Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus
Book I - IX. Passer ad Leporem Consiliator (Perry
473)
Sibi non cavere et aliis consilium dare
stultum esse paucis ostendamus versibus.
Oppressum ab aquila, fletus edentem graves,
leporem obiurgabat passer 'Ubi pernicitas
nota' inquit 'illa est? Quid ita cessarunt pedes?'
Dum loquitur, ipsum accipiter necopinum rapit
questuque vano clamitantem interficit.
Lepus semianimus 'Mortis en solacium:
qui modo securus nostra inridebas mala,
simili querella fata deploras tua'.
The Hare and the Sparrow (trans. C. Smart)
Still to give cautions, as a friend,
And not one's own affairs attend,
Is but impertinent and vain,
As these few verses will explain.
A Sparrow taunted at a Hare
Caught by an eagle high in air,
And screaming loud-- "Where now," says she,
" Is your renown'd velocity ?
Why loiter'd your much boasted speed?"
Just as she spake, an hungry glede
Did on th' injurious railer fall,
Nor could her cries avail at all.
The Hare, with its expiring breath,
Thus said: " See comfort ev'n in death!
She that derided my distress
Must now deplore her own no less."
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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