Aesop's Fables: Phaedrus
Book I - VI. Ranae ad Solem (Perry
314)
Vicini furis celebres vidit nuptias
Aesopus, et continuo narrare incipit -
Uxorem quondam Sol cum vellet ducere,
clamorem ranae sustulere ad sidera.
Convicio permotus quaerit Iuppiter
causam querellae. Quaedam tum stagni incola
'Nunc' inquit 'omnes unus exurit lacus,
cogitque miseras arida sede emori.
Quidnam futurum est si crearit liberos?'
The Frogs and Sun (trans. C. Smart)
When Esop saw, with inward grief,
The nuptials of a neighboring thief,
He thus his narrative begun:
Of old 'twas rumor'd that the Sun
Would take a wife: with hideous cries
The quer'lous Frogs alarm'd the skies.
Moved at their murmurs, Jove inquired
What was the thing that they desired?
When thus a tenant of the lake,
In terror, for his brethren spake:
"Ev'n now one Sun too much is found,
And dries up all the pools around,
Till we thy creatures perish here;
But oh, how dreadfully severe,
Should he at length be made a sire,
And propagate a race of fire !"
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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