole of that which had been known to himself alone,
and by this sign he teaches what is being done by the malign enemy:
"If a troop of birds shall have brought a fragment of shrubs
with talons or beaks, only here the doorpost lies exposed,
and soon, if after other wood is put in place fire is applied,
by this artifice of guile this house and its dweller will fall."
This credulous bird, returning, teaches these things to his comrades.
The cohort of crows, quite glad at this encouragement,
bearing straw in the mouth before the aperture of the small cage.
As soon as they had been found there under the silent night,
he burned them as was fitting, with a fire kindled from outside,
by these indications, thus avenging the disgrace of his forefathers.

His decet auditis, ut micius ire uelitis
Hac ope uirtutis, spes est ubi nulla salutis.
Ne confidatis secreta, nec his retegatis,
Cum quibus egistis pugnae discrimina tristis!

With these things heard, it is fitting that you should wish to go more gently
by this aid of virtue, there is hope where there is no hope of safety.
Do not confide secrets, nor reveal them,
to those with whom you have gone through the perils of a sad battle!

XII. [De simia et testudinibus.]

12. [On the ape and the tortoises.]

SEDE sui regni iam simia corpore segni
Pulsa uagabatur, querens ubi pauper alatur.
Tandem, lustratis regionibus undique latis,
Alta petit ficus, qua uictus habetur amicus.
Qua uicina mari cupiens testudo cibari,
Quod cecidisset humi, sibimet studet anxia sumi.

From the seat of her realm, now the she-monkey, sluggish in body,
driven out, was wandering, seeking where, as a pauper, she might be nourished.
At length, the regions broad on every side having been traversed,
she seeks a lofty fig-tree, where victuals are held as friendly.
There, near the sea, a tortoise, desiring to be fed,
strives anxiously to gather for herself what had fallen to the ground.

Sic sub amore pari statuunt hac sede morari,
Vnanimes factae, dapis huius gaudia nactae.
Quam traxisse moras longae regionis ad (h)oras
Eius amica dolens, comitemque relinquere nolens,
Mittit collegam, sibi quae se nunciet egram,
Nec fore cuiusquam sibi spem medicaminis usquam,
Idque referre monet, si cor sibi simia donet,
Arte salutari sic se cito posse iuuari.
Facta dehinc tristis conchis terroribus istis,
Sedulitate precum rogat hanc deducere secum.

Thus, under equal love, they resolve to linger in this seat,
made of one mind, having obtained the joys of this feast.
That she had drawn delays to the shores of a far region,
her friend grieving at it, and not wishing to leave her companion,
she sends a colleague, who is to announce herself to her as sick,
and that there would be nowhere any hope of a remedy for her,
and bids her report this: if the monkey gives her its heart,
by a salutary art she can thus quickly be aided.
Thereupon made sad by these terrors of the shells,
with the assiduity of prayers she begs to lead her down with her.

Quam sic hortatur, hac fraudis et arte precatur:
"O mi fida comes dulcisque per omnia fomes,
Munere cuius ego iam longo tempore dego,
Actenus his largis quas ficubus arbore spargis,
Atque tuis micis tecum refouebar amicis!
Haec iam sicca negat fructus, quos ferre solebat,
Nullaque spes uitae regione sub hac fit utrique.
Ad loca nostra ueni, uictus ubi dantur ameni.

Whom she thus exhorts, and with this art of fraud she implores:
"O my faithful companion and sweet support in all things,
by whose munificence I now for a long time have lived,
hitherto on these largesses which you scatter upon the tree’s figs,
and by your friendly crumbs I was refreshed together with you!
This, now dry, denies the fruits which it used to bear,
and no hope of life in this region is left for either of us.
Come to our places, where pleasant victuals are given.

Si uenies ergo, nostro gestabere tergo,
Tutaque prorsus eris, dum sic suspensa ueheris".
Credula promissis supra mare fertur ab ipsis;
Cui procul a ripa loquitur testudo perita:
"Vxor, amica, uetus multis iacet egra diebus;
Cuius erit pesti cor, ut asserit, utile uestri:
Quod si mittatur, languor procul inde fugatur".
Huic tantae fraudi quid prouida dixerit, audi:
"Non erat id mecum, dum sic eo per mare tecum;
Alta super fici quod nuper ut inscia liqui;
Tucius huc aeque si me reuehatis utraeque,
Vos sequar absque mora, repetet cor ut interiora".
Sic redit illa dolis, remanentibus his ibi solis.
Quae percontantes, cur non comitetur amantes,
Ceu condixerunt, delusas se doluerunt.

If you will come then, you shall be borne on our back,
and you will be wholly safe, while thus, suspended, you are conveyed."
Credulous of their promises, she is carried across the sea by them;
to her, far from the bank, the skillful tortoise speaks:
"My wife, a dear old one, has lain sick for many days;
for whose pest the heart of you, as she asserts, will be useful:
and if it be sent, the languor from that is driven far away."
Hear what the provident one said to so great a fraud:
"That was not with me, while thus I go over the sea with you;
which lately, unwitting, I left up upon the fig-tree;
if you both carry me back hither more safely likewise,
I will follow you without delay, so that my heart may revisit the inner parts."
Thus she returns by wiles, with these remaining there all alone.
They, inquiring why the beloved does not accompany them,
as they had agreed, grieved that they had been deluded.

XIII. [De uulpe, leone et asino.]

13. [On the fox, the lion, and the ass.]

ERRANTEM per agrum uulpes derisit onagrum,
Quem pro laude soni uesci dedit illa leoni;
Qui sit ut illusus, referam lectoris ad usus.
Nam cum sensisset, famis hic quod mole perisset,
More suo ludens, retulit sibi talia prudens:
"Si sine corde feram nec habentem lumina dedam,
Dic, si uesceris, qua me cito dante frueris?"
Cui cum dixisset se mandere, quaeque dedisset,
Protinus inpelli cor ad hoc male suasit aselli,
Ipsius ut blanda prece currat ad oscula danda;
Digna repentinae fuit huic quod causa ruinae.
Mox leo, consumpto iam pene cadauere cuncto,
Dum cor habere nequit, aures et lumina querit,
Subdola iam pridem uulpes que dempsit eidem.

The fox mocked the onager wandering through the field,
whom, for the praise of his sound, she delivered to the lion to feed on;
so that how he was illuded I shall relate for the reader’s use.
For when she had sensed that he would have perished by the weight of hunger,
playing after her fashion, prudent, she reported such things to him:
"If I should bring a beast without a heart and should deliver it not having eyes,
say, if you are to feed, with what will you enjoy yourself with me giving it quickly?"
And when he had said to her that he would chew whatever she would give,
straightway she ill-advisedly persuaded the heart of the little ass to be impelled to this,
so that by a coaxing entreaty he might run to give kisses;
this was a cause worthy of his sudden ruin.
Soon the lion, when almost the whole carcass had now been consumed,
since he cannot have the heart, seeks the ears and the eyes,
which the subdolous fox had already long since removed from him.

Talia querenti, nec se reperisse dolenti:
"Non aliquem culpes", respondet subdola uulpes,
"Non sic deceptus, nec tam foret ultro prouectus,
Si supradictorum frueretur quolibet horum".
Nouerit ille sibi solummodo talia scribi,
Mente quidem captum quem constat ad utile factum;
Quem si forte peti contingat ymagine leti,
Si cor inanescat, aures oculusque patescat,
Sub specie pacis ne corruat arte fugacis.

To him complaining such things, and grieving that he had not found it:
“Do not blame anyone,” replies the crafty fox,
“Not thus would he have been deceived, nor would he have been borne forward so far of his own accord,
If he were enjoying any one of the aforesaid things.”

Let that one know that such things are written for himself alone,
who is, as is evident, captured in mind with respect to a useful deed;
whom, if by chance it should befall to be assailed by the image of death,
if his heart should be emptied, and his ears and eye lie open,
let him not, under the guise of peace, collapse by a fugacious art.

XIV. [De uulpe et leone.]

14. [On the fox and the lion.]

MONS erat ad pastus animalibus uber et aptus;
Sed dominantis heri datur hunc uis tanta tueri,
Prosit ut omnino generi nichil inde ferino.
His obstante bonis dicione metuque leonis,
Quo terrore ferae metuentes prorsus egere
Perpetuoque pati uictus sibi dampna negati,
Quaque die dandam statuunt sibi mutuo quandam
Tocius esse gregis pro tanti numine regis.
Forte die quadam uulpes ait: "En ego uadam;
Idque licet nolim, quoniam sors obtulit olim,
Protinus inpendam me morsibus eius edendam".
Que dum sic iret, quo pacto fallere quiret,
Hunc meditatur herum solita uertigine rerum,
Huicque propinquando fert talia famine blando:
"Huc ego mittebar, ueluti pro sorte uidebar
Iussa, ferens mecum censum, dare quem fuit aequum,
Scilicet agnellum pinguem satis atque tenellum;
Quem leo, predo ferox, rapuit michi, maximus heros,
Meque renitentem, sibi nec parere uolentem
Non sine tormento laniauit dente cruento;
Sed uulpina caro gustu quia fetet amaro,
Hanc post uindictam me deserit utpote uictam".
Quod ratus ulcisci leo dedecus, haec ait ipsi:
"Dic, rogo, si nosti, locus est ubi cercior hosti".
"Ecce lacuna uetus", uulpes ait, "est ubi suetus,
Hunc ubi predonem poteris punire leonem".
Cumque propinquaret lacui, quo dicta probaret,
Hunc putat introrsum, sua dum nat ymago deorsum.

There was a MOUNT rich and apt for pastures for animals;
But such force is granted to guard it by the lord who dominates,
so that nothing at all from it might profit the ferine race.
With these goods thwarted by the dominion and fear of the lion,
by whose terror the wild beasts, fearing, altogether lacked,
and to suffer perpetually the losses of nourishment denied to themselves,
they determine that each day there is to be given to one another a certain one,
to be of the whole flock, for the numen of so great a king.
By chance on a certain day the fox said: “Lo, I will go;
and although I am unwilling, since the lot once assigned it,
I will straightway expend myself to be given to his bites to be eaten.”
And while she was going thus, by what pact she might be able to deceive,
she devises this upon her master with her accustomed vertigo of schemes,
and, drawing near to him, brings such words with a bland speech:
“Hither I was sent, as by lot I seemed to be ordered,
bearing with me the census, to give which was equitable,
namely a lamb, quite plump and tender;
which the lion, a fierce marauder, snatched from me, a greatest hero,
and me resisting, unwilling to obey him,
he tore, not without torment, with his bloody tooth;
but since vulpine flesh reeks to the taste with bitterness,
after this vengeance he abandons me as one conquered.”
Thinking to avenge that disgrace, the lion says to her these things:
“Tell me, I pray, if you know, is there a place where I may be more certain of the enemy?”
“Behold an old pool,” the fox says, “it is where he is wont,
where you will be able to punish this robber-lion.”
And when he drew near to the pool, to prove what had been said,
he thinks him within, while his own image swims below.

Inde nec impune petit impiger ima lacunae,
Sed racione perit, dum rem sub ymagine querit.
Sic euaserunt animalia, quod timuerunt,
Vulpis et hoc sensu sunt omnia libera censu.
Ad dominantis (h)onus ad danda tributaque pronus
Amodo quisquis eris, quid agas, hac arte doceris;
Nam si quid molis pateris, quod pendere nolis,
Caucius est astu quam te defendere fastu.

Thence the undaunted one seeks the depths of the pool not with impunity,
but by reasoning he perishes, while he seeks the reality beneath the image.
Thus the animals escaped what they feared,
and by this sense of the fox all are reckoned free.
To the burden of a master, and prone to give dues and tributes,
henceforth whoever you will be, by this art you are taught what to do;
for if you suffer any exaction which you would not wish to pay,
it is safer by astuteness than to defend yourself by fastuous pride.

XV. [De rege et duobus pulicibus.]

15. [On the king and the two fleas.]

CESARIS in lecto, niueo uelamine tecto,
Sexquipedem letum perhibent requiescere suetum,
Sanguine cuius ali quem mos erat absque sodali.
Qui tantum uiuum metuens contingere diuum,
Menbra iacentis heri lingebat acumine leni.
Gaudia tanta pulex fore maxima commoda ducens,
Postulat, temporum socius sit ut ipse bonorum.

On Caesar’s couch, covered with a snowy veil,
they report that the six-footed bane was wont to rest,
whose custom was to feed on someone’s blood without a companion.
Who, only fearing to touch the living god,
would lick his master’s limbs as he lay with a gentle point.
The flea, taking such joys to be the greatest benefits,
petitions that he himself be a companion of good times.

"Condicione pari potes", hec ait, "ipse morari."
Qua sibi lege data, fruitur stacione rogata.
Intrat nocte thorum posthac rex nescius horum;
Lenis ut inprimis uenis sopor influit imis,
Inde pulex mordax, magis irrequietus et audax,
Corpus obit rostro, tectum regale sub ostro,
Tamque frequens seuit, dum somnum prorsus ademit.
Expulit a tergo rex pallia protinus ergo;
His procul excussis, astantibus ilico iussis,
Retro dedit saltum nouus incola, lapsus in altum;
Est tamen inuentus pedo, pro consorte peremptus.

"On the same condition," she says, "you yourself can stay."
With this law given to him, he enjoys the requested station.
Thereafter at night the king, unaware of these things, enters the bed;
As gentle sleep at first flows into the deepest veins,
then the biting flea, more restless and more audacious,
goes over the body with his proboscis, the royal couch under purple,
and so frequent he rages, until he has utterly taken away sleep.
The king therefore straightway expelled the coverlets from his back;
these shaken off far away, the bystanders immediately being ordered,
backward the new inhabitant gave a leap, having fallen into the deep;
he was nevertheless found by a foot, slain in place of his consort.

Sic tandem letus rex et pro uelle quietus
Somnum rursus init, procul hinc ferus hostis ut iuit.
Discat ad hoc mitis cupidum contempnere litis,
Aequus et est, si quis caueat, sicut hospes iniquis,
Ne simul utcumque perimi contingat utrumque
Suppliciis dignis pro factis forte malignis.

Thus at length the king, glad and quiet according to his wish,
enters sleep again, since the fierce foe has gone far from here.
Let the mild learn from this to despise a craving for litigation,
and it is equitable too, if one be wary, as a guest with iniquitous hosts,
lest by any means it befall that both alike be destroyed,
worthy of punishments for perhaps malign deeds.

XVI. [De coruo et angue.]

16. [On the raven and the snake.]

ANGVIS erat suetus corui consumere foetus;
A quo se dampno nullo cohibebat in anno.
Quod dum tale pati grauis esset sarcina patri,
Luminibus tandem ratus est priuaret ut anguem,
Vel dum dormiret, aliter si forte nequiret.
Cuius uir quidam tantam compescuit iram,
Dum presensisset, temptare quod id uoluisset;
Sicque dehortatur, ne tale quid aggrediatur:
"Quod reputas, durum nimis est et inane futurum,
Ne paciaris idem, quod auis temeraria pridem,
Cuius ad exemplum sibi precipit esse cauendum.

A serpent was accustomed to consume the brood of the crow;
from which damage he restrained himself in no year.
Since to suffer such a thing was a heavy burden for the father,
he deemed at last that he should deprive the serpent of its eyes,
even while it slept, if perchance otherwise he could not.
But a certain man checked so great a wrath of his,
when he had perceived beforehand that he wished to attempt that;
and thus he dehorts him, lest he undertake such a thing:
"What you are reckoning is too hard and will prove vain,
lest you suffer the same as the temerarious bird once did,
by whose example he enjoins that one must beware for oneself.

Victus ad extremum maciae segnisque per euum
Scorpio, capturae spe deficiente future,
Cogitat, ut saltem uiuat per quamlibet artem.
Continuos pisces, ut alatur, fallere gliscens,
His, sicut antique licet, insidiatur unique.
Vt malefactorum se poenituisse priorum
Proderet, astutus sic est ex more locutus:
"Tempus adest dici, quod uobis prosit, amici.

Conquered at the end by meagerness and sluggish through his lifetime, the Scorpion, with hope of future capture failing, plans that at least he may live by whatever art. Growing eager to deceive fish in continuous succession, so that he may be nourished, upon these, just as of old it is permitted, he lies in ambush, to each one. That he might betray that he had repented of prior malefactions, the astute one thus spoke according to custom: "The time is here for something to be said which may profit you, friends."

Cras piscatores per cunctas has regiones,
Se uos capturos minitantes, constat ituros;
Nec uestrum rimis sic quisque latebit in imis,
Vt piscatorum laqueos euadat eorum.
Vt tuti sitis mecumque uenire uelitis,
In terram tutam facili uos tramite ducam;
Vosque meo collo duo nunc, simul et duo, tollo."
Quos ita ducendo, sic semper et hos comedendo,
Deliciis magnis hac uixit fraude tot annis.
Tum uolucrum quedam sectari nescia predam,
Vnguibus et pennis ac toto corpore segnis,
Sic se sustolli prece flagitat inuida molli.

Tomorrow fishermen through all these regions,
threatening that they will capture you, it is certain they will set out;
nor will any of you so hide in the lowest crevices,
as to escape the snares of the fishermen, of them.
So that you may be safe and be willing to come with me,
into safe land I will lead you by an easy path;
"And upon my neck I lift you—two now, and two at once."
By leading them thus, and likewise always by eating these,
by this fraud he lived in great delights for so many years.
Then a certain one of the birds, unskilled to pursue prey,
sluggish in claws and wings and in her whole body,
thus, envious, with a soft prayer she demands to be lifted up.

Quam patulis chelis precibus tulit eius anhelis;
Cumque lacum quendam, quo se putat esse ferendam,
Tanti latronis procul aspexisset in (h)oris,
Ossaque cum spinis quam plura iacere sub imis,
Se metuente mori, cum sit locus ipse timori,
Incumbens hosti, laniabat acumine rostri;
Mox sed ab obsceno cadit ipsius icta ueneno:
Hostis it illesus, uolucer perit ipse comesus.
Tale quod exemplum tibi, corue, sit ut documentum,
Quo punire modo ualeas tua pignora, prodo:
Quemlibet ornatum uideas, ubicumque paratum,
Qui tamen ore geri bene possit et usque uideri,
Prouidus assumens planumque per aera ducens,
Ad loca iactabis serpentis et inde uolabis".
Quod cum fecisset, post hunc speculator et isset,
Hoc ornamento sumpto, redit, angue perempto,
Suauiter antiquum coruum sic ultus amicum.
[Qu]isquis erit lector, uitae sit ut amodo rector,
Exteriora legat, sua semper et intima querat
Et, quacumque uia ualet, instet in allegoria,
Quae uinci monstrat leuius racione, quod obstat,
Inmoderatarum quam garrulitate minarum.

Which with wide-spread claws he bore at her gasping prayers;
and when she had from afar espied a certain lake, to which she thinks herself to be borne,
of so great a brigand, on the banks,
and that very many bones with spines lay beneath in the depths,
she, fearing to die, since the place itself is for fear,
pressing upon the enemy, was rending with the sharpness of her beak;
but soon she falls, smitten by his obscene venom:
the enemy goes unhurt; the bird itself perishes, devoured.
Such an example, raven, that it may be a document for you,
I set forth by what mode you may be able to punish your pledges (offspring):
whatever ornament you may see, wherever prepared,
which nevertheless can well be borne by the mouth and be seen all along,
taking it forethoughtfully and leading it level through the air,
you will cast toward the places of the serpent and from there you will fly away."
Which when he had done, and after this the spy had also gone,
with this ornament taken up, he returns, the serpent slain,
thus sweetly having avenged his ancient friend, the raven.
[Wh]oever will be a reader, that he may from now on be a ruler of life,
let him read the outer things, and always seek his own inner things,
and, by whatever way he is able, let him press upon the allegory,
which shows that what stands in the way is overcome more lightly by reason,
than by the garrulity of immoderate threats.

XVII. [De uiro et uase olei.]

17. [On the man and the vase of oil.]

VXOR ab antiquo fnit infoecunda marito.
Mesticiam cuius cupiens lenire uir huius,
His blandimentis solatur tristia mentis:
"Cur sic tristaris lamentis, uxor, amaris?
Pulchrae prolis eris satis amodo munere felix".
Pro nichulo ducens hec coniux talia prudens,
His uerbis plane, quod ait uir, monstrat inane:
"Rebus inops quidam, fatuumque plus tibi dicam,
Vas olei plenum, quod longum retro per euum
Legerat orando, loca per diuersa uagando,
Fune ligans arto, tecti suspendit in alto,
Dum prestolatur tempus, quo pluris ematur,
Quo locupletari se sperat et arte beari.

A wife from of old was infertile to her husband.
Wishing to soothe whose sadness, the husband of this woman,
with these blandishments consoles the sorrows of her mind:
“Why do you thus grieve with bitter laments, wife?
By the gift of fair offspring you will be happy enough henceforth.”
Counting such words for nothing, this prudent spouse,
by these words plainly shows what the man says to be inane:

“A certain man, destitute of means—and, what is more fatuous, I will tell you—
a vessel full of oil, which for a long time back through the age
he had gathered by begging, wandering through diverse places,
binding it with a tight rope, he suspended it in the high part of the roof,
while he awaits the time when it may be bought for a higher price,
whereby he hopes to be enriched and to be blessed by his art.

Talia dum captat, hec stultus inania iactat:
"Ecce potens factus, fuero dum talia nactus!
Vinciar uxori, quantum queo, nobiliori;
Tunc sobolem gignam, se meque per omnia dignam,
Cuius opus morum genus omne preibit auorum.
Cui nisi tot uitae fuerint insignia rite,
Fustis hic absque mora feriet caput eius et ora".
Quod dum narraret, dextramque minando leuaret,
Vt percussisset puerum, quasi presto fuisset,
Vas in predictum manus inscia dirigit ictum,
Seruatumque sibi uas ilico fregit oliui,
Sic inopinatum deflens miserabile fatum:
"Heu!

While he is grasping at such things, this fool utters these inanities:
"Lo, made potent, once I have gotten such things!
I shall be bound to a wife, as noble as I can;
Then I will beget offspring, worthy in all things of her and me,
Whose work of morals will outstrip the whole race of our ancestors.
For whom, unless there shall duly be so many insignia of life,
A cudgel here, without delay, will smite his head and face."
While he was relating this, and was lifting his right hand with menace,
As if he would strike the boy, as if he were at hand,
His unknowing hand directs the blow onto the aforesaid vessel,
And straightway he broke the vessel of olive-oil kept for himself,
Thus bewailing the unforeseen, pitiable fate:
"Alas!

quid inops egi? quo memet opesque redegi?
Quos male tractaui, dum nescius ista putaui,
Stulticiaeque minae sunt huius causa ruinae".
Quod uir ut audiuit, surrexit et obuius iuit,
Verberet ut sponsam fari sibi taliter ausam.

what have I, destitute, done? to what have I reduced myself and my wealth?
whom have I treated badly, while, unknowing, I supposed these things,
and the menaces of stupidity are the cause of this one’s ruin."
When the husband heard this, he rose and went to meet her,
so that he might beat his spouse for having dared to speak thus to him.

Que mox hunc digne percussit uerbere linguae:
"Haec tua te multum monstrat presumpcio stultum.
Ante cecidisti, qui me tam uulnere tristi,
Quam uestigares, quod in hoc tibi, stulte, notares.
En pacior, muri domini quod tempore duri
Contigit insonti, perimit quem uerbere conti.

And she forthwith smote him worthily with the lash of the tongue:
"This your presumption shows you very much to be a fool.
You fell beforehand, you who [would] with so sad a wound [strike] me,
before you had tracked out what in this you, fool, should note for yourself.
Lo, I suffer what, at the harsh time of the wall’s lord,
befell the innocent—whom the blow of the pike does away with."

Cuius in ede nigrum perhibent habitasse chelidrum,
Indidit, ut credo, cui nomen et ipsa nigredo;
Scandere qui suerat puerum, quem mater alebat.
Quo mus inuento, superastat dente cruento;
Protinus exanguis perit eius morsibus anguis
Filioli cedem genitor putat, intrat ut edem,
Morte ratus dignum per sanguinis hunc fore signum;
Menbraque frustatim iacit extra limina statim.
Sed postquam sciuit, soboles quoniam sua uiuit,
Indoluit prorsus, facinus quod id esset adorsus.

In whose temple they report that a black chelidrus had dwelt,
to which, as I believe, its very blackness even gave the name;
which was wont to climb upon the boy whom his mother was nourishing.
When it found a mouse, it would stand over it with blood-stained tooth;
straightway the serpent, bloodless, perishes from his bites.
The father deems it the slaughter of the dear little son, and so enters the temple,
thinking this sign of blood to make him worthy of death;
and straightway he casts the limbs piecemeal outside the thresholds.
But after he learned that his offspring lived,
he utterly grieved that he had undertaken that deed.

Tandem correptus racionibus his uir ineptus,
Sensit in exemplis mulieris tam sapientis,
Insciciae quantae tempus censere sit ante,
Vanaque sectari, sectandaque non meditari,
Ac nisi post culpam de quoquam sumere mulctam.

At length, corrected by these reasons, the inept man
perceived, in the examples of so sapient a woman,
how much time ought first to be reckoned for ignorance,
and that to pursue vain things, and not to meditate the things to be pursued,
and to take a mulct from anyone only after a fault.

XVIII. [De mure et gatto.]

18. [On the mouse and the cat.]

QVA disiungatur uel qua racione iu[n]gatur
Fedus amicorum, rex quendam phylosophorum
Consulit, ut gnarum rerum specialiter harum.
Pectore prudenti cui rettulit ista petenti:
Sunt contra morem, simulant qui pacis amorem,
Rebus cepta malis cum sit dilectio talis.
Mus colitur gatto, sed ad hoc, ut tempore capto
Hac specie pacis sit preda cibusque rapacis.

By what it may be disjoined, or by what reason it may be joined,
the treaty of friends, a king consults a certain philosopher,
as one knowledgeable of things, especially of these.
To the prudent-hearted petitioner he returned these things:
They are against custom—those who simulate a love of peace,
when such affection has been undertaken with evil undertakings.
The mouse is honored by the cat, but for this: that, when the moment is seized,
under this species (appearance) of peace it may be the prey and food of the rapacious one.

Cuius dum fauces artaret callidus auceps
Insitus et reti foret in discrimine leti,
Accedens iuxta, mus temptat soluere frustra;
Nam mustela retro stat buboque lumine tetro,
Quos constat uere mures ex more timere.
Gattus, ut antiquos muris uidet hos inimicos
Eius ad interitum iuxta concurrere ritum,
Supplex implorat, ueniens ut recia rodat:
Si foret exclusus, fieret sibi maximus usus.
Famine quem blando permulcet talia fando:
"Que nocitura times, ut, amice, pericula uites?

While a cunning bird-catcher was tightening his throat,
and, fixed in the net, he was in the peril of death,
drawing near, the mouse tries in vain to loosen it;
for a weasel stands behind and an eagle-owl with baleful glare,
whom, truly, mice according to custom are wont to fear.
The cat, when he sees these ancient enemies of the mice
converging close by to the mouse’s destruction,
as a suppliant implores that, coming up, he gnaw the nets:
if he were let out, there would be the greatest advantage to himself.
With a soothing speech he strokes him, saying such things:
“What things about to harm do you fear, that, friend, you may avoid the dangers?

Ore meo ducam te leniter, utpote ludam,
Nec paciare mali quicquam gestamine tali.
Id nam spectantes, raptores te prope stantes,
Vt iam desperent, dum sic portabere, cedent".
Quod mus dum credit, laqueos ex more peredit,
Liber et exiuit mox gattus, ut ante petiuit,
Impaciensque more murem complectitur ore.
Qui cum clamaret, grauiter quia se cruciaret,
Respondit gattus, id agat quod amore coactus
Iuxta promissum; se ledere denegat ipsum,
Excusans tali sese racione sodali:
"Quid me causaris?

With my mouth I will lead you gently, inasmuch as I am playing,
nor will you suffer any evil by such a carrying.
For those beholding this, the raptors standing near you,
so that they may already despair, while you are borne thus, will withdraw."
Which, while the mouse believes, he gnaws through the nooses as is his wont;
and free the cat soon went out, as he had sought before,
and, impatient according to his custom, he embraces the mouse with his mouth.
And when he cried out, because he was grievously tormented,
the cat responded, that he does this, compelled by love,
according to the promise; he denies that he injures him himself,
excusing himself to his companion by such a rationale:
"Why do you accuse me?

de dentibus ipse queraris,
A quibus artari te constat et excruciari.
Numquid habent dentes aures oculosque patentes?
Aure trahant questus, quos iactas pectore mestus.

you yourself complain about the teeth,
by which it is clear that you are constrained and excruciated.
Do teeth perchance have ears and eyes standing open?
Let ears draw in the complaints which, sad in breast, you cast forth.

Dentibus ecce feris iam protinus excrucieris
Inque meum uentrem duceris, dente carentem!"
Talia dicendo, miserum suffocat edendo.
Arte doli tanti perit hic confisus amanti.
Spernite, lectores, tales simulantis amores,
Pollicitis oris, quamuis uideantur amoris,
Nec confidatis, ne forte per hoc pereatis.

Behold, by feral teeth you will straightway be excruciated,
and into my belly you will be led, lacking a tooth!"
By saying such things, he suffocates the wretch by eating.
By the art of so great a guile this one, trusting in a lover, perishes.
Spurn, readers, such loves of one who simulates,
by the oral promises, although they seem to be of love,
nor put confidence in them, lest perhaps through this you perish.

Verba quidem mellis sunt plena, sed intima fellis,
In quibus est nusquam fidei spes certa quibusquam;
His qui confidit, mus dictus ut ante, peribit.

The words indeed are full of honey, but their inmost parts are gall,
in which there is nowhere a sure hope of faith for anyone;
he who confides in these, like the mouse spoken of before, will perish.

XIX. [De uiro, dracone et simia.]

19. [On the man, the dragon, and the ape.]

VT cesset queri, melius quid ubique uideri
Viuentum possit, peiusque quid omnibus obsit,
Fabula philosophi liquido manifestat Esopi.
In qua monstratur, homo sepe quod inueniatur
Deterior brutis, proprie magis atque salutis
Inmemor, auctoris curaeque fuisse minoris;
Idque docet uerum ficta sub ymagine rerum.
Per nemorum sentes draco, simia, uir fugientes,
Ictu fortunae cecidere sub ima lacunae.

So that complaining may cease, what better may anywhere seem for the living,
and what worse may harm all, the fable of the philosopher Aesop clearly makes manifest.
In which it is shown that man is often found
inferior to brutes, more unmindful of propriety and of safety,
and that he has held both his Author and due care in lesser esteem;
and it teaches that truth under the feigned image of things.
Through the thorns of the groves, a dragon, an ape, and a man, fleeing,
by a stroke of Fortune fell down into the depth of a pit.

Quos ubi uenator, loca tunc secus ipsa uiator,
Forte sub inmundo stratos uidet esse profundo,
Tantae molis onus sursum leuat ilico pronus,
Incolumes extra deducens remige dextra.
Protinus emersi, sunt in sua quique reuersi.
Vt nemus intret idem, posthac contingit eidem
Cum canibus rursum procul indagantibus ursum.

Whom, when a hunter, then a wayfarer along those very places,
by chance sees to be strewn beneath the foul profound,
he, bending forward, immediately lifts the onus of so great a mass upward,
leading them out safe, with his right hand as oarsman.
Forthwith, having surfaced, each returned to his own.
When the same man enters the grove, thereafter it befalls the same one
with hounds again tracking a bear from afar.

Cui spe uenanti, famis anxietate uaganti,
Mel tulit inuentum, quod dulce sit huic alimentum,
Pro benefactorum uice simia preteritorum;
Duxit et ore draco gemmis auroque meraco
Ornatum sertum, sibi regis in arce repertum.
Quod uir ut hic dignus sumpsit memorabile pignus,
Indicat huic fabro, puteo quem traxit ab atro,
Namque ferebatur, catus inde quod hic habe[b]atur.
Cuius amore pari se postulat arte leuari.

To whom, hunting with hope, wandering with the anxiety of hunger,
honey was brought as a find, that it might be sweet aliment for him,
in the stead of benefactors past, by the ape;
and the dragon bore in his mouth a garland adorned with gems and with unalloyed gold,
found for himself in a king’s citadel.
Which, as one worthy, the man took up as a memorable token,
he points out to this smith, whom he had drawn from the black pit,
For it was reported that herein this man was held to be shrewd.
For love of whom, with love in equal measure, he requests to be lifted by his art.

Nam, quoniam prisci facti putat hunc reminisci
Et meminit, quantae fidei sibi per nemus ante
In sua uota fere, quas iuuerat, ultro fuere,
Auxiliatorem sibi credidit hunc meliorem;
Cui memorabat, uti fuit eius presto saluti.
Quo faber inspecto regisque per atria uecto,
Asserit obnixe, diadema quod abstulit ipse.
Cuius rex uerbis, furiis accensus, acerbis
Iussit, ut est moris, furem concidere loris;
Cumque diu cesus sic esset et undique lesus,
Se petit audiri post facti uerbera diri.

For, since he thinks that this man remembers the former deed,
and remembers how great in fidelity to him, through the grove before,
the wild beasts, whom he had helped, were, of their own accord, to his desires,
he believed this man to be a better helper for himself;
to whom he was recounting how he had been at hand for his safety.
Upon which, the smith, when examined and carried through the king’s halls,
asserts strenuously that he himself had taken away the diadem.
At whose words the king, inflamed with furies, bitterly,
ordered, as is the custom, that the thief be scourged with thongs;
and when he had been long beaten thus and wounded on every side,
he seeks to be heard after the lashes for the dire deed.

Narrat et exsanguis, sibi qualiter id tulit anguis,
Tocius atque rei seriem nomenque diei,
Quem stupet inmiti sibi tam nunc mente reniti,
Et dolet infecti furti se crimine plecti.
Cuius onus colli dissoluunt hac precae molli.
Quem rex, ceu norat meruisse, decenter honorat,
Aurificem dandum precepit et ad cruciandum,
Vt falsi testis det penas pro male gestis.

He also, exsanguine, relates how a serpent bore that to him,
and the sequence of the whole affair and the name of the day,
and he is amazed that now he resists him with so immitigable a mind,
and he grieves that he is punished by the charge of an uncommitted theft.
The burden of his neck they dissolve by this gentle prayer.
Whom the king, since he knew he had merited it, fittingly honors,
he ordered the goldsmith to be handed over and to be cruciated (tortured),
that, as a false witness, he may pay penalties for ill deeds.

Quisquis enim fodit foueam, quem subdolus odit,
Atque repentinam parat huic inferre ruinam,
Iuxta psalmistam foueam prius incidit istam,
Per quam punitum constat scelus ante cupitum.

Whoever indeed digs a pit for the one whom he deceitfully hates,
and prepares to bring upon him a sudden ruin,
according to the psalmist he first falls into that pit,
through which it is evident that the crime earlier desired is punished.

XX. [De fure in testimonium arborem inuocante.]

20. [On a thief invoking a tree as testimony.]

CVM duo uicini foderent secus arua Ticini,
His auri plenum casus patefaecit aenum.
Qui minor est horum, nituit spectamine morum;
Alter ad omne scelus fraudis fore fertur anhelus.
Hic reputans secum, collegam fallat at aequum.

WHEN two neighbors were digging along the fields of the Ticino,
to them chance laid open a bronze vessel full of gold.
He who is the younger of these shone in the spectacle of morals;
the other is reported as panting for every crime of fraud.
This man, reckoning with himself, that he might trick his partner, yet appear equitable.

Vota sui cordis tegit hoc sub tegmine fraudis:
"Infodiamus humi noti sub cespite dumi,
Quicquid fortuna tribuente recepimus una".
Mox id ut utrisque placuit, redit in sua quisque.
Callidus, huc docte ueniens ea tollere nocte,
Gesserat ex toto, socio procul inde remoto.
Mane dehinc facto, sic secum tempore pacto
Mitis adhortatur, communiter huc ut eatur.

He covers the vows of his heart beneath this covering of fraud:
"Let us dig into the ground beneath the turf of a well-known briar,
whatever, with Fortune contributing, we have received together."
Soon, as this pleased them both, each returns to his own.
The crafty one, coming hither cleverly to lift them that night,
had carried off the whole, his partner kept far away from there.
With morning then made, and the time thus agreed between them,
the gentle one exhorts that they go here together.

Quo dum uenissent, id munus ut inde tulissent,
Vndique lustrando, telluris et ima cauando,
Se male deceptos deflent, nichul intus adeptos;
Quique fuit tantae fraudis sibi conscius ante
Inuidieque neuo primo maculatus ab aeuo,
Inposuit fratri furti scelus omne patrati,
Quodque sibi prorsus hic nocte tulisse sit ausus.
Cumque repugnaret, sub iudice seque rogaret
Leniter audiri, scelus hoc et utrimque requiri,
Maior eum natu, proprio cogente reatu,
Arguit indigne sceleris fraudisque malignae.
Cui sic respondit, mox talia censor ut audit:
"Dic michi, si testis sit quislibet his male gestis".
Ille uir haud aequus aurique cupidine cecus:
"Haec" ait, "arbor erit testis, qui talia querit,
Tegmine sub cuius uas auri teximus huius.

When they had come there, so that they might carry that treasure from there,
by searching on every side, and by hollowing the depths of the earth,
they lament themselves badly deceived, having obtained nothing within;
and he who had previously been conscious to himself of so great a fraud,
and stained from earliest age by the birthmark of envy,
imposed upon his brother the whole crime of the theft perpetrated,
and that this man had outright dared to carry it off for himself by night.
And when he resisted, and asked that under a judge he himself
be gently heard, and that this crime be inquired into on both sides,
the elder by birth, with his own guilt compelling,
accused him unworthily of wickedness and malignant fraud.
To whom the judge thus responded, as soon as he hears such things:
“Tell me if there be any witness to these ill deeds.”
That man, hardly equitable and blinded by cupidity for gold:
“This,” he says, “tree will be witness, whoever seeks such things,
beneath whose covering we concealed the vessel of this gold.

Huc proficiscamur, si uis, ut id experiamur".
Huius enim rixae fuerat quia prescius ipse,
Arbor et introrsum summo tenus usque deorsum
Tota putrescebat medioque foramen habebat,
Eius in interna concluserat ante cauerna,
Queque rogaretur, qui falso testificetur.
Huc ad conflictum properant, erat utpote dictum.
Hac ope munitus, hac semper et arte potitus,
Perfidus ut primum uenit arboris huius ad imum,
Dissimulando rogat, scelus arbor ut hoc sibi prodat.

Let us set out hither, if you wish, so that we may test it."
For of this quarrel he himself had been prescient,
and the tree inwardly from the top all the way downwards
was wholly putrescing and had a foramen in the middle,
within whose internal cavern he had previously enclosed
someone who, when he should be asked, would testify falsely.
Hither to the conflict they hasten, as indeed was said.
Fortified by this aid, and ever in possession of this art,
the perfidious man, as soon as he came to the bottom of this tree,
by dissembling asks that the tree betray this crime to him.

His puer inclusus perhibetur uocibus usus:
"Aeris hic inuenti socius tibi nocte silenti
Improbus huc uenit, clam prorsus et illud ademit".
His ait auditis mentis uir ad omnia mitis:
"Crimen ut hoc fraudis pateat, quod taliter audis,
Arbiter, obiectum michi fac, quod cogito, rectum:
Hoc sit ut arbustum flammis ultricibus ustum".
Quod cum iussisset flammas circumque tulisset:
"Quis" ait, "iste furor? pater, huc ades! intus aduror".
Mox pater et natus, censore iubente, crematus
Iure dat has penas, statuit quia sic alienas.

By these voices a boy enclosed is reported to have spoken:
“Your partner in the found money, a wicked man, came here in the silent night,
secretly and outright took it away.”
With these things heard, the man mild of mind in all things says:
“So that this crime of fraud may lie open, as you hear it thus,
Arbiter, impose on me what I deem right:
namely, that this little grove be burned with avenging flames.”
When he had ordered this and had carried fire around it, he says:
“What is this madness? Father, come here! I am being burned inside.”
Soon the father and the son, by the censor ordering it, cremated,
rightly pay these penalties, because he had thus fixed penalties for others.

Sic qui uicinum sibi quemlibet aut peregrinum
Ledere conatur, ius contra fasque minatur,
Se grauiore peti discat discrimine leti,
Vt uice, qua mensus fuerat, sit et ipse remensus.

Thus whoever tries to injure his neighbor or a peregrine stranger
menaces both law and sacred right,
let him learn that he is assailed by a graver peril of death,
so that in turn, with the measure he had meted, he himself also may be remeasured.

XXI. [De lepore, gatto et pardo.]

21. [On the hare, the cat, and the pard.]

FORTE specum quandam lepus olim nactus amandam,
Vespere iam facto, subit hanc procul hospite gatto.
Quo solitum iuxta repetente domestica lustra,
Ante sui postis stat limen, ut obruat hostis,
Nec parcens irae uetat hunc sua tecta subire.
Sic altercantes, sibi sepe diuque minantes,
Constituere queri sub pardo, iudice ueri,
Cuius censurae statuunt se subdere iure,
His utriusque minis stabilis quia mutuo finis
Nullus habebatur, requies nec certa dabatur.

By chance, a hare once, having found a certain lovable cave,
With evening now come, he enters it, with the guest cat far off.
When he, as was his wont, was returning to his domestic lairs nearby,
He stands before the threshold of his own doorposts, so that he may block the foe,
Not sparing his anger, he forbids this one to go under his roof.
Thus, wrangling, and often and long threatening each other,
They resolved to complain before the pard, judge of truth,
To whose censure they resolve to submit themselves by right,
Because, with these threats of each, a stable mutual end
Was possessed by none, nor was certain repose being given.

Legis enim rectae fuit eius uita senectae;
Et licet hoc pardus sit tempore corpore tardus,
Calliditate uiget nec mentis acumine friget.
Vt ueniunt, cuncta referunt, lis unde sit orta.
Quos hic affatur, dum sic censere rogatur:
"Querite censorem, quem constat ad hoc meliorem;
Namque per etatem quemquam non iudico fratrem;
Factus et antique monachus pro crimine uitae,
Carnes detestor, foliis et gramine uescor;
Vsque sub occasum solis nichil intrat omasum.

for of right law was his life even in old age;
and although the leopard at this time be slow in body,
he thrives in cunning and does not grow cold in the acumen of mind.
As they come, they report everything, whence the lawsuit arose.
Whom he addresses, while he is asked to judge thus:
"Seek a censor, whom it is agreed is better for this;
for by reason of age I judge no brother;
and, having become long ago a monk for the crime of life,
I detest meats, and I feed on leaves and grass;
up to beneath the setting of the sun nothing enters the omasum.

Crede michi, tantum comedo, quod sit sacrosanctum,
Ac michi dicendi datur hora modusque tacendi.
Luminis effectus minuit michi longa senectus,
Cui solet appendi uictus sub tempus edendi;
Meque potestatis propriae non esse sciatis,
Sed dominantis heri sub iure iugoque teneri".
Tunc lepus et gattus: "Quia sic", ait, "est tuus actus,
Venimus huc ad te, liti modus hinc sit ut apte".
Ille suis tegnis non quemquam fallere segnis,
Indoluisse datur super his, pius ut uideatur,
Instat et incautis uerbis ad talia comptis;
Intus enim pungunt cum uerba, forinsecus ungunt:
"Cernitis, ut dixi, iam iam mea menbra fatisci;
Huius et, ut scitis, nimis impar sum modo litis.
To[r]tus et obtusus stat nostri corporis usus;
Sensibus utatur qui talibus, ille petatur:
Demus in amplexus uestros tamen ante recessus,
Nosque salutemus et ad oscula danda paremus.

Believe me, I eat only so much as is sacrosanct,
and to me a hour for speaking and a mode for keeping silence is given.
The effect of light long senescence has diminished for me,
to which victuals are wont to be appended at the time of eating;
and know that I am not of my own power,
but am held under the law and yoke of a dominating master."
Then the hare and the cat: "Since thus," he says, "is your conduct,
we have come hither to you, that from here there may aptly be a bound to the lawsuit."
He, with his own techni(c)ks, not sluggish to deceive anyone,
is reported to have grieved over these things, so that he may seem pious,
and he presses on with such words, combed for the incautious;
for words sting within, while without they anoint:
"You see, as I said, now now my limbs grow weak;
and of this suit, as you know, I am just now too unequal.
Twisted and blunted stands the use of my body;
let him be sought who makes use of such senses:
yet let us first give ourselves into your embraces before we part,
and let us greet and prepare for kisses to be given.

Sicque ualedicto, me protinus ite relicto!"
Mox amplexantes semet, sed et oscula dantes,
Pacis in hoc signo perierunt dente maligno,
Stulticiaeque ferunt penas, quas tunc meruerunt.
Cognita stultorum post talia facta duorum,
Cui non est curae, sit in his uis quanta figurae,
Se quoque seduci sciat hac sub ymagine fuci,
Condicione pari dignus quandoque necari.

And so, with a valediction, go at once, me left behind!"
Soon embracing one another, and also giving kisses,
in this sign of peace they perished by a malign tooth,
and they bear the penalties of stupidity, which they then deserved.
Once, after such things, the deeds of the two fools were known,
let him, to whom it is not a care, consider how great the force of the figure is in these,
let him know himself also to be seduced under this image of deceit,
being in an equal condition, worthy someday to be killed.

XXII. [De camelo, coruo, lupo, ursa et leone.]

22. [On the camel, the raven, the wolf, the bear, and the lion.]

PRINCIPIS ignari nimium camelus auari
Ferre uerebatur sibi ius graue, qui dominatur,
Spe breuiore boni cupiens seruire leoni
Inferioris heri quam comptus honore uideri.
Mente quidem uoluit dum talia, debita soluit
Presidis antiqui sibi iuris et eius iniqui.
Cuius inane decus reputans sibi transfuga cecus,
Sub ducis electi statuit moderamine necti,
Imperiumque pati magis eius ad omnia grati.

The camel, of a prince too ignorant and too greedy,
was afraid to bear upon himself the heavy right of him who dominates,
wishing, with a shorter hope of good, to serve the lion
rather than to seem adorned with the honor of an inferior master.
While he indeed willed such things in mind, he paid the debts
of the ancient president’s right against himself—and of that unjust one.
Weighing his empty glory for himself, the blind turncoat
resolved to be bound under the governance of the chosen leader,
and to endure his command more gladly in all things.

Ad quem captandum leo se pro tempore blandum
Finxit, ut est moris, ubi spes rudis extat amoris;
Cui dedit, ut forti, propriae superesse cohorti,
Eius et ipse gregis sit censor munere regis.
Hic tantus princeps senio morboque deinceps
Fertur eo fractus febriumque rigore coactus,
Ut solitae predae studio non surgat ab ede,
Ne quid fomenti valeat dare cuique clienti.
Dumque fame, siti coruus, lupus, ursa, ministri
Eius, tunc aeque premerentur nocte dieque,
Hoc ineunt foedus, fallatur ut iste camelus;
Hoc qui fecisset, iurant dare, quaeque petisset.

To catch him, the lion for the time fashioned himself blandly
—as is the custom, when a raw hope of love stands forth;
to whom he granted, as to a brave one, to preside over his own cohort,
and that he himself of his flock be the censor by the gift of the king.
This so great a prince thereafter is reported, by age and by sickness,
to have been broken, and forced by the rigor of fevers to such a point,
that with zeal for his accustomed prey he does not rise from his lair,
nor is he able to give any foment to any client.
And while by hunger and thirst the raven, the wolf, the bear—his ministers—
were then equally pressed by night and by day,
they enter this pact, that this camel be deceived;
they swear to give, to whoever shall have done this, whatever he might have asked.

Coruus, ut est moris fore gutturis improbioris,
Sic parat ac tutum pecus hoc deludere brutum:
"En iacet egrotus paruo leo tempore notus,
Cuius, ut ipse uides, desunt ad forcia uires!
Pulcher es et gnarus, menbris et origine clarus:
Dignus es et fortis caput huius habere cohortis.
Quo duce cognoscit mox, qualiter hic fore possit.

The Raven, as is the custom of a more shameless throat,
thus prepares to delude this trustful brute of the herd:
"Lo, the lion lies sick, for but a short time now known,
whose strength, as you yourself see, is lacking for feats of force!
You are handsome and knowing, illustrious in limbs and in origin:
you are worthy and strong to be the head of this cohort.
With you as leader one soon comes to know how things may be here.

En" ait, "audisti, domino quid contigit isti,
Utque sit ad regni moderamina corpore segni,
Viribus effetis sibi prorsus ad omnia suetis.
Huc indefessus confestim dirige gressus;
Post quem regnabis, si fortiter hunc superabis.
Talia uelle pati tecum sumus ire parati,
Teque iuuaturi super hec prius et ruituri,
Si demum nostri dominaberis, utpote nosti,
Collaque tam lenis domini subdemus habenis".
Credulus huic fraudi reputat sibi quod fore laudi,
In spem regnandi ductus tam crimine grandi.

"Lo," he says, "you have heard what has befallen this lord,
and how he is, for the governance of the realm, sluggish in body,
with his forces effete, wholly unequal to all the things he was accustomed to.
Hither, untiring, straightway direct your steps;
after him you will reign, if you bravely overcome him.
To will and to suffer such things with you, we are ready to go,
and to aid you, and besides this to be the first to rush in,
if at last you will be master of us, as you well know,
and we will put our necks beneath the reins of so gentle a lord."
Credulous of this fraud, he reckons it will be to his praise,
led into the hope of reigning by so great a crime.

Eius ab ore perit, quem sic male perdere querit,
Tresque supradicti saciantur sanguine uicti.
Mos est coruorum factis gaudere luporum;
Regnat ut ante leo, cadit eius et iste tropheo.
Stultus ad hoc discat, ne sic indebita gliscat,
Neue suo iuri diffidat amore futuri,
Sed propriae sortis stet semper munere fortis;
Namque uetustatem qui spreuerit ob nouitatem,
Alterius zeli uice debet obire cameli.

He perishes by his mouth, the one whom he thus evilly seeks to make perish,
and the three aforesaid are sated with the blood of the vanquished.
It is the custom of crows to rejoice at the deeds of wolves;
the lion reigns as before, and this fellow falls as his trophy.
Let the fool learn from this, lest he thus swell for things not owed,
nor distrust his own right out of love for the future,
but let him always stand strong by the gift of his own lot;
for he who has spurned oldness on account of novelty
must, in the stead of another’s zeal, undergo the role of a camel.

XXIII. [De ariete canem simulante.]

23. [On the ram simulating a dog.]

CVSTOS non uilis canis olim regis ouilis
Id fore securum faciebat ab agmine furum,
Nec metuisse minas noctesque diesque lupinas.
Quo mox defuncto, grauis est dolor in grege cuncto;
Nam lupus, hostis atrox, nullo prohibente, per agros
Inde solebat edax, quas uellet, ducere predas.
Cuius ubique minis grex territus atque rapinis
Cogitat, obsisti ualeat quibus artibus isti.

A no-mean custodian, a dog once of the king’s sheepfold,
made it secure from the band of thieves,
and not to fear wolfish threats nights and days.
Upon his soon demise, heavy grief falls on the whole flock;
for the wolf, an atrocious enemy, with no one prohibiting, through the fields
thence, ravenous, used to lead away whatever prey he wished.
By whose threats everywhere and rapine the flock, terrified,
it ponders by what arts it might be able to resist him.

Hisque simul mixtis, casus formidine tristis,
Dum dubitaretur, super hoc quid ab his ageretur,
Talia uerba refert aries, qui se magis effert:
"Cura sit incidi tutoris cornua fidi,
Me quoque pelle canis, procul hinc qui fetet inanis,
Circumquaque tegi: uice sic fruar inde catelli".
Quo sic impleto, rediit lupus ordine sueto
Temptat et illesus, quid ut hinc sibi tollat ad esus.
Cuius conatus cohibens canis hic simulatus,
Impiger accessit uiolentus eumque lacessit,
Captus ut hac larua fugitando coinquinet arua;
Idque ter aggressus, redit irritus in sua fessus,
Atque ter inmundo se stercore foedat eundo.
Cum properaret item sibi cum cane sumere litem,
Huius in occursum canis euolat utpote rursum.

And with these likewise mingled, the mishap, sad with fear,
while it was being doubted what about this should be done by them,
the ram—who lifts himself up more—utters such words:
“Let it be a care that the horns of the faithful tutor be cut;
let me also be covered on every side with a dog’s hide, which, empty, reeks from afar,
thus to be covered all around: so in the stead I shall enjoy the role of a whelp.”
With this thus fulfilled, the wolf returned in his accustomed order
and tests, unscathed, what he might carry off from here for eating.
Checking whose attempts, this simulated dog,
untiring, approached violent and provokes him,
so that, caught by this mask, by fleeing he defiles the fields;
and having attacked this three times, he returns to his own, ineffectual, weary,
and thrice befouls himself with unclean dung as he goes.
When likewise he hastened to take up a quarrel with the dog for himself,
to meet him the dog flies out again, as is fitting.

Qui sic currentes per acutos undique sentes,
Se male depectunt, iter alterutmumque reflectunt.
Sic canis inbellis spoliatur tegmine pellis.
Dedecus illatum, longe famis et cruciatum
Vindicat iratus lupus, est cui talia fatus:
"Cur tociens tristi formidine me repulisti?"
"Non ob terrorem, sed ludi propter amorem
Hoc" ait, "est factum, quod te sic reris abactum".
"Esse fugam foedam ter" ait, "ludibria credam;
Amodo ne fallas, tua memet ut hoc modo Pallas,
Quemquam maiorem, parilem uelut inferiorem,
Carnem tam uescam dabis esurientis in escam".
Sic simulatores uariant cum tempore mores.

Those who thus, running through sharp briers on every side,
scratch themselves up badly, and bend their path now one way now the other.
Thus the unwarlike dog is despoiled of the covering of the hide.
The insult inflicted, and long hunger and torment,
the angry wolf avenges, and to him he spoke such words:
"Why have you so often driven me back with drear dread?"
"Not out of terror, but for the love of play
this," he says, "was done, because you think yourself thus chased off."
"That such foul flight, thrice," he says, "I should deem mere mockeries;
henceforth do not deceive, so that you drive me off in this way,
but whether someone greater, equal, or lesser,
you will give such edible flesh as food to the hungry one."
Thus dissemblers vary their manners with the time.

Menti sincerae nequeunt eo usque nocere,
Quin ad momentum sit eis opus illud ademptum;
Et qua crassantur, qua fraudis et arte minantur,
Hac hos non mire contingit iure perire.

They cannot harm a sincere mind to that extent,
but that in a moment that work is taken from them;
and in the way they grow crass, in which by fraud and art they menace,
by this it befalls these to perish by right—not wondrously.

XXIV. [De uulpe et lupo.]

24. [On the fox and the wolf.]

QVANDO per ima freti solito uulpecula reti
Aucta solebat ali captu sepissime tali.
Quam lupus affatur, dum piscibus his epulatur:
"Pars sit ieiuno de tot michi, pisce uel uno,
Dulcis amica, precor, quos sic piscare per aequor".
"Dedecus hoc absit", uulpes ait, "ut tibi pars sit,
Piscibus exesis, ac his iam caumate lesis,
Cum potes arte pari, tibi me monstrante, lucrari.
Hoc modo maiores capies satis ac meliores,
Si consulta uelis tibi credere iure fidelis:
Alueolum caudae tibi, si placet, hic sine fraude
Hac uice subnectam, qua constat me modo uectam;
Ad libitum pisces capies, si talia disces".
Quod cum fecisset, sic nexus ouansque preisset,
Vas id paulatim saxis replet emula statim,
Sicque tegit limo, prope iam maris ut sit in imo.

WHEN through the depths of the strait, by the usual net,
the little vixen used to be augmented with aliment most very often by such a catch.
Whom the wolf addresses, while she feasts on these fishes:
“Let there be a share for me, fasting, out of so many, even with one fish,
sweet friend, I pray, which you thus fish for across the level sea.”
“Let this disgrace be far away,” says the fox, “that there be a portion for you,
when the fishes are eaten up, and now damaged by the heat-calm,
since you can, by equal art, with me showing you, make gain for yourself.
In this way you will take bigger and better ones enough,
if, being counseled, you are willing by right to trust a faithful one:
a little tray to your tail, if it please, I will fasten here without fraud
for this turn, by which it is agreed that I was just now carried;
at your pleasure you will seize fishes, if you learn such things.”
When he had done this, thus bound and going forward rejoicing,
the rival at once gradually fills that vessel with stones,
and thus covers it with slime, so that now it is almost at the bottom of the sea.

Leta dehinc uillas partesque perambulat illas,
Quas multis annis hedis uacuarat et agnis
Ille ferox predo magnusque frequensque comedo.
Qua moniti doni spe circumquaque coloni,
Talia uisuri, gaudent decedere ruri,
Fustibus et tignis raptis, ticionibus ignis,
Vltio predonis foret illius ut regionis,
Tempore cum nacto ualeant illudere capto.
Iamque sibi fracta cauda per talia facta,
Effugit hanc poenam, cuperet dum plus alienam,
Inuentisque dolis sub egri tecta leonis,
Quem febrium pestis dolor excruciabat in extis,
Vimque sui morbi cuncto patefecerat orbi,
Indicat huic crebro, quid prosit et ocius egro:
"Tergone si uulpis corpus circumdare uultis,
Viribus ablatis redigi sic posse sciatis".
Dum sic audiret rata uulpes, hoc ut adiret,
Sorde uolutabri se puluere sparsit et agri:
"Audio me queri, dicor quia pelle mederi;
Foetida sed pellis; hanc si fortasse reuellis,
Fomes erit pestis foris et dolor acrior extis.

Joyous thereafter she perambulates the villas and those parts,
which for many years with kids and lambs
that fierce robber, a great and frequent devourer, had emptied.
Where the farmers, admonished by hope of a gift,
to see such things, rejoice to come forth from the countryside,
with clubs and beams snatched up, with firebrands of fire,
so that there might be vengeance on the robber of that region,
when, the time having been gotten, they might prevail to mock the captured one.
And now, with his own tail broken through such deeds,
he escapes this punishment, while he was desiring rather another’s,
and, devices having been found, under the roof of a sick lion,
whom the plague of fevers’ pain was tormenting in his entrails,
and the force of his disease he had made patent to the whole orb,
he indicates to him repeatedly what may profit and more swiftly the sick man:
“If with the hide of a fox you wish to gird the body,
know that thus, with the powers taken away, he can be reduced (restored).”
While the fox thus heard, taking it as settled, that she should approach this,
she sprinkled herself with the filth of the wallowing-place and the dust of the field:
“I hear that I am sought; I am said to heal by my pelt;
but the pelt is fetid; if perchance you tear this off,
it will be fuel of the pest outside and a sharper pain in the entrails.

At si pelle lupi, qui subiacet huic modo rupi,
Cauda priuati, medicaminis arte probati,
Vndique menbra teges, mox sano corpore deges;
Cui caput atque pedes cum pelle relinquere debes
Et uires priscas reparandas sic fore discas".
Quod uulpes monstrum dum sic uidet ire deorsum:
"Sic cyrothecatus" ait, "ambulet et pileatus!
Ad poenam talem uult cogere quisque sodalem.
Sic eat et mestus per frigora, nudus, et estus,
Vermibus esca datus sic semper ad hos cruciatus".

But if with the skin of the wolf, who just now lies under this rock,
deprived of tail, proven by the art of medicine,
you cover the limbs on every side, soon you will live with a sound body;
for him you ought to leave the head and the feet with skin,
and you will learn thus that pristine forces are to be restored."
When the fox sees such a portent go thus downward:
"Thus let him walk gloved," she says, "and capped!
To such a punishment each one wants to force his companion.
Thus let him go, sad, through colds and, naked, through heats,
given as food to worms, thus always to these torments."

XXV. [De ueruecibus et coco regis.]

25. [On wethers and the king’s cook.]

Agmina ueruecum communi foedere secum
Viribus obniti statuerunt hostis iniqui,
Clam uel forte palam si tantam lederet alam.
Cuius mane gregis geminos ad prandia regis
Ac totidem caenae cocus aufert ui sine paenae;
Deque prius mille gregis huius id egerat ille.
Cumque requisissent, se foederis ut meminissent,
Presidioque pari socios par esse iuuari,
His respondetur, quod eis nichil inde nocetur,
Esse per hunc ritum nec eorum quemque petitum.

Columns of wethers, by a common covenant among themselves,
resolved to strive with their forces against the unjust enemy,
whether secretly or perchance openly, if he should injure so great a wing.
Of whose flock in the morning the cook carries off a twin-pair for the king’s luncheons,
and just so many for supper, by force and without penalty;
and before this he had done the same to a thousand of this flock.
And when they had demanded that they themselves should remember the covenant,
and that comrades be aided equally by equal protection,
it is answered to them that nothing from this harms them,
that by this rite neither is any one of them singled out for attack.

Taliter obliti sibi hosti uelle reniti,
Speque sub hac tuti, male consuluere saluti;
Regis enim mensae solito dedit hos cocus ense
Binos uel trinos nulloque nocente quaternos.
Ad minimam partem talem uenere per artem,
Quique remanserunt, agerent quid, ab his didicerunt;
Namque prius pactum recolentes tam male fractum,
Condicione pari cuiquam timuere iugari,
Tuta fides ueri cum nusquam possit haberi,
In iam promissis etiam iurantibus ipsis,
Atque supradicti tamen hii periere relicti,
Nam quia cesserunt a foedere, quod pepigerunt,
Nec sociae morti cogerunt pectore forti.
Vindicis ista pati meruerunt premia fati,
Iure figurantes, deceat quod semet amantes
Quamlibet ad sortem mentem componere fortem.

Thus, forgetful to wish to resist the enemy for themselves,
and, under this hope secure, they took ill counsel for their safety;
for the cook of the king’s table with his customary blade consigned these
two or three, and, with no one harming him, even four. By such craft they came
to the smallest remnant, and those who remained learned from these what they should do;
for recalling the pact previously so badly broken,
they feared to be yoked to anyone on equal condition,
since safe faith of the true can nowhere be had,
even when they themselves swear upon promises already made;
and yet these aforesaid left-behind perished,
for because they withdrew from the covenant which they had pledged,
nor did they, with a brave heart, constrain themselves to a comrades’ death.
They deserved to suffer these rewards of avenging fate,
rightly prefiguring that it befits those loving themselves
to compose a stout mind to whatever lot.

XXVI. [De cane et lupo.]

26. [On the dog and the wolf.]

FERTUR ouile macer canis, olim uiribus acer,
Quoddam tutari iussu senioris auari.
Qui plus latrando quam morsu uulnera dando,
Omne, quod obstabat gregibus, procul inde fugabat.
Sed quia, seu dixi, macies grauis inminet ipsi,
Hostis in aduentus occurrere sic macilentus
Mente nequit prompta, nec quemquam laedere contra.

It is said a lean dog, once keen in strength, was ordered to guard a certain sheepfold by a greedy elder.
Who, more by barking than by giving wounds with a bite, drove far from there whatever stood in the way of the flocks.
But because, as I said, a grievous leanness looms over him,
being thus gaunt he cannot, with a prompt mind, run to meet the enemy at their approach,
nor harm anyone in return.

De grege sic multi periere frequenter inulti.
Mox ut id ignaro domino patet eius auaro,
Plus dedit huic uictus, sit ut acrior hostis in ictus.
Quem lupus ut cernit, quod sic sua numina spernit,
Ac tam uelocem, solito magis atque ferocem,
Conuenit hunc blande: "Quid id est, dic, frater amande,
Quod sic pinguescis, certamen et ultra capescis?

From the flock thus many frequently perished unavenged.
Soon as this becomes apparent to its unknowing, avaricious master,
he gave this one more victuals, that he might be sharper against the foe in blows.
When the wolf perceives him, that he thus spurns his (the wolf’s) numina,
and so swift, more than usual and fierce,
he accosts him blandly: "What is this, say, lovable brother,
that you thus grow fat, and moreover take up the contest?

Quod uideare satur, fateor, per me quod agatur.
Nunc mea, non ut hebes, benefacta rependere debes:
Quodlibet ergo pecus michi fer, retributor ut aequus".
"Nil" ait, "expectes me ferre, quod hinc modo uectes,
Cum dape non uili, studio saciatus herili,
Peruigili cura seruem pecus ipsaque rura.
Sed ne factorum puter inmemor esse tuorum,
Presidio celeri scio me tibi posse mederi:
Hic prope namque penum quoddam patet, undique plenum,
Huc proficiscaris, dapibus celer his ut alaris".
Quo lupus inuectus et salsa carne refectus,
Quicquid inest, ambit, telluris et humida lambit.

That you appear sated, I confess, is being effected through me.
Now, not as a dullard, you ought to repay my benefactions:
therefore bring me whatever head of cattle, that you may be an equitable retributor."
"Nothing," he says, "do you expect me to bring, that you might just now cart away from here,
since, with fare not base, sated by the master’s zeal,
with pervigil care I guard the herd and the very fields.
But lest I be thought unmindful of your deeds,
I know that by swift presidiary help I can remedy you:
for here nearby a certain pantry lies open, full on every side;
hither you should proceed, that you may be quickly nourished with these viands."
Whither the wolf, brought in and refreshed with salted meat,
covets whatever is inside, and even licks the moisture of the earth.

Dumque, quid hauriret siciens, ibi nil reperiret,
Eius erat potus magis olim quam sibi notus.
Anxius impletur, uini satis hic quod habetur;
Vtque die fausto letus, quo clamitat, hausto
Omnimodisque iocis leuat ebrius organa uocis,
Se quoque more Getae fert tota per atria lete;
Perque suos gestus eo usque fit ipse molestus,
Dum famuli tecti, cum fustibus ultro profecti,
Crura pedesque ferae canibus conuulsa dedere.
Quem sat iure datum reor illis ad cruciatum,
Qui canis infesti sibi semper et ore molesti
Credit adhortatus per falsae uocis hyatus.

And while, being thirsty, he found there nothing to draw,
the drink there had been another’s in former time rather than ever known to himself.
Anxious, he fills himself with the wine that is kept here in sufficiency;
and, glad as on a lucky day, when it has been quaffed, he shouts,
and, drunk, he lightens the organs of his voice with jests of every sort,
and bears himself too through all the halls happily in the manner of the Getae;
and by his own gestures he becomes troublesome to that point,
until the servants of the house, having of their own accord set out with clubs,
gave the beast’s shanks and feet, torn to pieces, to the dogs.
Whom I reckon was duly given to them for torment,
he who, encouraged by the gapes of a false voice—of a dog ever hostile to him and troublesome in its mouth—
believed it.

Nulla fides hosti tibi sit, qui talia nosti,
Prorsus et hostilis tibi sit persuasio uilis,
Fraude necis dirae ne sic uideare perire!

Let there be no faith in an enemy for you, since you know such things,
Altogether let hostile persuasion be vile to you,
Lest by the fraud of dire death you seem thus to perish!

XXVII. [De uiro, coniuge et mediatrice.]

27. [On the man, the spouse, and the mediatrix.]

UIR, ratus uxorem quondam temerasse pudorem,
Alloquitur plane uocis simulamine uanae:
"Caenam sumpturus, procul hinc satis, uxor, iturus,
Non mea tecta petam, nec in hac te nocte quietam".
Vocibus his extra respondet talia mesta:
"Qua requie fungar, solita uice ni tibi iungar?"
Quam uir adhortatur, comes ut sibi fida petatur,
Per quam secura pociatur nocte futura.
Mox mediatrici precepit, ut eius amici
Ianua pulsetur, preparare nec ipse moretur.
Adueniensque cito, metuens ait: "Ipsa preito;
Cerne, quod introrsum sursumque sit atque deorsum".
Intrat ut hec tectum, nexam uidet hanc prope lectum
Coniugis, herentem, flagris grauiterque dolentem.

HUSBAND, having supposed that his wife had once desecrated her modesty,
addresses her plainly with the pretense of a vain voice:
"I, about to take supper, intending to go quite far from here, wife,
shall not seek my roof, nor you restful in this night."
To these words she, outside, replies such things, sad:
"With what repose shall I fulfill my part, unless I be joined to you in the accustomed turn?"
Whom the husband encourages, that a faithful companion be sought for him,
through whom she may obtain security for the coming night.
Forthwith he ordered the mediatrix, that the door of his friend
be knocked, and that he himself not delay to make ready.
And coming quickly, fearful, he says: "Go yourself before;
See what there is within, above and below."
As this one enters the house, she sees that one, bound near the bed
of her husband, clinging, and grievously pained by lashes.

His stupefacta flagris rogat hec, quod sit mediatrix,
Agnouitque citi redeuntis nocte mariti
Inmemorisque mero, biberat quod uespere sero,
Nexibus astrictam, uirgis tam turpiter ictam.
Sed cum nouisset foris esse, quod ante petisset,
Per solitum morem flagrat, ut petat eius amorem.
Cui dum nulla patet uia, qua scelus anxia patret,
Se caput ad lecti rogat hanc permittere necti,
Cautaque mutiret nulli, dum mecha rediret.

Stupefied by these lashings, she asks this woman, as she is the mediatrix,
and she recognized that the husband, returning swiftly by night,
and forgetful with merum, which he had drunk late in the evening,
had left her astricted in bonds, so shamefully stricken with rods.
But when she learned that what she had sought earlier was outside,
by her accustomed manner she burns to seek his love.
While no way lies open to her, whereby, anxious, she might perpetrate the crime,
she begs this woman to permit her head to be tied to the bed,
and, being cautious, to utter to no one until the adulteress returned.

Cuius nexa uice stetit hec ibi pro meretrice.
Illa sub amplexus, resolutos post sibi nexus,
Se tulit illicitos, inhianter utrisque petitos.
Qua nubente foris, gemitus dat uincta doloris;
Sicque uir iratus uinique sapore grauatus
Tercio sectatur, quid sit sibi uel quid agatur;
Verbaque nulla dabat, quia sic latuisse putabat.

In whose bound stead this one stood there in place of the prostitute.
She, under embraces, after her bonds had been loosened for herself,
carried herself into illicit acts, eagerly sought by both.
While that one in nuptials outside, the bound woman gives groans of pain;
and thus the husband, angry and weighted by the savor of wine,
for the third time follows up what it might be for himself or what is being done;
and he gave no words, because he supposed thus he had lain hidden.

Quam super inuectus furiosus hic et uir ineptus,
Sumens cultellum, secat huic cum nare labellum;
Inde petit stratum, sic se putat ut saciatum.
Mecha uoluptati satis ut sibi faecit amati,
Intrat nocte lares, flens truncas tam male nares;
Moxque rei gestae dedit ut solatia mestae,
Vincula confregit citiusque redire coegit,
Se faciente quidem necti ceu nuper ibidem.
Cumque sub aurora uir surgens cerneret (h)ora
Coniugis integre, quam lesam credidit egre,
Se putat, ut stultus, quod Bachi mole sepultus
Tale quid egisset, per sompnia uimque tulisset.

Upon her, carried away, this furious and inept man,
taking a little knife, cuts her lip together with the nose;
then he seeks the bed, thus he deems himself satisfied.
The mistress, that she might sate herself with the beloved’s pleasure,
enters the household by night, weeping that her nostrils were so badly truncated;
and soon, for the deed done, he gave consolations to the sad one,
broke the bonds and compelled her to return more quickly,
indeed arranging that she be bound, as recently, in the same place.
And when under dawn the man rising would discern the (h)ora
of his wife intact, whom he had believed grievously wounded,
he thinks, like a fool, that, buried by the mass of Bacchus,
he had done such a thing through dreams and had borne violence.

Sic uictus cessit, sic crimen adultera texit.
Mox intempesta mediatrix nocte regressa,
Callida sopitum delusit et ipsa maritum;
Nam dum sensisset hunc surgere, rus ut adisset,
Vaginamque dari peteret zonaque ligari,
Cum solo cultro ueniens, dare nititur ultro.
Quem uir ut agnoscit, renuens, iam dicta poposcit;
Venit at illa dolo cum cultro denuo solo.

Thus, overcome, he yielded; thus the adulteress covered the crime.
Soon, in the dead of night, the mediatrix having returned,
the crafty woman herself deluded the sleeping husband;
for when she had sensed him rising, to go to the countryside,
and requesting that the scabbard be given and the girdle be fastened,
coming with only the knife, she strives to hand it over unasked.
As the husband recognizes it, refusing, he demanded what had already been said;
but she came by guile with the knife alone again.

Ille tremens ira duo facta per hec sibi mira,
Iecit in hanc cultrum, scelus hoc ita se ratus ultum.
Hec, ut texisset, male cesa quod ante fuisset,
Clamitat absque mora cultrum uenisse per ora
Vulnus et inpactum fortunae casibus actum,
Ex inprouiso naso labroque reciso.
Hac specie ueri fit credulus hinc mulieri,
Insidiis tantis delusus id assimulantis.

He, trembling with anger, deemed by this that two deeds had been done, marvels to himself,
he cast the knife at her, thinking thus that by this the crime had been avenged.
She, in order to have covered up that she had been badly cut before,
cries out without delay that the knife had come through her face,
and that the wound, driven in, had been effected by the accidents of Fortune,
with nose and lip cut off unforeseen.
By this semblance of truth he becomes credulous toward the woman,
deluded by such great insidious snares of one simulating this.

Sic fore fallaces mulieres sicque sagaces
Sit cunctis clarum tot iniquis artibus harum,
Nec pro communi uicio te crede uel uni,
Certa fides oris dum nullis sit uel amoris!

Thus that women are so fallacious and thus so sagacious,
let it be clear to all, by so many iniquitous arts of theirs;
nor, on account of their common vice, entrust yourself even to a single one,
since sure faith of the mouth or of love is with none!

XXVIII. [De uulpe et gatto.]

28. [On the fox and the cat.]

[C]olloquio pacto uulpes ait obuia gatto:
"Qualibus utaris, precor, artibus, ut fatearis".
"Artem saltantum de cunctis calleo tantum;
Hac" ait, "antique" gattus, "sustentor ubique".
Cui uulpes inquit: "Quem sic natura relinquit
Viribus expertem, uelut ipse fateris, inertem,
Cuilibet est signum non uita credere dignum".
Annuit hac gattus uulpis racione coactus.
Quam tamen instigat precibusque referre fatigat,
Artes quot nosset, quibus aeuum ducere posset.
"Qualibus?

[C]onversation having been agreed, the fox says to the cat met on the way:
"By what arts you make use, I pray, do confess."
"Of all, I am skilled only in the art of jumping;
By this," says the cat, "from of old I am sustained everywhere."
To him the fox says: "He whom Nature thus leaves
bereft of forces, as you yourself confess, inert,
is a sign not to entrust life to anyone."
At this the cat nodded, compelled by the fox’s reasoning.
Her, however, she urges and with prayers wearies to recount,
how many arts she knew, by which she could draw out her lifetime.
"What kind?

ex centum didici, quas more parentum
Me bene munitam constat producere uitam".
"Dignior es uita, tanta, soror, arte potita;
Me sed, ad omne fere cui cor sit inutile vere,
Turba canum uillae, properans uenator et ille
Non modicum terrent, dum sic utrique pererrent".
"Digne terreris, quia nullius artis haberis,
In pede, gatte, putem cum te posuisse salutem,
Pectore prudenti, quod gesto, timore carenti,
Mille uiis pergens et memet in omnia uergens".
Dum sic se iactat, socium dum sic male tractat,
Forte canes idem, uenando per hec loca pridem,
Sic altercantes dirimunt, super hos inhiantes.
Protinus haud aeque fugiunt per deuia queque:
Hic, magis argutus, subit ilicis ardua tutus,
Illa pererrando, solito deserta meando,
Cum sibi iam fessae uitae spem credat abesse.
Gattus hic illudens, sibi fatur ab ilice prudens:
"Artibus, ut reris, de tot, quibus apta uideris,
Ad te tutandam saltem nunc exhibe quandam.

out of a hundred I have learned, which, by the custom of the parents,
are agreed to lead forth my life well fortified."
"You are more worthy of life, sister, having attained so great an art;
but me, whose heart is truly almost useless for everything,
the village’s pack of dogs, and that hurrying hunter,
greatly terrify, while thus both range about."
"Rightly you are terrified, because you have no art;
since, cat, I would think you have placed your salvation in your foot,
whereas with a prudent breast, which I bear, lacking fear,
going by a thousand ways and turning myself to everything."
While she thus vaunts herself, while she thus mistreats her comrade,
by chance the same dogs, hunting for some time through these places,
break off those disputing thus, gaping over them.
Straightway they do not flee equally through each byway:
this one, more shrewd, climbs the heights of a holm-oak safely,
that one, wandering about, going along the usual solitudes,
when she now believes that the hope of her wearied life is gone from her.
The cat, mocking her, prudently speaks from the holm-oak:
"Of the arts—as you suppose—out of so many in which you seem apt,
at least now display some one for protecting yourself.

Sed solis uerbis iactantibus atque superbis
Consulitur frustra, mors est ubi debita iuxta".
Uiribus in uestris qui sic confidere suestis,
Amodo discatis, ne sic quandoque ruatis:
Ne contempnatis, minimos quos esse putatis,
Rebus inoptatis quos sepe ualere sciatis!

But with vaunting and proud words alone
counsel is in vain, where the due death is nearby".

You who have been wont thus to confide in your own forces,
from now on learn, lest you thus someday crash down:
do not contemn those whom you suppose to be the least,
but know that in inopinate affairs they often prevail!

XXIX. [De lupo et yrco.]

29. [On the wolf and the he-goat.]

EXAGITANS circum, caperet lupus acer ut yrcum,
Monte sub ingenti subiit; quem, nocte silenti
Si descendisset, seruabat, ut hunc rapuisset.
Sed caper ut fontem uidet eminus hunc prope montem,
Per triduum totum siciens, petit hinc sibi potum.
Vtque sitis cessit, sub aquas sua lumina flexit,
Interius spectat, quae cornua cruraque gestat,
Quanti terroris prolixaque barba sit oris.

While harrying all around, so that he might seize the he-goat, the fierce wolf
went beneath a huge mountain; him, if in the silent night
he should come down, he was keeping watch, so that he might snatch him.
But when the goat sees from afar a spring near this mountain,
thirsting for three whole days, he seeks from here a drink for himself.
And when the thirst has ceased, he bent his eyes beneath the waters,
within he looks at what horns and legs he bears,
how much terror, and how long a beard, his face has.

Qua caper innisus fallacis ymagine uisus
Ac nimis elatus, perhibetur talia fatus:
"Amodo cuiusquam formidine terrear usquam?
Terga uel obstanti dabo cuique uel insidianti,
Cornibus his comptus crurumque uolumine promptus".
Talia iactantem, sic seque preesse putantem
Dum lupus audisset, tolerare magisque nequisset,
Occupat incautum, falsis uirtutibus auctum,
Hunc ut terreret, dum non procul inde iaceret.
Cuius premorso letali uulnere dorso:
"Cur" ait ille fremens, "iactas tot inania demens?"
"Desine mirari, lupe, me tibi talia fari.

Whereupon the goat, relying on the sight of a fallacious image,
And too much elated, is reported to have spoken such things:
"Henceforth shall I anywhere be terrified by anyone?
I will give my back to anyone, whether opposing or lying in ambush,
Adorned with these horns and ready with the whirl of my legs."
While he was vaunting such things, and thus thinking himself to preside,
When the wolf had heard and could no longer endure it,
He seizes the incautious one, augmented by false virtues,
In order to terrify him, while he lay not far from there.
With his back bitten by a lethal wound,
"Why," he said, growling, "do you, madman, vaunt so many inanities?"
"Cease to marvel, wolf, that I say such things to you.

Denique uulgari solet id sermone probari:
‘Yrcus quando bibit, quae non sunt debita, dicit;
Cum bene potatur, quae non sibi debita, fatur’."
Non tamen, oblato necis huius tempore grato,
Huic fore parcendum ratus est lupus, hunc sed edendum.
Non ultra uires discant presumere uiles,
Nec sua non captent, propriis nec uiribus aptent,
Munere naturae piod non datur his fore iure;
Curaque sit talis: peragat quis ut id Iuuenalis
A superis missum se nosse, quod expedit ipsum;
Fertur ab Argiuis, quod g[n]oti seliton ubiuis.

Finally, it is wont to be approved in vulgar speech:
‘When the he-goat drinks, he says things that are not due;
when he is well drunk, he utters things not due to himself’."
Nevertheless, with the favorable time of this slaughter offered,
the wolf did not think this one should be spared, but to be eaten.
Let the lowly learn not to presume beyond their powers,
nor to grasp at what is not theirs, nor to attempt it with their own forces,
what by the gift of nature is not given to them to be by right;
and let the care be of this sort: that each may accomplish what Juvenal,
as sent from the supernal ones, bids—namely to know himself—which profits himself;
it is reported by the Argives, that “gnōthi seauton” is everywhere.

XXX. [De uulpe et gallo.]

30. [On the fox and the cock.]

NACTA secus uallum quedam uulpecula gallum,
Callida rimatur, quibus artibus hic capiatur.
Multa reuoluenti sedet hec sentencia menti:
Fallat adulando, quem ui nequid, hec sibi fando:
"Ante per has horas quas uoces quamque sonoras
Nocte dieque pater dederat tuus, o bone frater!
Fac igitur signum, rear hoc ut te patre dignum,
Vt similis patri uideatur uox fore nati".
Gallus adhortantis prece uictus et hoc simulantis,
Non metuenda ratus patris, iacit oris hyatus,
Lumina claudendo, ueluti solet ipse canendo.

Having found beside the rampart a certain little fox a rooster,
Cunning, she probes by what arts this one might be captured.
As she revolves many things, this sentencia settles in her mind:
Let her deceive by adulating him, whom by force she could do nothing against; thus she says to herself:
"Before now during these hours what voices, and how sonorous,
night and day your father used to give, O good brother!
Therefore make a sign—I deem this worthy of your father—
that the voice of the son may seem to be similar to the father."
The rooster, overcome by the entreaty of the exhorting one and by her feigning this,
thinking his father's example not to be something to be feared, he casts a gape of the mouth,
by closing his eyes, just as he himself is wont in singing.

Quod uulpes factum cernens sibi tempus ad aptum,
Sustulit ignarum, gestans per opaca uiarum.
Dedecus illud agi uidet omnis ut incola pagi,
Vulpis in occursum dedit ocius undique cursum,
Seque sui galli dolet hoc gestamine falli.
Cuius post dorsum clamatur: "Dic, age, quorsum
Nostra feratur auis uocis modulamine suauis?"
Cumque nemus iuxta uulpes sic iret onusta
Nec per uirtutem putet ales habere salutem,
Extrahat ut prorsus, quos fixerat in cute, morsus,
Arte relaxari reputat molimine tali:
"Non" ait, "audisti, referant quid inaniter isti:
Plebis hic est nostre gallus, sic raptus a hoste?

Which thing the fox, seeing done, that the time was apt for herself,
lifted the unwitting one, bearing him through the shady places of the ways.
Every inhabitant of the village sees that disgrace being acted,
and to meet the fox gave swift course from every side,
and each one laments that by this conveyance his own cock is being tricked.
Behind whose back it is shouted: "Say, come now, whither
is our bird, sweet in the modulation of his voice, being borne?"
And when, near a grove, the fox was going thus burdened,
and the bird does not think to have safety by valor,
so that he might utterly extract the bites which she had fixed in his skin,
he reckons that by such an exertion he may be loosened by artful craft:
"No," he says, "have you not heard what these people idly report:
This cock is of our folk, thus snatched by a foe?"

Esse tuum certe decet hunc; fatearis aperte".
Talia credentis, cadit ales ab ore loquentis,
Arboris inuentae conscendens alta repente

"Surely it is fitting that this be yours; admit it openly."
Believing such words, the bird falls from the speaker’s mouth,
suddenly climbing the heights of a tree he had found

Seque sui iuris docet esse nec amodo furis.

and teaches that he is sui juris and no longer the thief’s.

Sic deluduntur multi, dum uana locuntur,
Iure suis culpis, paciendo simillima uulpis;
Sepe solet tales quos fallere prouidus ales.

Thus many are deluded, while they speak vain things,
rightly through their own faults, by suffering most similar to a fox;
Often the provident bird is accustomed to deceive such as these.

XXXI. [De leone et mure.]

31. [On the lion and the mouse.]

MVRIBUS in ludum collectis mutuo dudum,
Casus agit quendam latebram nimis in metuendam,
In qua, sicut erat solitus, leo forte quierat.
Cumque uagaretur mus intus, ut egrederetur,
Ora quiescentis contingit acumine dentis.
Ille, ferox rictu, factusque ferocior ictu,
Vnguibus affixit miserum, cui talia dixit:
"Que tibi sunt uires, me sic ut ineptus adires?"
Cui retulisse ferunt, huc se quod fata tulerunt
Sponte nec inmissum, sociis sed agentibus ipsum.

With the mice collected for play among themselves just now,
Chance drives a certain one into a hiding-place much to be feared,
in which, as he was accustomed, a lion by chance had come to rest.
And as the mouse was wandering inside, to get out,
he touches the mouth of the one at rest with the sharpness of his tooth.
He, ferocious in his gape, and made more ferocious by the blow,
pinned the wretch with his claws, and said such things to him:
"What strength have you, that you, so inept, would approach me thus?"
They report he replied to him, that the fates had borne him hither
not sent in of his own will, but with his comrades driving him on.

Quem uenia dignum, proprio nec uelle malignum,
Depositis irae stimulis, leo iussit abire,
Cum nil posset ei mors illius esse trophei.
Recia uenantum, quondam iactata per antrum,
Hunc tenuere ferum post tempora pauca dierum.
Cuius clamoris procul hinc sonus editus (h)oris
Duxit ad hunc ipsum murem, pietate remissum.

whom, as worthy of pardon, and not to will anything malign by his own impulse,
with the goads of wrath set aside, the lion ordered to depart,
since the death of that one could be no trophy for him.
The hunters’ nets, once cast through the cavern,
held this wild one after a few spans of days.
The sound of whose clamor, emitted out-of-doors far from here,
led to this very mouse, remitted by pity.

Ille sui captus non inmemor, eius et actus,
Instat mille modis uinctum dissoluere nodis,
Vique iuuat dentis prius huic non ultro nocentis.
Sic succurrendum sibimet sciat et miserendum,
Alterius culpam quicumque relinquit inultam,
Curaque sit menti ueniam dare cuique petenti,
Dum liquet ignarum rerum fore quemque suarum.

He, not unmindful of his own capture and of that one’s act,
presses in a thousand ways to loosen the one bound by knots,
and by the force of a tooth which before had not of its own accord harmed this one, he helps.
Thus let him know that one must succor oneself and show pity,
whoever leaves another’s fault unavenged,
and let it be a care to the mind to give pardon to each who asks,
since it is clear that each will be ignorant of his own affairs.

XXXII. [De uulpe et ibide.]

32. [On the fox and the ibis.]

INVITATA cibis uulpis fuit artibus ibis;
Cui liquidas pultes breuiter det ut inuida uulpes,
Has super inmensum uas spargit et undique tensum;
Ad quod ut accessit rostrumque famelica pressit,
Tristior inde redit, delusam se quia credit.
Sed tempus multum non distulit illud inultum;
Nuper enim partae cenae non inmemor arte
Hanc, ut fallatur, secum prandere precatur.
Ampla lagena foris, spiramine stricta sed oris
Vulpi plena datur, qua sufficienter alatur.

The fox was invited by the ibis by means of stratagems to food;
to whom, so that the envious fox might set liquid porridges shallowly,
she scatters these over an immense vessel, stretched out on every side;
to which as she approached and, famished, pressed her beak,
thence she returns sadder, because she believes herself deceived.
But time did not long defer that unavenged;
for not unmindful of the art lately employed at dinner
she beseeches this one to lunch with her, so that she may be tricked.
A broad flagon without, but constricted by the mouth’s aperture,
full, is given to the fox, by which she may be sufficiently nourished.

Os sed ut admouit, se tandem perfida nouit
Digne delusam, prius hac dape fraudis abusam.
Que mox yronice sic fari cepit: "Amice,
Ecce recepisti bona, quae largita fuisti.
Si placet, utaris; michi parcere ne uerearis;
Si dedignaris, ne(c) cuilibet inde queraris,
Cum non sit clam te, quod talia feceris ante".
Auribus hec cordis quicumque capaciter audis,
In te quicquid odis fieri molimine quouis,
Cuilibet arte mali caueas inferre sodali!

But as soon as she brought her mouth near, the perfidious one at last recognized herself as worthily deluded, she who earlier had abused this banquet by fraud.
Which one soon began to speak thus ironically: "Friend, behold, you have received back the goods which you had bestowed.
If it pleases, use them; do not fear to spare me;
If you disdain them, do not complain of it to anyone,
Since it is not hidden from you that you have done such things before."
Whoever capaciously hears these things with the ears of the heart,
Whatever you hate to be done to yourself by any machination whatsoever,
Beware of inflicting upon any comrade by the art of evil!

XXXIII. [De ceruo et equo.]

33. [On the stag and the horse.]

CORNIBVS attingens superos et uiribus ingens
Ceruus, oberrando per rura, furebat ouando.
Cuius terror equum, ueritum concurrere secum,
Subdere uenanti se faecit amore iuuandi.
Cui prece deuota miser indicat hec sua uota:
"Sic inpune sines per nostros amodo fines
Hoc errare ferox animal?

WITH HORNS touching the heavens and huge in strength
a Stag, by wandering through the fields, raved, exulting.
Whose terror made a horse, having feared to clash with him,
submit himself to a hunter, from a love of aiding.
To whom, with devoted prayer, the wretch declares these his vows:
"Thus will you allow with impunity, through our boundaries from now on,
this fierce animal to wander?

Tibi dedecus, heros!
Ille quidem captus, quantis foret usibus aptus!
Quale tibi cesum iecur ipsius esset ad aesum,
Quotque parare uales epulas hinc atque sodales!

A disgrace to you, hero!
He indeed, once captured—how apt would he be for so many uses!
What a liver of his, cut down, would be for eating for you,
and how many feasts you are able to prepare from this, and companions!

Sed prius ostendi placet hec uia, que sit agendi:
Me super inuectus, iaculo sibi transfige pectus,
Postque, labore meo sumpto, reuehere tropheo".
Ille per amfractus subsellia talia nactus,
Vt capiat ceruum, non cessat flectere seruum.
Sed uenatoris non inmemor ille furoris,
Insiluisse datur frutices, ut se tueatur,
Sospes et intactus siluae munimine factus.
Viribus effetus nec tanto pondere suetus,
Alloquitur tandem sonipes se sic equitantem:
"Pene tuis uictus cum sim calcaribus ictus
Speque simus predae delusi, iam michi cede,
Descendensque cito, me uicto turpiter, ito".
Sensit ut ille dolum metuensque relinquere solum
Munus id oblatum, quia fit uariabile fatum,
Increpuisse pecus sic dicitur, arbiter aequus:
"Vlterius poenis nec habebere liber habenis,
Nec sessoris eris inmunis, vt amodo reris,
Sumpseris istud (h)onus cum gratis, ad omnia pronus".
Sic obsistentes plerique, nocere uolentes
Sunt magis inde sibi peruersa mente nociui,
Nec dominatoris metuunt se subdere loris,
Ante manumissi noceant dum quislibet ipsi.

But first it pleases to show this way, what is to be done:
borne upon me, transfix his breast for yourself with the javelin,
and afterwards, my labor having been taken up, carry him back as a trophy."
He, through convolutions, having gotten such positions,
so that he may take the stag, does not cease to bend the servant.
But he, not unmindful of the hunter’s fury,
is said to have leapt into the shrubs, that he might protect himself,
safe and intact, made so by the muniment of the forest.
Exhausted in strength and not accustomed to so great a weight,
at length the steed addresses the one riding him thus:
"Since I am almost conquered, struck by your spurs,
and since we have been deluded in the hope of prey, now yield to me,
and, dismounting quickly, go, I being shamefully vanquished."
When he sensed the trick and, fearing to leave the ground—
that proffered gift—because fate is variable,
he is said thus to have rebuked the beast, an equitable arbiter:
"Hereafter you will be neither free from penalties nor free from the reins,
nor will you be immune from a rider, as you suppose from now on,
since you have taken up this burden for gratis, prone to everything."

Thus very many who resist, wishing to do harm,
are thereby more harmful to themselves by a perverse mind,
nor do they fear to submit themselves to the ruler’s reins,
until, once manumitted, anyone harms himself.

XXXIV. [De mulo, uulpe et lupo.]

34. [On the mule, the fox, and the wolf.]

DVM mulus quidam prope siluam pascitur Idam,
Nomen ei quod sit, uulpes audire poposcit.
Respondisse datur, quod bestia uulgo uocatur.
"Non" ait, "id quero te, sed de nomine uero;
Quale sit, ignare michi deprecor vt fateare".
"Nomen id inscriptum speciale, quod est michi dictum
Tempore primeuo, latet hoc michi sub pede leuo.

While a certain mule was grazing near the Idaean forest,
the fox demanded to hear what his name was.
He is said to have replied what the beast is called in the common tongue.
"No," she says, "that I seek from you not, but about the true name;
what it is, I beseech, confess to me, since I am ignorant."
"That special inscribed name, which has been said to me
in the primeval time, lies hidden for me beneath my left foot.

Hoc ibi nactus erit, quisquis sibi di[s]cere querit;
Curque sit hoc gestum, non sit tibi nosse molestum:
Matris in occasu, patris egri denique suasu
Constat id inuentum, ne mox post fata parentum
Tempus deleret proprium quod nomen inheret;
Paruus enim pullus fueram sensusque nec ullus,
Hoc stet ut in mente, priuatus utroque parente".
Illa dolum talem sibi sentit ut exicialem,
Ingrediens uicum, uidet haud procul hinc inimicum
Forte iacere lupum quendam secus inuida lutum,
Mole coartatum famis ac nimis attenuatum.
Quem nunc ulcisci cum posse locusque sit ipsi
Illius ad raptum, predae dulcedine captum
Nititur urgeri sub amoris ymagine ueri;
Quam dignus pastu sit et illius ammonet astu:
"Erige te sursum, celer huc et dirige cursum,
Hic quia prospexi, quod pinguis et optima uesci,
Digna tuo uictu, sit belua miraque dictu".
Surgit, ut audiuit, lupus huc et protinus iuit,
Moxque, quod ignorat, sibi nomen ut indicet, orat.
Hoc super, ut dixi, respondit prouidus ipsi:
"Subscriptum leuo pede, primo quod sit ab aeuo,
Hoc ibi querendum sit semper et inueniendum".
Nescius hic fraudis tantae, quam quisque subaudis,
Intima dum spectat, si nomen id ungula gestat,
Verbere frons crebro fuso crepat icta cerebro.

Whoever seeks to learn for himself will have found this there;
and why this was done, let it not be troublesome for you to know:
at the decease of the mother, and finally at the persuasion of a sick father
it is agreed that this was devised, lest soon after the deaths of my parents
time should delete the proper name which inheres;
for I was a little foal and had no sense,
so that this might stand in mind, bereft of each parent."
She perceives such a trick to be deadly to herself;
entering the village, she sees not far from there an enemy,
by chance a certain wolf lying beside the envious mire,
pinched by the burden of hunger and excessively emaciated.
Now, since she can avenge herself and the opportunity is hers
to draw him on, captivated by the sweetness of prey,
she strives that he be urged under the image of true love;
how worthy he is for feeding, and of that one she admonishes by craft:
"Raise yourself up, be swift, and direct your course here,
for here I have spied a beast, fat and excellent for eating,
worthy of your victual, and marvelous to tell."
He rises, as he heard, the wolf, and straightway went hither,
and soon, since he does not know it, he begs him to indicate his name.
Upon this, as I said, the provident one answered him:
"Written beneath the left foot, that which is from the first age,
there it must always be sought and found."
Unaware of such great fraud, as anyone may infer,
while he looks within, whether that hoof bears that name,
the forehead, struck by frequent blows, cracks, the brain poured out.

Quod dum tale uidet fieri, uulpecula ridet,
Omnibus infestum merito sic ulta scelestum,
Presumptor plecti quo debeat ordine recti.
Qui legit haec, discat, ne tale quid ipse cupiscat,
In se confisus, per quod sit ad ultima risus;
Nam nimis est serum, post sumpta pericula, rerum
Presumptiuarum stultum piguisse suarum.

When she sees such a thing happening, the little vixen laughs,
deservedly thus having avenged the criminal, a pest to all,
by what order of right the presumer ought to be punished.
Whoever reads these things, let him learn, lest he himself desire such a thing,
trusting in himself, whereby in the end he may be a laughing-stock;
for it is far too late, after the dangers have been undertaken,
for the fool to have repented of his own presumptions.

XXXV. [De serpente et uiatore et uulpe iudice.]

35. [On the serpent and the traveler and the fox as judge.]

MOLIBVS exusta de more palude uetusta,
Circumseptus ibi draco magnus in aggere limi,
Per iusiurandum, si se sciat inde leuandum,
Quicquid habent Mauri, dare se promiserat auri.
Forte uiatoris foret his dum transitus horis,
Munere ditari ratus hoc, cor ut optat auari,
Hunc prius obnixe strictum, ceu iusserat ipse,
Inpositum redae patria cito sistit in ede.
Quo sic aduecto, fore ius ait ordine recto,
Quęque spopondisset, resolutus ut ipse dedisset.

With the ancient marsh, in customary fashion, drained by embankments,
there a great dragon, hemmed in upon a rampart of slime,
by oath, if he should know himself to be lifted out from there,
had promised to give whatever gold the Moors possess.
By chance, while at those hours a wayfarer’s passage occurred,
thinking to be enriched by this munus, as a greedy heart desires,
him first, stoutly bound tight, as he himself had ordered,
he sets, once placed upon a rheda, quickly in his native house.
With him thus conveyed, he says that right shall proceed in proper order,
and that, once released, he would give what he had promised.

Anguis ab antiquo uicio consuetus iniquo,
Semper et infestus mortalibus, est ita questus:
"Quid tibi mercedis me posse rependere credis,
Vinxeris absque modo quem stricto tam male nodo?"
"Sic te iussisti, cum perfidus ista petisti;
Nec lamenteris nec sic, ingrate, mineris.
Hisne tuis mendis mea tot benefacta rependis?"
Cui tantae liti uulpes conata reniti,
Fertur quesisse, strictus sit qualiter ipse.
Quem mox artauit, dignum uir ut ipse putauit.

The serpent, long accustomed to an ancient iniquitous vice,
and ever hostile to mortals, thus complained:
"What recompense do you think I am able to repay to you,
since you have bound me beyond measure with so tight and ill a knot?"
"So you yourself ordered it, when, treacherous, you asked for these things;
neither lament nor thus, ungrateful one, threaten.
Is it with these your faults that you repay so many of my benefactions?"
To which so great litigation the fox, attempting to resist,
is said to have asked how he himself had been bound.
Whom she forthwith compressed, as the man himself deemed fitting.

Vulpes ingratum iubet inmemoremque probatum
Fortiter astrictum uinclis, quibus est modo dictum,
Huc fore censendum per eundem mox reuehendum,
Vnde fuit uectus, limi prius aggere tectus,
Sicque relinquendum penitusque nec inde mouendum,
Iudicio ueri dignum satis ista mereri.
Sic uideas plures, si tale quid amodo cures,
Sumptis sepe bonis, ingrati more draconis,
Emolumenta mali cupidos uice reddere tali,
Tam male deceptos, penam sibi mortis adeptos.

The fox orders the ingrate and unmindful, proved as such,
to be stoutly constrained with bonds, as has just now been said,
to be adjudged thus: that he be soon carried back hither by the same,
whence he had been borne, first covered by the embankment of slime,
and so to be left, and not to be moved from there at all,
worthy by the judgment of truth fully to deserve these things.
Thus you may see many, if henceforth you care about such a thing,
often, after benefits have been received, in the manner of the ingrate dragon,
eager to render, in such a turn, the emoluments of evil in return,
so ill deceived, having obtained for themselves the penalty of death.

[Epilogus: De ciconia stercorata.]

[Epilogue: On the stercorated stork.]

Commaculare thorum ciconia sueta sororum,
Dum prohiberetur, ne tale quid adgrederetur,
Nec cuiusque minis foret huic ad talia finis,
Cedat ut his causis tam turpiter [h]actenus ausis,
Pellitur inmite stacionis ab arce potitae.
Quae sibi fisa parum, petit agmina mox aliarum
Vtque foret fessae locus hic, instante necesse.
Quae grauior natu tunc fertur in hoc comitatu,
Percunctabatur, quapropter id haec paciatur.

The stork, accustomed to defile the sisters’ bed,
while she was being prohibited, lest she should undertake such a thing,
nor would anyone’s menaces set a limit for her in such matters,
that, for these causes, she should yield, having so shamefully dared hitherto,
is driven from the unkind citadel of the station she had seized.
Which, trusting herself too little, soon seeks the ranks of others,
and, with necessity pressing, that there might be here a place for the weary one.
She who is elder by birth is then reported in this company
to have been inquiring for what cause this one suffers that.

Illa suae sordis stultique non inscia cordis,
Imputat errori proprio, dum nec monitori
Credidit, insanum nec et ipsa cohercuit anum.
Queritur a multis, ibi secum mutuo iunctis,
Huc si delatum uas hoc foret inmoderatum.
Qua referente quidem sic esse, iubetur eidem
Esse reportandum uas illud opusque nefandum
Atque relinquendum sibi, denuo nec repetendum:
Amodo sincere secum sic posse manere.

She, not unknowing of her own sordidness and of her foolish heart,
imputes it to her own error, since neither to the monitor
did she give credence, nor did she herself coerce the insane old woman.
It is asked by many, there with those mutually joined with her,
whether this immoderate vase had been brought here.
Since that one indeed reports it to be so, the same is ordered
that that vase and the nefarious work are to be brought back
and to be left to herself, and not sought again:
from now on thus to be able to remain sincerely with herself.

Taliter obiectis sermonibus his sibi rectis,
Deserit hunc morem post sumptum iure pudorem,
Tota mente studens obiecta per hec fore prudens.
Quod constat multis contingere quandoque stultis,
Quos monitis blandis a factis ante nefandis
Prorsus et obscenis cohibet uix suasio lenis,
Donec eos uerbis uis durior artet acerbis,
Finis ut erroris sit eis uel causa pudoris.

Thus, such speeches having been put forth, and these set aright for her,
she abandons this custom after modesty has been rightly assumed,
striving with her whole mind, through these things set forth, to be prudent.
Which is known to happen sometimes to many fools,
whom from former nefarious deeds
and wholly obscene ones a gentle suasion scarcely restrains,
until a harsher force with bitter words constrains them,
so that there may be an end of error for them, or a cause of shame.

Tres digiti scribunt, sic totum corpus laborat.
Finis adest operis, mercedem posco laboris.
Finiui librum, scripsi sine manibus istum.

Three digits write, thus the whole body labors.
The finish of the work is at hand; I ask the wage of the labor.
I have finished the book, I wrote this without hands.