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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [N4v p200]

Ferè simile ex Theocrito.[1]

Something more or less the same from Theocritus

XC.

Child showing a bee sting on his finger to a woman (Venus).
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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  [N5r p201]

Schier auff die vorgeend fabel.

XC.

Wie Cupido hoeng fladen stal,
Ein pin hart in die hand in stach,
Seinr mueter klagt er den unfal,
Und wie das sey ein seltzam sach,
Das diß klain thier so groß layd mach:
Sagt Venus mit lachendem mund,
Lieber sun, deiner klaynheyt nach
Machst du die leut vil schwerer wund.

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.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [E7r]

IN VITAM HUMANAM.

On human life

Two men sitting at a table, one crying, the other laughing.
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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [E7v]

Plus solito humanae nunc defle incomoda vitae
Heraclite, scatet pluribus illa malis.
Tu rursus, si quando alias extolle[1] cachinnum,
Democrite, illa magis ludicra facta fuit.
Interea haec cernens meditor, qua denique tecum.
Fine fleam, aut tecum quomodo splene iocer.[2]

Weep now, Heraclitus, even more than you did, for the ills of human life. It teems with far more woes. And you, Democritus, if ever you laughed before, raise your cackle now. Life has become more of a joke. Meanwhile, seeing all this, I consider just how far I can weep with you, how laugh bitterly with you.

Notes:

1.  Corrected from the Errata, and also corrected by hand in this copy.

2.  This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 9.148. For Heraclitus, cf. [A50a016]. For the contrast between the despairing tears of Heraclitus (who withdrew from human society) and the sardonic laughter of Democritus when faced with the folly of men, see, among many sources, e.g. Juvenal, Satires 10, 28ff.

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