Fables are not children stories, but they express moral principles
and folk wisdom through animal characters. It was once thought that this genre
came from India to Greece, but now scholars are less certain. Fables are short
and written in an easy language and no wonder that they were used as an introduction
into Latin during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The same is true for
Indian fables: thousands and thousands of students of Sanskrit must have been
introduced to original Sanskrit through Charles Lanman’s `Sanskrit Reader’ which
contains inter alia fables from the Hitopadesha in the easier selections. From
a sociological point of view fables are ideal for studying moral concepts of a
society. Take for instance this simple fable from Phaedrus fabulae: a dog wants to swim across a river carrying a piece of meat.
Standing at the river he sees his own reflection in the water and opens his
mouth to get hold of the other piece of meat too – and is left with
nothing. May be greedy bankers should
recite this fable twice daily.
Phaedrus, Fabulae,
IV (or V in another counting): Canis per Fluvium Carnem Ferens
Amittit merito proprium qui alienum adpetit.
Canis, per fluvium carnem cum ferret, natans
lympharum in speculo vidit simulacrum suum,
aliamque praedam ab altero ferri putans
eripere voluit; verum decepta aviditas
et quem tenebat ore dimisit cibum,
nec quem petebat adeo potuit tangere.
amitto amisi
amissum: to loose
merito: righly
proprium: one’s
own thing
adpeto adpetivi
adpetitum: to strive after (= peto)
cum ferret:
when he wanted to carry (another reading for cum is dum, probably a
mediaeval alteration as both conjunctives got blurred)
nato: to swim
lympha: water
speculum:
reflection, mirror
praeda: booty
eripio eripui
ereptum: to snatch away
decepta aviditas:
abstractum pro concreto `the eager
one deceived himself’
cibum, quem:
the food which
tango tetigi tactum:
to touch
No comments:
Post a Comment