Irenaeus Fabula 55. De Talpa, matre et filio.

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 Talpa, matre et filio, the story of the story of the mole and his mother. In Perry's indexing system, this is Perry 214.

Talpa, animal caecitatis perpetuae tenebris alte defossum et quasi in terra sepultum, dicebat aliquando matri suae; Mater, ingentem odorem sentio: aliquanto post, magnam fornacem accensam video; tertio iterum ad eam, audio fabrorum ictus malleorumque incudes fortiter tundentium. Cui mater subridens, respondit, Heu, fili mi, ut video, tam odoratu et auditu capta es, quam oculis et visu; nec plus audis, aut sentis, quam vides. Quantos huiuscemodi caecos, ut talpas, et surdos, et veri odoratus expertes, saeculum habet.

Talpa,
animal
caecitatis perpetuae tenebris
alte defossum
et quasi in terra sepultum,
dicebat aliquando matri suae;
Mater,
ingentem odorem sentio:
aliquanto post,
magnam fornacem accensam video;
tertio iterum ad eam,
audio
fabrorum ictus
malleorumque incudes
fortiter tundentium.
Cui mater subridens, respondit,
Heu, fili mi,
ut video,
tam odoratu et auditu capta es,
quam oculis et visu;
nec plus audis, aut sentis,
quam vides.
Quantos huiuscemodi caecos,
ut talpas,
et surdos,
et veri odoratus expertes,
saeculum habet.

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

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

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