Looking for another book,
I found Speyer’s Phaedri Fabulae Aesopi
(1912). Since I had to reshuffle my books and have far more double rows now,
some books are at erratic places. Speyer was professor of Latin at my hometown
Groningen and later became professor of Sanskrit at Leyden. Sanskrit was his
first and foremost love and his publications on that language are far more
important than his contributions to Latin. Still, the date of publication
suggests that also during his professorship in Sanskrit he did not forget
Latin. The book fell open on a page telling the story of a bald man and a fly.
Bitten by a fly, the poor man hit himself trying to kill his adversary.
Nothing can by more
irritating than a fly unceasingly trying to bite or indeed managing to bite. I
am rather clumsy in capturing flies, but to my luck, flies take little to no interest
in my blood. A friend of mine, with whom I use to hike twice a year, is always heavily
attacked during the night, while I have mostly nothing.
Phaedrus 5.3: Calvus et musca.
Calvi momordit musca nudatum caput;
Quam opprimere captans alapam sibi duxit gravem.
Tunc illa irridens: Punctum volucris parvulae
Voluisti morte ulcisci; quid facies tibi,
Iniuriae qui addideris contumeliam?
Respondit: Mecum facile redeo in gratiam,
Quia non fuisse mentem laedendi scio.
Sed te, contempti generis animal improbum,
Quae delectaris bibere
humanum sanguinem,
Optem necare vel maiore
incommodo.
Hoc argumentum veniam ei dari docet
Qui casu peccat. Nam qui consilio est nocens,
Illum esse quavis dignum poena iudico.
mordeo momordi morsum: to bite
capto: to
try, to seek
alapa: a
stroke or blow upon the cheek with the open hand, a box on the ear
alapam duco:
to give a blow
irrideo irrisi:
to laugh at
volucris –is
(f.): anything that can fly
parvulus: diminutive
of parvus
ulcicsor ultus:
to revenge
contumelia:
insult (i.e. by giving himself a hard blow)
red-ire in gratiam cum aliquo: to reconcile with someone
mentem laedendi:
intention of hurting
improbus:
shameless
delector: to
delight
bibo bibi:
to drink
opto: to wish
neco: to
kill
vel: even
incommodum:
inconvenience, injury
argumentum:
moral
veniam do:
to forgive
casu:
unintentionally
consilio: on
purpose
dignus (+
abl.): worthy of
Translation by C. Smart
(1913)
The Bald Man and the Fly
As on his head she chanced
to sit,
A Man's bald pate a Gadfly
bit;
He, prompt to crush the
little foe,
Dealt on himself a
grievous blow:
At which the Fly, deriding
said,
" You that would
strike an insect dead
For one slight sting, in
wrath so strict,
What punishment will you
inflict
Upon yourself, who was so
blunt
To do yourself this gross
affront ?"-
"0," says the
party, "as for me,
I with myself can soon
agree.
The spirit of th'
intention's all;
But thou, detested
cannibal!
Blood-sucker! to have thee
secured
More would I gladly have
endured."
What by this moral tale is
meant
Is-those who wrong not with
intent
Are venial; but to those
that do
Severity, I think, is due.
