Part 16 (2/2)

”I don't deny,” said she, ”that to your tongue I owe most sincere thanks, and I return them, but I wish you may be deprived of your perfidious eyes.”

[Footnote NF.21: _Injury to this field_)--Ver. 4. The Hare is more an enemy to the flowers in gardens than to the fields. It was probably for this reason that the Romans sacrificed this animal to the G.o.ddess Flora.]

FABLE XXVIII.

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE COURTESAN.

_Many things are pleasing which still are not to our advantage._

While a perfidious Courtesan was fawning upon a Youth, and he, though wronged {by her} many a time and oft, still showed himself indulgent to the Woman, the faithless {Creature thus addressed him}: ”Though many contend {for me} with {their} gifts, still do I esteem you the most.”

The Youth, recollecting how many times he had been deceived, replied: ”Gladly, my love, do I hear these words; not because you are constant, but because you administer to my pleasures.”

FABLE XXIX.

THE BEAVER.

_Many would escape, if for the sake of safety they would disregard their comforts._

The Beaver (to which the talkative Greeks have given the name of Castor, thus bestowing upon an animal the name of a G.o.d[22]--they who boast of the abundance of their epithets) when can no longer escape the dogs, is said to bite off his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, because he is aware that it is for them he is sought; a thing which I would not deny being done through an instinct granted by the G.o.ds; for as soon as the Huntsman has found the drug, he ceases his pursuit, and calls off the dogs.

If men could manage, so as to be ready to part with what they own, in order to live in safety for the future, there would be no one to devise stratagems to the detriment of the naked body.

[Footnote NF.22: _Name of a G.o.d_)--Ver. 3. This pun upon the resemblance of ”Castor,” the name of the demiG.o.d, to ”Castor,”

”a beaver,” seems to be a puerile pun; and the remark upon the limited ”copia verborum” of the Greeks, seems more likely to proceed from the Archbishop of Sipontum than from Phaedrus, who was evidently proud of his Grecian origin.]

FABLE x.x.x.

THE b.u.t.tERFLY AND THE WASP.

_Not past but present Fortune must be regarded._

A b.u.t.terfly[23] seeing a Wasp flying by: ”Oh, sad is our lot,” said she, ”derived from the depths of h.e.l.l, from the recesses of which we have received our existence. I, eloquent in peace, brave in battle, most skilled in every art, whatever I once was, behold, light and rotten, and mere ashes do I fly.[24] You, who were a Mule[25] with panniers, hurt whomsoever you choose, by fixing your sting in him.” The Wasp, too, uttered these words, well suited to her disposition: ”Consider not what we were, but what we now are.”

[Footnote NF.23: _A b.u.t.terfly_)--Ver. 1. This Fable is in a sadly mutilated state, and critics are at a loss to say, with any certainty, what is meant by it. Whether the supposed word in l. 2, ”barathris,” (if really the correct reading), means the depths of h.e.l.l, or the inner folds of the leaves in which the b.u.t.terfly is enveloped in the chrysalis state, or whether it means something else, will probably always remain a matter of doubt. However, the Fable seems to allude to the prevalent idea, that the soul, when disengaged from the body, took the form of a b.u.t.terfly. Indeed the Greeks called both the soul and a b.u.t.terfly by the name of ????. There are six or seven different versions of the first five lines.]

[Footnote NF.24: _Ashes do I fly_)--Ver. 6. It is just possible that this may allude to the soul being disengaged from the corruption of the body.]

[Footnote NF.25: _Who were a Mule_)--Ver. 7. She would seem here to allude to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. It may possibly have been a notion, that as the human soul took the form of a b.u.t.terfly, the souls of animals appeared in the shapes of Wasps and Flies.]

FABLE x.x.xI.

THE GROUND-SWALLOW AND THE FOX.

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