Fable of the Day: De Piscibus in Sartagine

[Laura Gibbs]

[Note: You can find more of these fables at the old blog address for Latin Via Fables.]

Title: De Piscibus e sartagine in prunas desilientibus: The Fish, Leaping from the Frying Pan into the Fire , by Abstemius


Latin Text:



Pisces adhuc vivi in sartagine ferventi oleo coquebantur, quorum unus "Fugiamus hinc, fratres (inquit), ne pereamus." Tunc omnes pariter e sartagine exilientes, in ardentes prunas deciderunt. Maiori igitur dolore affecti, damnabant consilium quod ceperant, dicentes: "Quanto atrociori nunc morte perimus." Haec nos admonet fabula ut ita praesentia vitemus pericula, ne incidamus in graviora.


Here is a segmented version to help you see the grammatical patterns:


Pisces
adhuc vivi
in sartagine
ferventi oleo coquebantur,
quorum unus
"Fugiamus hinc, fratres (inquit),
ne pereamus."
Tunc omnes
pariter e sartagine exilientes,
in ardentes prunas deciderunt.
Maiori igitur dolore affecti,
damnabant consilium
quod ceperant,
dicentes:
"Quanto atrociori nunc morte
perimus."
Haec nos admonet fabula
ut ita praesentia vitemus pericula,
ne incidamus in graviora.

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Translation:



There were some fish, still avlid, who were being cooked in a frying pan in boiling oil. One of the fish said, "Brothers, let us flee from this place, so that we will not perish." Then they all at the same time jumped out of the frying pan and fell into the burning coals. Stricken thus by even greater pain than before, they cursed the plan they had adopted, and said, "By how much more terrible a death are we now going to die." This fable warns us that when we are avoiding present dangers, we should not fall into even worse peril.



[This translation is meant as a help in understanding the story, not as a "crib" for the Latin. I have not hesitated to change the syntax to make it flow more smoothly in English, altering the verb tense consistently to narrative past tense, etc.]



Source: Abstemius 20 (You can see a 1499 edition of Abstemius online, but I am doing my transcription from the 1568 edition of Aesopi fabulae in the EEBO catalog.)



Another English translation. Sir Roger L'Estrange included the fables of Abstemius in his amazing 17th-century edition of Aesop's fables. So, here is L'Estrange's translation:



A Cook was frying a Dish of Live Fish, and so soon as ever they felt the Heat of the Pan, There's no enduring of This, cry'd one, and so they all leapt into the Fire; and instead of mending the Matter, they were worse now than before.
The Remedy is many times worse than the Disease.

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