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IN MOMENTANEAM
foelicitatem.

Transitory success

Gourd growing beside a pine tree
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Aëriam propter crevisse cucurbita pinum
Dicitur, & grandi luxuriasse coma
Cum ramos complexa, ipsumque egressa cacumen
Se praestare aliis credidit arboribus.
Cui pinus, nimium brevis est haec gloria, nam te
Protinus adveniet, quae male perdat[1] hyems.

A gourd, it is said, grew beside a lofty pine and flourished with abundant foliage. When it had enveloped the branches and grown taller than the tree-top, it then thought itself superior to the other trees. The pine said to it: This glory is exceedingly brief. For winter will shortly come which will utterly destroy you.

Notes:

1.  Textual variant: perdet.

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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [Ddd5v f397v as 395]

IUSTA ULTIO.

Just revenge

Emblema 171

A bird on the branch of a tree holding a scorpion in its beak.
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Raptabat volucres captum pede corvus in auras
Scorpion, audaci praemia parta gulae.
Ast ille infuso sensim[1] per membra veneno
Raptorem in stygias compulit ultor aquas.
O risu res digna. aliis qui fata parabat,
Ipse perit, propriis subcubuitque dolis.[2]

A raven was carrying off into the flying winds a scorpion gripped in its talons, a prize won for its audacious gullet. But the scorpion, injecting its poison drop by drop through the raven’s limbs, despatched the predator to the waters of the Styx and so took its revenge. - What a laughable thing! The one who was preparing death for others himself perishes and has succumbed to his own wiles.

Notes:

1.  Corrected by hand in the Glasgow copy.

2.  This is a fairly free translation of Anthologia graeca 9.339. See Erasmus, Adagia 58, Cornix scorpium, where the Greek epigram is again translated.

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