Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus
Book I - XVI. Ovis Cervus et Lupus (Perry
477)
Fraudator homines cum advocat sponsum improbos,
non rem expedire, sed malum ordiri expetit.
Ovem rogabat cervus modium tritici,
lupo sponsore. At illa, praemetuens dolum,
'Rapere atque abire semper adsuevit lupus;
tu de conspectu fugere veloci impetu.
Ubi vos requiram, cum dies advenerit?'
The Sheep, the Stag, and the Wolf (trans. C. Smart)
When one rogue would another get
For surety in a case of debt,
'Tis not the thing t' accept the terms,
But dread th' event-the tale affirms.
A Stag approached the Sheep, to treat
For one good bushel of her wheat.
"The honest Wolf will give his bond."
At which, beginning to despond,
"The Wolf (cries she) 's a vagrant bite,
And you are quickly out of sight;
Where shall I find or him or you
Upon the day the debt is due ?"
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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