Sunday, July 05, 2009

Irenaeus Fable 74. Equus et Asinus

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 De Equo et Asino, the story of the humiliation of a boastful horse. In Perry's indexing system, this is Perry 565.

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

Equus freno et phaleris aureis ephippioque diviti instructus cum ingenti superbia hinniens per viam currebat. Cui obviam fit Asellus grandi sub onere gemens media in via. Equus, superbia tumens et ira fremens: "Apage (inquit), ignave bestia, alioquin te pedibus attero." Asellus ne hiscere quidem ausus cedit locum Equo, qui ferox frena et spumam mandens momento post, offendens in via in oculis Asini cadit et crepat. Accurrunt Herus et famuli, morientique sellam, frena, stragulas, soleas ipsas tollunt. Quod cernens Asinus, "Quid est hoc (inquit), bone vir? Et hoc apud me tacitus ruminabam: qui concitatius currit, necessario labi ac cadere; et qui nimis superbit, festine prosterni."

Equus
freno et phaleris aureis
ephippioque diviti instructus
cum ingenti superbia
hinniens per viam currebat.
Cui obviam fit Asellus
grandi sub onere gemens
media in via.
Equus,
superbia tumens et ira fremens:
"Apage (inquit), ignave bestia,
alioquin te pedibus attero."
Asellus
ne hiscere quidem ausus
cedit locum Equo,
qui
ferox frena
et spumam mandens
momento post,
offendens in via
in oculis Asini cadit
et crepat.
Accurrunt Herus et famuli,
morientique
sellam, frena, stragulas, soleas ipsas
tollunt.
Quod cernens Asinus,
"Quid est hoc (inquit),
bone vir?
Et hoc
apud me
tacitus ruminabam:
qui concitatius currit,
necessario labi ac cadere;
et qui nimis superbit,
festine prosterni."

Here's an illustration for the fable (image source) from a 16th-century edition of the fables:




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

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