Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

ejoins :THE FABLES OF AVIANUS" True, now you rejoice and all you professis fair, and in your domineering way you take pleasurein my defects. But in that day when the threateningaxe shall hew your fine limbs, how you would thenwish that you had possessed my thorns! "XXThe Angler and the FishA fisherman who used to catch his prey hangingon a horsehair line was drawing in a tiny fish oftrumpery weight. But after he had brought hiscatch up into the air and the fish had been piercedwith a wound ^ through its hungry mouth, in entreatyamid starting tears it said, " Have mercy, I pray you ;for how much gain will you derive from my flesh ?Just now has a fertile mother spawned me 'neath therocky caves, and bidden me disport myself in ourown waters. Banish your fell designs ; I am younglet me grow up for your table.will give me to you again.This bank of the shoreIn a little time, when Ihave fed on the blue waters of the boundless deep,I shall willingly return the fatter to your rod." Thefisherman, declaring it a crime to let go a fish oncecaught, complained that hazards are beset with turnsincalculable: " It is a pity," he said, " to lose thespoil in hand, and a worse folly to start afresh inpursuit of future hopes."« vulnus ferre here means to endure a wound : contrastXVII. 11, where it means to deal a wound.