Canis per fluvium carnem ferens

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Canis per fluvium carnem ferens (English: the dog that carries meat through the river ) is the fable I 4 of the Roman poet Phaedrus , who published his fables in five books. Phaedrus wrote a large part of his fables based on those of the Greek poet Aesop . The fables are written in a simple meter, the iambic senar .

The fable

The Latin original translation

Canis per fluvium carnem

ferens Amittit merito proprium, qui alienum appetit.
Canis per flumen carnem cum ferret natans,
Lympharum in speculo vidit simulacrum suum,
Aliamque praedam an alio ferri putans
Eripere voluit; verum decepta aviditas
Et, quem tenebat ore, dimisit cibum,
Nec, quem petebat, potuit adeo attingere.

The dog that carries meat across the river.

Whoever desires other people's goods loses his own property rightly.
A dog was swimming with meat through a stream of water.
Then he saw his likeness in the water,
and because he thinks that someone else who was carrying booty,
he wanted to catch her. But greed was deceived:
he let go of the food that he had in his mouth,
and he could not sense what he was after.

interpretation

The dog desires something he already has. There is no longer any need to attain, yet he tries and loses everything. It follows from this: Be satisfied with what you have and do not desire more than you need .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 4. The dog with the flesh. (PDF; 2.1 MB) In: Johannes Siebelis: Tirocinium poeticum. Teubner, Berlin 1917, p. 22.
  2. ↑ Phaedri Avgvsti Liberti Fabvlarvm Aesopiarvm Liber Primvs - Canis per Fluvium Carnem Ferens on thelatinlibrary.com, accessed on November 29, 2013.
  3. ^ HJ Kerler: Roman fable poets. P. 100. Stuttgart 1838, ( online ).