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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N1v p194]

Ferè simile ex Theocrito.[1]

Something more or less the same from Theocritus

Child showing a bee sting on his finger to a woman (Venus).
[Click on image to enlarge]

Alveolis dum mella legit, percussit Amorem
Furacem mala apes, & summis spicula liquit
In digitis: tumido gemit at puer anxius ungue,
Et quatit errabundus humum, Venerique dolorem
Indicat, & graviter queritur, quòd apicula parvum
Ipsa inferre animal tam noxia vulnera possit.
Cui ridens Venus, hanc imitaris tu quoque dixit
Nate feram, qui das tot noxia vulnera parvus.

While he was taking honey from the hives, a vicious bee stung thieving Amor, and left its sting in the end of his finger. The boy in distress cried out as his finger-end swelled up. He ran about, stamping his foot, showed his hurt to Venus, and complained bitterly that a little bee, that tiny creature, could inflict such grievous wounds. Venus smiled at him and said, “You are like this creature, my son; small as you are you deal many a grievous wound”.

Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N2r p195]

Presque se [=le] semblable au precedent,
compris de Theocrite.

Cupido chast du meil desrobe,
La mouche a miel surce le pique.
Il va puis, il vient, puis ne hobe,
Frappant du pied en fantasticque:
Ha dit il, ma mere impudicque,
Je meurs sans que eusse sceu penser,
Que si peu de corps mellificque,
Eust peu tant asprement blesser.
Aultrement.
Cupido yvrognet & chast,
Roba du miel pour sa pasture:
Mais pas nadvient quil y touchast,
Sans soudain recepvoir poincture:
Venus le ot crier daventure,
Lors dit, Regarde donc foireux,
Si telle petite creature
Te ard, que fais tu aux amoureux.[2]

Notes:

1.  3rd-century BC bucolic poet, who may or may not have wrriten the Idylls (19, The Honey Stealer), of which this is a fairly close translation, in dactylic hexameters, as in the Greek original.

2.  These French verses were not in the 1536 edition.

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