Saturday, June 20, 2009

Irenaeus Fabula 60. Asinus Silvestris

I've embarked 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 Asinus Silvestris, the story of the wild donkey and his reflections on the free life. In Perry's indexing system, this is Perry 183.

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

Onager seu Asinus silvestris, viso Asino domestico in aprico pascente, accedens, eum felicem dicebat, eiusque conditionem multis extollebat, ut qui sine ferarum periculo interdiu herbam pasceret et in stabulo noctu securus a servis heri sui curaretur. At ubi postera die eumdem vidit clitellis onustum, gravia onera ferentem, et famulum retro eum fuste et flagellis egregie excipientem, mutavit sententiam et quem felicem prius reputaverat, miserrimum pronuntiavit. Sic res humanae fallaces sunt, et cum rident specioso vultu prima fronte, momento produnt malum quod intus celant.

Onager seu Asinus silvestris,
viso Asino domestico
in aprico pascente,
accedens,
eum felicem dicebat,
eiusque conditionem
multis extollebat,
ut qui
sine ferarum periculo
interdiu herbam pasceret
et in stabulo noctu securus
a servis heri sui curaretur.
At ubi postera die
eumdem vidit clitellis onustum,
gravia onera ferentem,
et famulum retro
eum fuste et flagellis
egregie excipientem,
mutavit sententiam
et quem
felicem prius reputaverat,
miserrimum pronuntiavit.
Sic res humanae
fallaces sunt,
et cum rident specioso vultu
prima fronte,
momento produnt malum
quod intus celant.

Here's an illustration for the fable (image source), showing an onager:



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

2 comments:

Frenchy said...

I have only two words to say you :

Thank you.

www.je-blogue-donc-je-suis.com/

Laura Gibbs said...

Wonderful! Your post is a wonderful way to remind people of the relevance of the fables' lessons even today. The fable you included about the horse - Le cheval, le chasseur et le cerf - is one of my own personal favorites!!! :-)