Phaedrus

P. F. Widdows

Animal fables are said to have originated with Aesop, a semilegendary Samian slave, but the earliest surviving record of the fables comes from the Latin poet Phaedrus, who introduced the new genre to Latin literature. This verse translation of The Fables is the first in English in more than two hundred years. In addition to the familiar animal fables, about a quarter of the book includes such diverse material as prologues and epilogues, historical anecdotes, short stories, enlarged proverbs and sayings, comic episodes and folk wisdom, and many incidental glimpses of Greek and Roman life in the classical period. The Fables also sheds light on the personal history of Phaedrus, who seems to have been an educated slave, eventually granted his freedom by the emperor Augustus. Phaedrus' style is lively, clean, and sparse, though not at the cost of all detail and elaboration. It serves well as a vehicle for his two avowed purposes—to entertain and to give wise counsel for the conduct of life. Like all fabulists, Phaedrus was a moralist, albeit on a modest and popular level. An excellent introduction by P. F. Widdows provides information about Phaedrus, the history of The Fables, the metric style of the original and of this translation, and something of the place of these fables in Western folklore. The translation is done in a free version of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse, a form used by W. H. Auden and chosen here to match the popular tone of Phaedrus' Latin verse.

The Fables of Phaedrus

Favole di Fedro in Italiano e Latino

Traduzidas em verso dramatico; augmentadas com cinco fabulas que naõ vem em outras muitas edições

Fabulas de Phedro, escravo forro de Augusto Cesar

The fables of Phædrus, books i. and ii., with an intr., notes and a vocabulary

Phèdre et ses anciens imitateurs directs et indirects

Phædri Augusti Cæsaris Liberti Fabularum Æsopiarum Libri Quinque

Fables with a Vocabulary

Pha︠e︡drus, Justin, Nepos

Selections from Latin Classic Authors

A correct Latin edition of the Fables of Phædrus, with a new literal English translation and a copious parsing index ...

Phædri ... Fabularum Æsopiarum libri quinque

Phaedrus construed. The fables of Phaedrus construed into English

Phaedri, fabularum AEsopiarum, libri quinque, cum annotationibus Johannis Schefferi ... et Francisci Guyeti notis, cum his primum publicatis

Phaedri Augusti Caesaris Liberti, Fabularum Aesopiarum libri quinque. Notis perpetuis illustrati, et cum integris aliorum observationibus. In lucem editi à Johanne Laurentio

Phædri fabulæ in usum scholarum selectæ. Fables selected from Phædrus: by C. Bradley. With notes and a vocabulary by J.T. White

Fabularum Aesopiarum libri V

Phaedri Agusti liberti Fabulae Aesopiae

Babrius

Caius Julius Babrius

Valerius

Valerius Babrius

Fedre

BABRIUS is the reputed author of a collection (discovered in the 19th century) of more than 125 fables based on 'Aesop's', in Greek verse. He may have been a 'Hellenised' Roman living in Asia Minor during the late 1st century after Christ. The fables are all in one metre and in very good style, terse, humorous and pointed. Some are original. PHAEDRUS, born in Macedonia, flourished in the early half of the 1st century after Christ. Apparently a slave set free by the Emperor Augustus (died A.D. 14) he lived in Italy and began to write 'Aesopian' fables. When he offended Sejanus the powerful official of the Emperor Tiberius, he was punished, but not silenced. The fables, in 5 books, are in lively terse and simple Latin verse not lacking in dignity. They not only amuse and teach but also satirise social and political life in Rome. In the later Middle Ages he was forgotten except in prose-versions of the fables.

Babrius and Phaedrus

John Nagelkerken

Berijmde vertaling van de fabels van de Latijnse schrijver uit de eerste eeuw.

Fabels

Fabulae Antiquae ex Phaedro, fere servatis ejus verbis desumptae, & soluta oratione expositae. Inter quas reperiuntur nonnullae ejusdem auctoris & aliorum antea ignotae

traduites en françois, augmentées de huit fables qui ne sont pas dans les éditions précédentes, expliquées d'une manière très facile, avec des remarques

Les fables de Phèdre, affranchi d'Auguste

Phèdre

Phaedrus

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