Irenaeus Fabula 24. De Equo et Cervo

I'm embarking on a new Latin fable project here at the Latin Via Fables blog: digitizing the 300 fables in the Mithologica sacro-profana, seu florilegium fabularum by P. Irenaeus, published in 1666, which has recently become available at GoogleBooks. For a complete index of the fables in the book, with links to the fables I've digitized so far, check out the Aesopus wiki page at Aesopus.PBwiki.com.

Today's fable is De Equo et Cervo, the story of the horse who made a bargain with a man to do battle with a stag. In Perry's indexing system, this is Perry 269.

To make reading the fable easier, I've provided a segmented version of the story below.

Equus cum Cervo et aliis bellum habebat pro possessione pascuorum. Qui, imparem se sentiens, imploravit open hominis. Non abnuit homo ferre suppetias Equo, imo pollicitus est de hoste victoriam, modo frenum, ephippia, calcaria admitteret. Quibus conditionibus admissis, ad certamen redit, et qui erat antea victus fit victor Cervi et aliorum, sed hominis servus: jugum enim hominis receptum amovere non potuit. Adeo difficile est iugum et servitutem potentis, quam semel induisti, excutere.

Equus
cum Cervo et aliis
bellum habebat
pro possessione pascuorum.
Qui,
imparem se sentiens,
imploravit open hominis.
Non abnuit homo
ferre suppetias Equo,
imo pollicitus est
de hoste victoriam,
modo
frenum, ephippia, calcaria
admitteret.
Quibus conditionibus admissis,
ad certamen redit,
et qui erat antea victus
fit victor Cervi et aliorum,
sed hominis servus:
jugum enim hominis receptum
amovere non potuit.
Adeo difficile est
iugum et servitutem potentis,
quam semel induisti,
excutere.

Here's an illustration for the fable (image source) from a 1521 edition of Aesop:

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Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.