Saturday, December 26, 2020

Centum Verba 1: Leo et Canis

I wrote yesterday about my new retooling of this blog as CENTUM VERBA (details), and this morning I decided to play around with a dictionary look-up. The "wiktionary" at Wikipedia is a good combination of a morphology tool and a dictionary, so I figured out how to use a spreadsheet to generate a word list for the fable that links to the relevant entries at wiktionary. In some cases, it links to the dictionary entry, and in other cases it links to the results of a morphological look-up that, in turn, links to the dictionary item. I hope you will find that useful! I've copied the fable from yesterday, and added the word look-up list underneath.


Ecce canis! 
Canis pinguis est, et nitidus.
Ecce leo! 
Leo pinguis non est. 
Leo inedia exhaustus est.
Occurrit canis leoni. 
Canis, iocans, leoni dicit, 
“Miser es tu, leo! 
Exhaustus inedia es.
Quid percurris silvas? 
Quid percurris devia?
Specta me! 
Miser non sum. 
Pinguis sum canis! 
Nitidus sum canis!
Quomodo haec bona consequor? 
Haec bona non labore consequor. 
Haec bona otio consequor!
Leo cani dicit, 
"Tu, canis, habes epulas; verum est.
Epulas habes, sed etiam vincula habes.
Stolidus es, canis, et servus! 
Specto te, stolidum servum.
Servus esto! 
Tu servire potes.
Ego liber sum. 
Ego servire non possum, nec servire volo."


Dictionary help:

bona —  cani —  canis —  consequor —  devia —  dicit —  ecce —  ego —  epulas —  es —  est —  esto —  et —  etiam —  exhaustus —  habes —  haec —  inedia —  iocans —  labore —  leo —  leoni —  liber —  me —  miser —  nec —  nitidus —  non —  occurrit —  otio —  percurris —  pinguis —  possum —  potes —  quid —  quomodo —  sed —  servire —  servum —  servus —  silvas —  specta —  specto —  stolidum —  stolidus —  sum —  te —  tu —  verum —  vincula —  volo 

Here is the version of the fable in Mille Fabulae et Una:


Occurrit canis leoni et iocatur, “Quid tu, miser, exhaustus inedia, percurris silvas et devia? Me specta pinguem ac nitidum, atque haec non labore consequor, sed otio.” Tum leo, “Habes tu quidem tuas epulas, sed habes stolide etiam vincula. Tu servus esto, qui servire potes; equidem sum liber, nec servire volo.”

And here is an English version of the fable. This is not a translation; it's another version of the same story in 100 English words.


A dog ran into a wretched-looking lion and decided to make fun of him. "Look at you!" said the dog. "Worn out with hunger, wandering through the woods and out-of-the way places! Then look at me, fat and sleek and shining because I lie around all day, not doing any work, just eating."
Then the lion replied, "Enjoy your feasting, fool that you are! You have a collar on your neck so the humans can chain you up whenever they want. Be a slave, if that's what you want; I, meanwhile, am free, and I will not be a slave."

and you can learn more about 100-Words here.
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