Bestiaria Latina Blog: Round-Up: January 21

Here is a round-up of today's blog posts - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. You can keep up with the latest posts by using the RSS feed, or you might prefer to subscribe by email. Plus, you can find some Latin "pipilationes" at my Proverbia Latina feed and at the IVLIVS CAESAR feed (Plutarch's Life of Caesar twittered trilingually).

HODIE: ante diem duodecimum Kalendas Februarias. You can add a Roman calendar as a widget in your blog or webpage, or display it as a Google Calendar: here's how.

TODAY'S FABLES: Here are today's fables from the Ictibus Felicibus project. These fables ALL have long marks, plus stress marks for easy reading, and the poems have meter marks, too, along with an easy-to-read prose presentation of the story:

Prometheus: Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos, Alciato's moral emblem based on the mythical Titan.
Canis Fidelis, the story of a dog who will not be bribed.
Anguilla et Serpens, in which the snake gives advice to the eel about self-defense.
Puer et Fur, a hilarious story about the trickster thief out-tricked by the little boy.
Equus et Asinus, the fate of the horse who refused to help his fellow creature.

I've picked out my favorite one, Equus et Asinus, to share with you here in the blog; this one teaches a very profound lesson that we can probably all learn from:

Asinus quondam ita onerātus, ut paene dēficeret, cum equō nihil nisi ōrnāmenta portante iter faciēbat. Itaque hunc ōrāvit ut sibi opem ferret; quod nisi ita faceret, sē ante peritūrum quam ad oppidum vēnissent. "Modesta" inquit "sānē haec precātiō. Dīmidium huius oneris tibi velut lūdō iocōque erit." Recūsābat autem ille remissīs calcibus, cum ecce ecomitem sub onere morientem vīdit. Tum dēmum sē parum rēctē ēgisse cognōvit. Nam, praeter tōtum alterīus onus, pellis quoque eiusdem equō portanda erat.

TODAY'S MOTTOES & PROVERBS: You can get access to ALL the "proverb of the day scripts" (also available as random proverb scripts) at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website.

3-Word Mottoes: Today's 3-word motto is Spes audaces adiuvat (English: Hope helps the bold).

3-Word Proverbs: Today's 3-word proverb is Echinus partum differt (English: The hedgehog postpones the process of giving birth - and the irony is that it gets worse and worse, the longer she waits, as the baby hedgehog just gets spinier and spinier).

Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb with rhyme is: Fumus sumus, fimus fimus (English: We are smoke; we become dung - although this one really depends on the rhyme and the wordplay for its appeal in Latin!).

Vulgate Verse: Today's verse is Alius est qui seminat, et alius est qui metit (John 4:37). For a translation, check out the polyglot Bible, in English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, at the Sacred Texts Archive online.

Elizabethan Proverb Commentary: Here is today's proverb commentary, this time by Conybeare: Non est cuiuslibet Corinthum appellere: It ys not yn everye mannes power to arryve at Corinthus, which doth signifie, It pertayneth not to every man to attempte thinges daungerous and harde to atchieve.

Today's Poem: Today's little poem is from Cato's Distichs, with a word list at NoDictionaries.com:

Virtutem primam esse puto conpescere linguam:
Proximus ille deo est, qui scit ratione tacere.

English: "I think that to hold one's tongue is the chief virtue; the man who knows how to be thoughtfully quiet is close to being a god." Or, as the English proverb puts it: Silence is golden.

For an image today, here is an illustration for the fable Canis Fidelis, where the thief trying to buy the dog's loyalty with bread (image source).