Aesopi Carmina: Desbillons Book 8

Happy Weekend, everybody! This is the newest addition to my series of posts about the Latin verse fables of Desbillons; for more about this project, see the starting post. Today you'll find a poem-by-poem index to Book 8 below (linking to the pages at the Internet Archive), and here's the poem I selected from that book, which is another of the super-short fables, just 3 lines long.


VIII.19 Sidera et Sol

De principatu contendebant Sidera.

Sol oritur; omnis cessat hic contentio.

Procerum superbia deficit cum Rex adest.

Here is the poem written out in English prose order to help in reading:

Sidera

contendebant de principatu.

Sol oritur; 

hic omnis contentio cessat. 

Superbia Procerum deficit

cum Rex adest.

Of course, this is not a very scientific fable: astronomically speaking, our sun is just another star. But from our perspective, it outshines all the other stars by far. You might see the moon in a sunlit sky, but you won't see the stars, even though they are there! Desbillons does not cite a source for this fable, although the sun, moon, and stars do regularly make appearances in little fables like these.


The meter is iambic, and here is some help with the meter (for more about iambic meter, see the post about Desbillons 1.1).

De prin · cipa · tu con · tende · bant Si · dera.

Sol ori · tur; om · nis ces · sat hic · conten · tio.

Procerum · super · bia de · ficit · cum Rex · adest.

PickPik

More poems in Desbillons, Book 8:



1. Momi censura (lines: 13)

2. papilio et apis (lines: 13)

3. divinus (lines: 10)

4. accipiter et noctua (lines: 20+)

5. melezia et larix (lines: 20+)

6. edera et murus (lines: 20+)

7. asinus sophistae cuiusdam alumnus (lines: 20+)

8. simioli et pira (lines: 17)

9. perdix et auceps (lines: 18)

10. parasitus et pisciculi (lines: 20+)

11. apis et Jupiter (lines: 14)

12. leaenae apotheosis (lines: 20+)

13. agnus, canis, et lupus (lines: 20+)

14. homines duo et thesaurus (lines: 20+)

15. arbuscula, arbor, et colonus (lines: 20+)

16. porcus et sturni (lines: 8)

17. pica et acanthis (lines: 20+)

18. mustela et columba (lines: 7)

19. sidera et sol (lines: 3)

20. leo iratus (lines: 6)

21. leo iratus (lines: 20+)

22. erucae duae (lines: 10)

23. fur deceptus (lines: 20+)

24. vulpis et lupus (lines: 20+)

25. cervus aeger (lines: 15)

26. graculus (lines: 11)

27. Musarum alumnus et bombyx (lines: 14)

28. formica et Jupiter (lines: 14)

29. cultur arborum imperitus (lines: 20+)

30. columba et eius pullus, buboque et aquila (lines: 20+)

31. equus et sessor imperitus (lines: 12)