HOME | Barlow's Aesop: Previous Page - Next Page 

Barlow 38. DE LEONE, URSO ET VULPE

Online Forum: At the Aesopus Ning Forum, you can ask questions about this fable. You will also  find links there to additional learning materials to help you in reading the Latin (vocabulary, grammar commentary, simplified version, quizzes, macrons, etc.).

Leo et Ursus, simul magnum adepti hinnulum, de eo concertabant. Graviter autem a se ipsis affecti, ut ex multa pugna etiam vertigine corriperentur, defatigati iacebant. Vulpes interea, circumcirca eundo ubi prostratos eos vidit et hinnulum in medio iacentem, hunc, per utrosque percurrendo, rapuit fugiensque abivit. At illi videbant quidem furacem Vulpem sed, quia non potuerunt surgere, “Eheu nos miseros,” dicebant, “quia Vulpi laboravimus.

Translation: The lion and the bear at the same time had seized a fawn and were struggling over it. They had seriously weakened one another, so that they even became dizzy from the prolonged battle, and were lying there, exhausted. Meanwhile, a fox, who was prowling round about, saw them stretched out, with the fawn lying between them, so the fox ran between the two of them and snatched the fawn; the fox then ran off, making her escape. But while the lion and the bear indeed could see the thieving fox, they were not able to get up, and so they said: "Alas, poor wretches are we, because we went to all this trouble for the fox's benefit."

[This translation is meant as a help in understanding the story, not as a "crib" for the Latin. I have not hesitated to change the syntax to make it flow more smoothly in English, altering the verb tense consistently to narrative past tense, etc.]

The Moral of the Story:

Innuit haec fabula

multos,

ut latranti satisfacerent stomacho,

plurima subire pericula,

et quam

vel hic, vel ille

summa industria ambivit,

tertius aliquis

est lucratus praedam.

Illustration: Here is an illustration from this edition, by the renowned artist Francis Barlow; click on the image for a larger view. If you look, you can see the fox waiting in the background, ready to make a dash and grab the dead deer. Meanwhile, the bear and the lion are both visibly panting, their tongues hanging out of their mouths.