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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).
[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  [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  [E5v]

IN EUM QUI SIBI IPSI[1]
damnum apparat.

One who brings about his own downfall

A wolf cub being suckled by a goat.
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Capra lupum non sponte meo nunc ubere lacto,
Quod male pastoris provida cura iubet.[2]
Creverit ille simul, mea me[3] post ubera pascet,
Improbitas nullo flectitur obsequio.[4]

I am a goat giving suck against my will - to a wolf. The improvident kindness of the shepherd makes me do this. Once the wolf has grown, after feeding at my teats, he will then eat me. Wickedness is never deterred by services rendered.

Notes:

1.  Textual variant: ‘ipsi’ omitted.

2.  This is a translation of Anthologia graeca 9.47. For the content cf. Aesop, Fables 313-5.

3.  Corrected from the Errata.

4.  ‘Wickedness is never deterred by services rendered’. See Erasmus, Adagia 1086, Ale luporum catulos.

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