back, having stretched out his pallid body on the white stream." But his moistened hairs drew a very great weight upon him, and at length, perishing, he spoke such words:
"Thou shalt not escape notice, O Puff-Cheeks, having done these things deceitfully, having cast [me] shipwrecked from thy body, as from a rock.[1] On the earth, O basest one, thou wast not my better in the pancratium, nor in wrestling, nor the course.[2] But having deluded me, thou hast cast me into the water. God has an avenging eye, who, forsooth, will straightway requite a just punishment[3] and revenge, (with which indeed the army of the mice shall punish thee, nor shalt thou escape.)"
Having spoken thus, he breathed his last in the water, but him Lick-Dish perceived, as he sate upon the soft banks, (and he truly went to the mice, a most swift messenger of his fate,) and he uttered a dreadful cry, and ran and told it to the mice.[4]
But when they heard [their companion's] fate, bitter wrath entered them all, and they then gave orders to their heralds, at dawn to summon a council to the house of Bread-Muncher, the unhappy sire of Crumb-Filcher, who was floating on his back in the marsh, a lifeless corse, nor was unhappy he any longer near the banks, but was swimming in the middle of the stream. But when they hastening came at dawn, first arose Bread-Muncher, enraged on account of his son, and spoke thus:
"O friends,[5] although I alone among the frogs have suffered many ills, yet evil fate is the appointed destiny of all. But I am now an object of pity, since I have lost three sons.
- ↑ One would rather expect ἐπὶ πέτρᾳ, "shipwrecked upon a rock." Mattaire, however, thinks that πέτρα here signifies "rupes sive scopulus in mari."
- ↑ Thus paraphrased by Parnell:
"At land thy strength could never equal mine,
At sea to conquer, and by craft, was thine,
But heaven has gods, and gods have searching eyes;
Ye mice, ye mice, my great avengers, rise!" - ↑ This passage has rather the characteristics of a Christian writer. See Ernesti.
- ↑ This is a strange tautology. Verse 99 must be an interpolation, as Ernesti suspected.
- ↑ "O friends, though I alone may seem to bear
All the infortune; yet may all met here
Account it their case. But 'tis true, I am
In chief unhappy—"Chapman.
