Αἴσωπος
Aesop
Translated by Bobbiejo Winfrey ✝9 Mar 2003Vetting: high7 revisions
Translation
The composer of stories, a Samian, a slave not more by fortune than by his own choosing; neither senseless nor in terms of this very thing a man. For as the law [or: custom] did not give him a share in frankness, it befitted him to bring forward his counsels outlined and embellished with delight and grace -- just as, amongst doctors, those who are free men enjoin that which is proper, whereas if anyone becomes a slave in fortune but a doctor in skill, being compelled he has his ways to flatter his master at the same time that he tends him.1
"A certain bold and drunken bitch barked at Aesop as he was walking one evening from dinner. Thereupon that man said, 'O bitch, bitch, if by Zeus you were to purchase from some place wheat in exchange for your bad tongue, you would seem to me to be sensible'."2
Some say that Aesop became straightway so greatly beloved by the gods that he also returned again to life, just as Tyndareos and Herakles and Glaukos. And the comic-poet Plato says, "Swear to me that the body is not dead. -- I [swear]. -- [and that] the soul from victory, as Aesop's once [did]."3
"A certain bold and drunken bitch barked at Aesop as he was walking one evening from dinner. Thereupon that man said, 'O bitch, bitch, if by Zeus you were to purchase from some place wheat in exchange for your bad tongue, you would seem to me to be sensible'."2
Some say that Aesop became straightway so greatly beloved by the gods that he also returned again to life, just as Tyndareos and Herakles and Glaukos. And the comic-poet Plato says, "Swear to me that the body is not dead. -- I [swear]. -- [and that] the soul from victory, as Aesop's once [did]."3