Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Image: Malus et Rusticus


M0710 - M0711 - M0712

711. Malus et Rusticus. Rusticus quidam ex malo, quam in proximo habebat agello, sapidissima quotannis legebat poma. Hero lecta donabat urbano, qui illectus incredibili pomorum dulcedine, malum tandem ad se transtulit. Ea veterrima repente exaruit atque ibi poma pariter et malus periere. Quod cum patrifamilias nuntiaretur, “Heu, difficile est,” inquit, “annosam trasplantare arborem. Satis superque fuerat, si frenum meae novissem imponere cupiditati, et fructus e ramo decerpere.”



M0711 (not in Perry). Source: Mantuanus. This fable is not in Perry’s catalog. This fable, adapted a poem of Mantuanus (Battista Spagnuoli), is most famously known to English readers in the form of a Latin elegy by John Milton, “Apologus de Rustico et Hero.