Looking for the story of The Fox and the Grapes, I found this lovely site run by Dean Laura Gibbs of the University of Oklahoma. The Æsopica is part of a larger myth and folklore site. Here’s the tale I was looking for:
Fame coacta vulpes alta in vinea
uvam adpetebat, summis saliens viribus.
Quam tangere ut non potuit, discedens ait:
“Nondum matura es; nolo acerbam sumere.”
Qui, facere quæ non possunt, verbis elevant,
adscribere hoc debebunt exemplum sibi.
[Phædrus Fabulæ Æsopiæ IV.iij.]
And it was just happenstance that the translation provided was by Christopher Smart whose strange masterpiece Jubilate Agno was written while Smart was in the Bethnel Green madhouse. In the poem, there is a lengthy section on his Cat Jeoffry: “For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt. / For every family had one cat at least in the bag.”
Which reminds me of another famous cat in literature (I’m sure there are many) Céline’s Bebert in his musette bag.
Posted by jim at March 28, 2004 08:04 AM | TrackBackAn hungry Fox with fierce attack
Sprang on a Vine, but tumbled back,
Nor could attain the point in view,
So near the sky the bunches grew.
As he went off, “They’re scurvy stuff,”
Says he, “and not half ripe enough—
And I’ve more rev’rence for my tripes
Than to torment them with the gripes.”
For those this tale is very pat
Who lessen what they can’t come at.
[Christopher Smart The Fables of Phædrus]