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Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus

Book I - XXX. Ranae Metuentes Proelia Taurorum (Perry 485)

Humiles laborant ubi potentes dissident.
Rana e palude pugnam taurorum intuens,
'Heu, quanta nobis instat pernicies' ait.
interrogata ab alia cur hoc diceret,
de principatu cum illi certarent gregis
longeque ab ipsis degerent vitam boves,
'Sit statio separata ac diversum genus;
expulsus regno nemoris qui profugerit,
paludis in secreta veniet latibula,
et proculcatas obteret duro pede.
Ita caput ad nostrum furor illorum pertinet'.

 

The Frogs and Bulls (trans. C. Smart)

Men of low life are in distress
When great ones enmity profess.
There was a Bull-fight in the fen,
A Frog cried out in trouble then,
"Oh, what perdition on our race!"
"How," says another, "can the case
Be quite so desp'rate as you've said?
For they're contending who is head,
And lead a life from us disjoin'd,
Of sep'rate station, diverse kind."-
" But he, who worsted shall retire,
Will come into this lowland mire,
And with his hoof dash out our brains
Wherefore their rage to us pertains."


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.