Irenaeus Fabula 36. De Aquila et Cornicula.

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 Aquila et Cornicula, the story of how the eagle tricked the crow. In Perry's indexing system, this is Perry 490.

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

Aquila ungue captam stringebat Cochleam. Cuius carnem cum non posset eruere et edere, accedens Cornicula suadet, ut, si esse vult, in altum subvolet et eam e sublimi in saxa praecipitet et frangat, fractaque potiatur. Paret dictis Corniculae Aquila; frangit Cochleam. Sed Cornicula, casum praestolans, surripit escam et ludit Aquilam male cautam. Ut inde discas: nunquam hosti et malae bestiae fidere oportere.

Aquila
ungue captam
stringebat Cochleam.
Cuius carnem
cum non posset eruere et edere,
accedens Cornicula suadet,
ut,
si esse vult,
in altum subvolet
et eam
e sublimi in saxa praecipitet
et frangat,
fractaque potiatur.
Paret dictis Corniculae
Aquila;
frangit Cochleam.
Sed Cornicula,
casum praestolans,
surripit escam
et ludit Aquilam
male cautam.
Ut inde discas:
nunquam
hosti et malae bestiae
fidere oportere.

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.