Bestiaria Latina Blog: Round-Up: January 18

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 quintum decimum 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:

Lupi et Oves, the story of the tragic treaty between the sheep and the wolves.
Mutuum Auxilum, a story about the cooperation between a lame man and a blind man.
Auceps et Fringilla, a story of a birdcatcher who pays the price for being greedy.
Vulpes et Caput Marmoreum, the reflections of a fox on how outward appearances can be deceiving.
Aesopus et Homo a Cane Laceratus, Aesop's advice to a man bit by a dog.

I've picked out my favorite one, Mutuum Auxilum, to share with you here in the blog (this is the prose rendering) - and you can see the emblematic depiction at the bottom of the post here. Watch out for captus here, which is used in the sense of "deprived of, impaired" (meaning B.1.e in Lewis & Short):

Lūmine captus lōripedem fert, humerīs sublātum, et haec sociī mūnera oculīs rētribuit. Sīc uterque concors praestat, quō alteruter caret: hīc oculōs mūtuat, ille pedēs mūtuat.

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 Veni, vidi, vici (English: I came, I saw, I conquered - Caesar's words which have become one of the most famous Latin statements of all time).

3-Word Proverbs: Today's 3-word proverb is Nemo effugit futurum (English: No one escapes what will be - a lovely use of the future active participle in Latin, which gives us the "future").

Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb with rhyme is: Est verum verbum: frangit Deus omne superbum (English: Here is a true saying: God shatters everything that is proud).

Vulgate Verse: Today's verse is Diliges proximum tuum, sicut te ipsum (Gal. 5:14). 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 Taverner: Stultus stulta loquitur: A foole speaketh foolish thinges. And as our Englishe Proverbe saithe: A fooles bolt is soone shotte, whereas the wise man speaketh seldom and wittelie.

Today's Poem: Today's poem is one of the little iambic fables of Desbillons, with a word list at NoDictionaries.com:

Librum elegantem quidam Asellus reperit;
Simul improbavit, atque discerpsit iocans.
Audaciorem stupiditas Criticum facit.

English: "A certain Donkey found an excellent book; he immediately disapproved of it and amused himself by tearing it to pieces: stupidity makes the Critic more bold." A great little poem for anyone frustrated by the carping of an uninformed critic!

For today's image, here is Alciato's emblem for the the fable Mutuum Auxilum, taken from a 1556 edition of the emblems (image source):