537. Olores et Hirundines. Insultabant oloribus hirundines et exprobrabant solitudinem, canendi imperitiam et inertiam, iactantes se, quod urbes et domos et ipsa cubicula principum penetrarent, diu noctuque suis modulationibus implerent ac mirifice delectarent. Talia effutientes olorum turba perceperat nec responsione dignas iudicabat; unus eorum, “Rarissime quidem,” ait, “modulamur et extra urbes in solitudine degimus, quia nec modulationum nostrarum sacra vulgari, nec solitudinis nostrae penetralia temerari, aut nos vulgo committere patimur. Ite igitur a nobis, importunae aviculae! Nos urbes et turbas populares fugimus, ne vestra societate contaminemur; cum vos expulerint, tunc prope civitates et magnatum tecta divina nostra suis numeris absoluta modulamina pangemus.”
M0537 (not in Perry). Source: Irenaeus 166 (shortened). This fable is not in Perry’s catalog. Compare the traditional Aesop’s fable where the nightingale explains to the swallow why she prefers the wilderness, #540. For another fable about the swan and its song, see #532.
