391. Feles Iudex. Cuniculi cavum invaserat aliquando mustela, namque subdola est. Absente domino, omnia fuere pervia. Postquam cuniculus morsu carpsisset gramina, circumquaque exsultim ludens, imas sedes repetiit. Tum forte fenestrae mustela rostrum inseruit. “Heus scelesta,” inquit infelix ille, “actutum abeas!” “Parcamus conviciis,” inquit ea; “arbitrum deligamus felem.” Feles erat ille pio fervore inter heremitas clarus; feles mitis, et benignitatem summam prae se ferens; feles modesto vultu, purisque moribus, villosis ornatus infulis, pinguis et obesus, arbiter peritus ethicorum. Hoc iudice a cuniculo accepto, partes adeunt felem villis insignem. “Accedite, filii,” inquit, “accedite huc; obsurduerunt aures, senectutis iniuria.” Tum uterque incautius accessit. Simul atque litigantes proxime positos sensit, utroque pede diris unguibus irruit. Sic discerptis partibus, lis composita est.
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SLIDESHOW of all the Grandville images. The rabbit and the weasel are so small and the cat is so big: watch out!
M0391 (not in Perry). Source: La Fontaine 7.16 (translated into Latin prose by Fenelon; shortened). This fable is not in Perry’s catalog; La Fontaine would know the fable from Bidpai. For another fable about a pious-seeming cat, see #205.
