Leo senex, aper, taurus et asinus

Leo senex, aper, taurus et asinus ( Latin for the old lion, the boar, the bull and the donkey ) is one of the 94 fables which Phaedrus wrote in his work Fabulae . This work consists of 5 books, of which books 2 and 5 have been handed down incompletely. She is the twenty-first in book one, which contains Fables 1 through 31.

The fable

The Latin original	translation	Metric	annotation
Quicumque amisit dignitatem pristinam, ignavis etiam iocus est in casu gravi. Defectus annis et desertus viribus leo cum iaceret spiritum extremum trahens, aper fulmineis ad eum venit dentibus, et vindicavit ictu veterem iniuriam. Infestis taurus mox confodit cornibus hostile corpus. Asinus, ut vidit ferum impune laedi, calcibus frontem extudit. At Ilse Expirans: "Fortes indigne tuli mihi insultare: Te, Naturae dedecus, quod ferre cogor, certe bis videor mori"	Anyone who has lost his former power is also ridiculed for figs because he is sick. Weak from old age, abandoned by the strength of the past, the lion once lay there in its last draws. The boar rushes at him with bare teeth, wounds him, and avenged such an old suffering. The bull at once, too, soon hits the enemy with a sharp horn . When the donkey saw that Den Leun was being maltreated with impunity, it hit its forehead with its hoof . Then he sighs, dying: The scorn of the brave pains me bitterly; but the fact that I suffer from you, monster, death hurts me twice as much.	Qui \| cùm \| qu ~ a \| mì \| sit dì \| gni \| tà \| tem prìs \| ti \| nàm, ig \| nà \| vis ét \| iam iò \| cu ~ st ín ca \| sú gra \| ví. De \| féc \| tus án \| nis ét de \| sér \| tus ví \| ri \| bús le \| ó c ~ ia \| cé \| ret spí \| ri \| t ~ éx \| tre \| múm tra \| héns, a \| pèr ful \| mí \| ne \| ís ad è \| um vé \| nit dén \| ti \| bús, et vìn \| di \| cá \| vit íc \| tu vé \| te \| r ~ ín \| iur \| iám. In \| fés \| tis tau \| rus mòx con \| fò \| dit còr \| ni \| bùs hos \| tì \| le còr \| pus. À \| si \| nùs, ut vi \| dìt fe \| rùm im \| pù \| ne làe \| di, càl \| ci \| bùs fron \| tè ~ x \| tu \| dìt. At ìl \| l ~ ex \| spì \| rans: "Fòr \| tes ìn \| dig \| nè tu \| lì mi \| h ~ ìn \| sul \| tà \| re: Tè, Na \| tù \| rae dè \| de \| cùs, quod fer \| rè cer \| tè co \| gòr to vì \| de \| òr mo \| rì ".	The fable is divided into verses, each with six iambs , which consist of an unstressed and a stressed syllable. The stressed syllable follows the unstressed syllable. Sometimes a long vowel can be replaced by two short vowels. Through a so-called elision , unstressed sounds are partially left out in order to reduce the number of syllables in a verse and thus maintain a selected meter. Two consecutive vowels can be deleted. In Latin, you can also delete a word that ends in -um or -am and is followed by a vowel. Examples: Ille expirans → il ~ expirans spiritum extremum → spirit ~ extremum

literature

Johann Ulrich Krausen, J. v. Vianen: Aesopian Fables. (Phaedrus) Kraus, Augsburg 1716, OCLC 258097612 .
HJ Kerler: Roman fable poets. In: Roman poets in new metric translations . Vols 24-26. Stuttgart 1838, OCLC 604181775 , pp. 98/99.
Johannes Siebelis: Tirocinium poeticum. Teubner, Berlin 1917, pp. 24/25.

Web links

The lion, the boar, the bull and the donkey on uni-mannheim.de (fable with images)

Individual evidence

↑ 9. The old lion, the boar, the bull and the donkey. (PDF; 2.1 MB) In: Johannes Siebelis: Tirocinium poeticum. Teubner, Berlin 1917, pp. 24/25.
^ HJ Kerler: Roman fable poets. P. 98/99. Stuttgart 1838, ( online ).

[1] 9. The old lion, the boar, the bull and the donkey. (PDF; 2.1 MB) In: Johannes Siebelis: Tirocinium poeticum. Teubner, Berlin 1917, pp. 24/25.

[2] HJ Kerler: Roman fable poets. P. 98/99. Stuttgart 1838, ( online ).