Phaedrus: FABVLARVM AESOPIARVM LIBRI QVINQVE

Aesopi nomen sicubi interposuero,
cui reddidi iam pridem quicquid debui,
auctoritatis esse scito gratia;
ut quidam artifices nostro faciunt saeculo,
qui pretium operibus maius inueniunt nouis
si marmori adscripserunt Praxitelen suo,
detrito Myn argento, tabulae Zeuxidem.
Adeo fucatae plus uetustati fauet
inuidia mordax quam bonis praesentibus.
Sed iam ad fabellam talis exempli feror.

If anywhere I have inserted Aesop’s name,
to whom long since I restored whatever I owed,
know that it is by gratitude for his authority;
just as certain artisans in our age do,
who find a greater price for works if to marble
they ascribe their Praxiteles, to worn silver their Myron,
to a panel their Zeuxis. So envious, biting spite
favors the painted more than the truly ancient or the good present.
But now I am borne to a little fable of such an example.

I. Demetrius Rex et Menander Poeta

1. Demetrius the King and Menander the Poet

Demetrius rex, qui Phalereus dictus est,
Athenas occupauit imperio improbo.
Vt mos est uulgi, passim et certatim ruit;
"Feliciter!" succlamant. Ipsi principes
illam osculantur qua sunt oppressi manum,
tacite gementes tristem fortunae uicem.
Quin etiam resides et sequentes otium,
ne defuisse noceat, repunt ultimi;
in quis Menander, nobilis comoediis,
quas ipsum ignorans legerat Demetrius
et admiratus fuerat ingenium uiri,
unguento delibutus, uestitu fluens,
ueniebat gressu delicato et languido.
Hunc ubi tyrannus uidit extremo agmine:
"Quisnam cinaedus ille in conspectu meo
audet ceuere?" Responderunt proximi:
"Hic est Menander scriptor." Mutatus statim
"Homo" inquit "fieri non potest formosior."

Demetrius the king, who is called Phalereus,
occupied Athens with wicked rule.
As is the custom of the crowd, they rush everywhere and in rivalry;
"Fortunately!" they shout. The very leaders
kiss the hand by which they are oppressed,
silently groaning the sad turn of fortune.
Indeed the remaining and following they crawl, so that leisure
may not be lacking to harm them, they creep last of all;
among whom Menander, noble in comedies,
which Demetrius himself, ignorant of him, had read
and had admired the genius of the man,
anointed with perfume, flowing in his dress,
came with a delicate and languid gait.
When the tyrant saw this at the rear of the procession:
"Who is that cinaedus who in my sight
dares to swagger?" Those near answered:
"This is Menander the playwright." Changed at once
he said, "A man cannot be more handsome."

II. Duo Milites et Latro

CHAPTER 2. Two Soldiers and a Thief

Duo cum incidissent in latronem milites,
unus profugit, alter autem restitit
et uindicauit sese forti dextera.
Latrone excusso timidus accurrit comes
stringitque gladium, dein reiecta paenula
"Cedo" inquit "illum; iam curabo sentiat
quos attemptarit." Tunc qui depugnauerat:
"Vellem istis uerbis saltem adiuuisses modo;
constantior fuissem uera existimans.
Nunc conde ferrum et linguam pariter futilem.
Vt possis alios ignorantes fallere,
ego, qui sum expertus quantis fugias uiribus,
scio quam uirtuti non sit credendum tuae."
Illi adsignari debet haec narratio,
qui re secunda fortis est, dubia fugax.

When two soldiers had fallen in with a robber,
one fled, but the other stood firm
and avenged himself with a strong right hand.
With the robber struck down a timid comrade ran up
and drew his sword, then, the cloak thrown aside,
"Cedo," he said, "that man; now I will make him feel
whom he has assailed." Then he who had fought:
"I wish you had at least helped with those words just now;
I would have been more steadfast, believing them true.
Now sheathe both your iron and your equally futile tongue.
So that you may deceive other ignorants,
I, who am experienced in how great forces you flee from,
know how your virtue must not be trusted."
This tale ought to be assigned
to him who is brave in prosperous circumstance, and fleeing in doubtful ones.

III. Caluus et Musca

3. Bald Man and the Fly

Calui momordit musca nudatum caput,
quam opprimere captans alapam sibi duxit grauem.
Tunc illa inridens: "Punctum uolucris paruulae
uoluisti morte ulcisci; quid facies tibi,
iniuriae qui addideris contumeliam?"
Respondit: "Mecum facile redeo in gratiam,
quia non fuisse mentem laedendi scio.
Sed te, contempti generis animal improbum,
quae delectaris bibere humanum sanguinem,
optem carere uel maiore incommodo."
Hoc argumento uenia donari decet
qui casu peccat. Nam qui consilio est nocens,
illum esse quauis dignum poena iudico.

A fly bit the bald man’s bare head,
who, trying to crush it, put on for himself a heavy cap to strike.
Then she, mocking: "You wanted to avenge with death the spot of a little winged thing;
what will you do for yourself, who have added insult to injury?"
He answered: "I easily return to favor with myself,
for I know there was no mind to wound.
But you, base creature of a despised kind,
who take pleasure in drinking human blood,
I wish you to be deprived of it or to suffer a greater harm."
By this argument pardon is fit to be given
to one who sins by chance. For he who is guilty by design,
I judge him worthy of any punishment.

IV. Asinus et Porcelli Hordeum

4. The Ass and the Piglets' Barley

Quidam immolasset uerrem cum sancto Herculi,
cui pro salute uotum debebat sua,
asello iussit reliquias poni hordei.
Quas aspernatus ille sic locutus est:
"Libenter istum prorsus adpeterem cibum,
nisi qui nutritus illo est iugulatus foret."
Huius respectu fabulae deterritus,
periculosum semper uitaui lucrum.
Sed dicis: "Qui rapuere diuitias, habent."
Numeremus agedum qui deprensi perierunt;
maiorem turbam punitorum reperies.
Paucis temeritas est bono, multis malo.

A certain man had sacrificed a sow with Saint Hercules,
to whom he owed his vow for his own safety,
and ordered the remnants of barley to be laid for the little ass.
Which, having scorned, that one thus spoke:
"That food I would gladly wholly enjoy,
were it not that he who was nourished by it would be slaughtered."
Deterred by regard for this tale,
I have always shunned gain that is perilous.
But you say: "They who seized riches have them."
Let us now count how many were caught and perished;
you will find a larger crowd of the punished.
Rashness is a boon to few, a bane to many.

V. Scurra et Rusticus

V. The Buffoon and the Countryman

Prauo fauore labi mortales solent
et, pro iudicio dum stant erroris sui,
ad paenitendum rebus manifestis agi.
Facturus ludos diues quidam nobilis
proposito cunctos inuitauit praemio,
quam quisque posset ut nouitatem ostenderet.
Venere artifices laudis ad certamina;
quos inter scurra, notus urbano sale,
habere dixit se genus spectaculi
quod in theatro numquam prolatum foret.
Dispersus rumor ciuitatem concitat.
Paulo ante uacua turbam deficiunt loca.
In scaena uero postquam solus constitit
sine apparatu, nullis adiutoribus,
silentium ipsa fecit expectatio.
Ille in sinum repente demisit caput,
et sic porcelli uocem est imitatus sua,
uerum ut subesse pallio contenderent
et excuti iuberent. Quo facto, simul
nihil est repertum, multis onerant laudibus
hominemque plausu prosequuntur maximo.
Hoc uidit fieri rusticus: "Non mehercule
me uincet" inquit, et statim professus est
idem facturum melius se postridie.
Fit turba maior. Iam fauor mentes tenet
et derisuros, non spectaturos, scias.
Vterque prodit.

With perverse favor mortals are wont to slip
and, while they stand by the judgment of their error,
they are driven to repentance only when things are manifest.
A certain wealthy noble, about to put on games,
invited everyone to a contest for a prize,
that each might show what novelty he could.
Artists of praise came to the competitions;
among them a jester, known for urbane wit,
said that he had a sort of spectacle
that would never be produced in the theatre.
A rumor, scattered, roused the city.
A little before, empty places fail the crowd.
But when on the stage he alone stood
without costume, without any assistants,
expectation itself made silence.
Suddenly he let his head fall into his bosom,
and thus imitated the sound of a piglet with his own voice,
but as if they should contend that there was a blanket beneath
and command them to shake it off. When this was done, at once
nothing was found; they load the man with many praises
and escort him with the greatest applause.
A rustic saw this happen: "By Hercules," he says, "he defeats me,"
and immediately declared that he himself would do the same better the next day.
A larger crowd forms. Now favor seizes minds
and you know they will jeer, not look on.
Each betrays the other.

Scurra degrunnit prior,
mouetque plausus et clamores suscitat.
Tunc simulans sese uestimentis rusticus
porcellum obtegere (quod faciebat scilicet,
sed, in priore quia nil compererant, latens),
peruellit aurem uero, quem celauerat,
et cum dolore uocem naturae exprimit.
Adclamat populus scurram multo similius
imitatum, et cogit rusticum trudi foras.
At ille profert ipsum porcellum e sinu,
turpemque aperto pignore errorem probans:
"En hic declarat quales sitis iudices!"

The jester grunts first,
and stirs up applause and calls forth clamors.
Then the rustic, feigning to cover the pig with his garments
(which he was indeed doing, but in the former case hidden because they had discovered nothing),
tugs at the ear, however, which he had concealed,
and with pain forces out the voice of nature.
The people cry that the jester had imitated it far more closely,
and drive that rustic to be thrust outside.
But he produces the very pig from his bosom,
and, by this open pledge, proves the shameful deception:
"Behold, this declares what sort of judges you are!"

VI. Duo Calui

6. Two Bald Men

Inuenit caluus forte in triuio pectinem.
Accessit alter aeque defectus pilis.
"Heia" inquit "in commune quodcumque est lucri! "
Ostendit ille praedam et adiecit simul:
"Superum uoluntas fauit; sed fato inuido
carbonem, ut aiunt, pro thensauro inuenimus."
Quem spes delusit, huic querela conuenit.

He found by chance in the street a comb.
Another, likewise lacking in hairs, came up.
"Ho!" he says, "let whatever profit there is be common!"
That one displayed the prize and added at once:
"The will of the gods favored us; but by envious fate
we find charcoal, as they say, in place of a treasure."
He whom hope deceived, to him complaint is fitting.

VII. Princeps Tibicen

7. Chief Piper

Vbi uanus animus aura captus friuola
arripuit insolentem sibi fiduciam,
facile ad derisum stulta leuitas ducitur.
Princeps tibicen notior paulo fuit,
operam Bathyllo solitus in scaena dare.
Is forte ludis, non satis memini quibus,
dum pegma rapitur, concidit casu graui
necopinus et sinistram fregit tibiam,
duas cum dextras maluisset perdere.
Inter manus sublatus et multum gemens
domum refertur. Aliquot menses transeunt,
ad sanitatem dum uenit curatio.
Vt spectatorum molle est et lepidum genus,
desiderari coepit, cuius flatibus
solebat excitari saltantis uigor.
Erat facturus ludos quidam nobilis.
Is, ut incipiebat Princeps ad baculum ingredi,
perducit pretio precibus ut tantummodo
ipso ludorum ostenderet sese die.
Qui simul aduenit, rumor de tibicine
fremit in theatro: quidam adfirmant mortuum,
quidam in conspectum proditurum sine mora.
Aulaeo misso, deuolutis tonitribus,
di sunt locuti more translaticio.
Tunc chorus ignotum modo reducto canticum
insonuit, cuius haec fuit sententia:
LAETARE INCOLVMIS ROMA SALVO PRINCIPE.
In plausus consurrectum est. Iactat basia
tibicen; gratulari fautores putat.
Equester ordo stultum errorem intellegit
magnoque risu canticum repeti iubet.
Iteratur illud.

Where a vain mind, seized by an empty aura,
has grasped frivolous insolent confidence for itself,
foolish levity is easily led to derision.
Princeps the tibicen was a little the more famous,
accustomed to give his labour on the stage to Bathyllus.
He by chance in the games — I do not fully remember which —
while the stage-plank was being snatched up, fell by a grievous mishap
unexpectedly and broke his left tibia (pipe),
though he would rather have lost two right ones.
Lifted up between hands and groaning much
he is carried back home. Several months pass,
until a cure comes toward his health.
Since the audience is a soft and witty kind,
he began to be missed, whose vigour used to be roused by the blasts
of the dancer.
A certain nobleman was about to put on games.
When Princeps was beginning to enter with his staff,
he persuades by price and by prayers that only for that day
he himself be shown at the games.
When he at once arrives, a rumor about the tibicen
roars in the theatre: some affirm him dead,
some that he will shortly come forth into view.
The curtain sent aside, with thunderings rolled down,
the gods have spoken in the accustomed manner of portent.
Then the chorus, newly brought back, sounded an unfamiliar song,
whose sense was this:
LAETARE INCOLVMIS ROMA SALVO PRINCIPE.
At the applause he is risen. The tibicen casts about kisses;
he thinks his patrons mean to congratulate.
The equestrian order perceives the foolish error
and with great laughter bids the song be repeated.
That is sung again.

Homo meus se in pulpito
totum prosternit. Plaudit inludens eques;
rogare populus hunc choro ueniam aestimat.
Vt uero cuneis notuit res omnibus,
Princeps, ligato crure niuea fascia,
niueisque tunicis, niueis etiam calceis,
superbiens honore diuinae domus,
ab uniuersis capite est protrusus foras.

My man casts himself altogether prostrate on the pulpit
the mounted knight applauds, jeering;
the people deem that they should beg pardon for this man from the chorus.
But when the matter became known to all in the cunei,
Princeps, with his leg bound by a snowy band,
and in snowy tunics, and even snowy shoes,
boasting in the honor of the divine house,
was by everyone thrust out headlong.

VIII. Tempus

8. Time

Cursu uolucri, pendens in nouacula,
caluus, comosa fronte, nudo corpore,
quem si occuparis, teneas, elapsum semel
non ipse possit Iuppiter reprehendere,
occasionem rerum significat breuem.
Effectus impediret ne segnis mora,
finxere antiqui talem effigiem Temporis.

In a winged course, hanging on a razor’s edge,
bald, with a tufted forehead, with a naked body,
whom if you seize and hold, once having slipped away
not even Jupiter himself can reclaim him,
he signifies the brief occasion of things.
Lest a sluggish delay hinder effect,
the ancients fashioned such an effigy of Time.

IX. Taurus et Vitulus

9. Taurus and Vitulus

Angusto in audito taurus luctans cornibus
cum uix intrare posset ad praesepia,
monstrabat uitulus quo se pacto flecteret.
"Tace" inquit; "ante hoc noui quam tu natus es."
Qui doctiorem emendat sibi dici putet.

Struggling with his horns in a narrow entrance,
when he could scarcely enter the mangers,
the calf was showing in what pact he would bend himself.
"Be silent," he says; "I knew this before you were born."
Let him who corrects a more learned man suppose himself to be called more learned.

X. Canis Vetulus et Venator

10. The Old Dog and the Hunter

Aduersu omnes fortis et uelox feras
canis cum domino semper fecisset satis,
languere coepit annis ingrauantibus.
Aliquando obiectus hispidi pugnae suis,
arripuit aurem; sed cariosis dentibus
praedam dimisit rictus. Venator dolens
canem obiurgabat. Cui senex contra Lacon:
"Non te destituit animus, sed uires meae.
Quod fuimus lauda, si iam damnas quod sumus."
Hoc cur, Philete, scripserim pulchre uides.

When the dog with his master had always done enough against all brave and swift beasts,
he began to languish as years grew heavy.
Once, having been set against the bristles of his own fight,
he seized an ear; but with decayed teeth
his gape let the prey go. The grieving hunter
rebuked the dog. To him the old man Lacon replied:
"Not your spirit has abandoned you, but my strength.
Praise what we were, if you now condemn what we are."
This, Philete, is why you see I have written it well.