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Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus

Book V - IX. Taurus et Vitulus (Perry 531)

Angusto in audito taurus luctans cornibus
cum uix intrare posset ad praesepia,
monstrabat uitulus quo se pacto flecteret.
"Tace" inquit; "ante hoc noui quam tu natus es."
Qui doctiorem emendat sibi dici putet.

The Bull and the Calf (trans. C. Smart)

A Bull was struggling to secure
His passage at a narrow door,
And scarce could reach the rack of hay,
His horns so much were in his way.
A Calf officious, fain would show
How he might twist himself and go.
"Hold thou thy prate; all this," says he,
Ere thou wert calved was known to me."
He, that a wiser man by half
Would teach, may think himself this Calf.


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.