Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus
Book I - X. Lupus et Vulpis Iudice Simio (Perry
474)
Quicumque turpi fraude semel innotuit,
etiam si verum dicit, amittit fidem.
Hoc adtestatur brevis Aesopi fabula.
Lupus arguebat vulpem furti crimine;
negabat illa se esse culpae proximam.
Tunc iudex inter illos sedit simius.
Uterque causam cum perorassent suam,
dixisse fertur simius sententiam:
'Tu non videris perdidisse quos petis;
te credo subripuisse quod pulchre negas'.
The Wolf and Fox, with the Ape for Judge (trans. C.
Smart)
Whoe'er by practice indiscreet
Has pass'd for a notorious cheat,
Will shortly find his credit fail,
Though he speak truth, says Esop's tale.
The Wolf the Fox for theft arraigned;
The Fox her innocence maintained:
The Ape, as umpire, takes his seat;
Each pleads his cause with skill and heat.
Then thus the Ape, with aspect grave,
The sentence from the hustings gave:
"For you, Sir Wolf, I do descry
That all your losses are a lie-
And you, with negatives so stout,
0 Fox! have stolen the goods no doubt."
Latin text from Phaedrus at The
Latin Library (Ad Fontes), English translations from The
Fables of Phaedrus Translated into English Verse by Christopher Smart
(London: 1913). Ben Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus (Loeb),
contains the Latin texts of Phaedrus, with a facing English translation, along
with a valuable appendix listing all the Aesop's fables attested in Greek and/or
in Latin. Invaluable.
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