Phaedrus 1.5: power play!

Due to my name I have sympathy for lions. I know that they have a bad name in fables: they are arrogant, cruel and not to be trusted. I can be arrogant – at last in the eyes of some, but can I help it that I am right so often? I am however not cruel and I am fairly trustworthy, so I would have acted differently as the lion in this fable and the cow, she-goat and wounded sheep would all have got their fair share of the stag. But wait, all these are herbivores! Why did the lion in this fable then make such fuzz in the first place? Ah, power play, even against companions who are no match for the lion and who don’t eat his diet!

Phaedrus 1.5. Vacca et Capella, Ovis et Leo.

Metre: iambic trimeters.

Numquam est fidelis cum potente societas.

Testatur haec fabella propositum meum.

Vacca et capella et patiens ovis iniuriae

socii fuere cum leone in saltibus.

Hi cum cepissent cervum vasti corporis,

sic est locutus partibus factis leo:

'Ego primam tollo nomine hoc quia rex cluo;

secundam, quia sum consors, tribuetis mihi;

tum, quia plus valeo, me sequetur tertia;

malo adficietur si quis quartam tetigerit'.

Sic totam praedam sola improbitas abstulit.

potente: a participle can easily be used as a noun.

vacca: cow

capella: she-goat

fuere= fuerunt

cervus: stag

saltus , -us (m): mountain-forest

partibus factis: after (the stag) had been divided into parts

primam (parten)

cluo = clueo: be spoken of, be called (here with ablative: I am called by this name: )

consors –rtis (m): companion

afficio + abl.: to inflict  (in a bad sense), to bestow upon (in a good sense)

tango tetigi tactum: to touch

improbitas, -atis (f): wickedness, dishonesty

Translation:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25512/25512-h/25512-h.htm#riley_I_V

 

Roman mosaic of a lion.