Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus
Book I - XVII. Ovis Canis et Lupus . (Perry
478)
Solent mendaces luere poenas malefici.
Calumniator ab ove cum peteret canis,
quem commendasse panem se contenderet,
lupus, citatus testis, non unum modo
deberi dixit, verum adfirmavit decem.
Ovis, damnata falso testimonio,
quod non debebat, solvit. Post paucos dies
bidens iacentem in fovea prospexit lupum.
'Haec' inquit 'merces fraudis a superis datur'.
The Sheep, the Dog, and the Wolf (trans. C. Smart)
Liars are liable to rue
The mischief they 're so prone to do.
The Sheep a Dog unjustly dunn'd
One loaf directly to refund,
Which he the Dog to the said Sheep
Had given in confidence to keep.
The Wolf was summoned, and he swore
It was not one, but ten or more.
The Sheep was therefore cast at law
To pay for things she never saw.
But, lo! ere many days ensued,
Dead in a ditch the Wolf she view'd:
"This, this," she cried, "is Heaven's decree
Of justice on a wretch like thee."
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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