Power and Poverty: A Translation of Phaedrus’ “Asinus ad Senem Pastorem”

DiscentesFeatured Posts, Translations
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31970033858173

Power and Poverty: A Translation of Phaedrus’ “Asinus ad Senem Pastorem”

by Dara Sánchez

 

15 Asinus ad Senem Pastorem

In principatu commutando saepius 

Nil praeter domini mores mutant pauperes. 

Id esse verum parva haec fabella indicat. 

Asellum in prato timidus pascebat senex. 5

Is hostium clamore subito territus 

Suadebat asino fugere, ne possent capi. 

At ille lentus: Quaeso, num binas mihi 

Clitellas impositurum victorem putas? 

Senex negavit. Ergo quid refert mea 10

Cui serviam clitellas cum portem meas? 

 

15 What the Donkey Said to the Old Shepherd

  1. In the midst of the often changing leadership of a state
  2. the poor do not change their ways, but rather their masters.
  3. This short fable shows that this is true.

 

  1.  A timid Old Man was grazing a Donkey on a meadow.
  2. Terrified by the sudden clamor of foreign enemies
  3. he tried to persuade the Donkey to flee, so that they would not be captured.
  4. But relaxed, the Donkey said: “Prithee, do you think that this
  5. conqueror will place two saddlebags on me?”
  6. The Old Man replied no. “Then, what difference does it make to me
  7. for whom I serve, given that I would still carry saddlebags one at a time?”

 

Translator’s Note:

Now, for what reason was the genre of fables invented?

I will teach you this briefly. Because one in a condition of slavery was liable to punishments,

he continuously wished to say those things that he did not dare [to say out loud],

he translated his own feelings into fables and

eluded [any] malicious charge through these contrived jokes. 

 

Nunc fabularum cur sit inventum genus, 

Brevi docebo. Servitus obnoxia, 

Quia quae volebat non audebat dicere, 

Affectus proprios in fabellas transtulit 

Calumniamque fictis elusit iocis.

Book 3, Fable 3, lines 34–37

 

While little is known about Phaedrus, he proclaims his identity to be that of a freedman of Augustus, thus situating his own status and work within the boundaries of an enslaved person’s experience. By including the short passage above in my translator’s note, I hope to show another, more explicit example in which Phaedrus is conscious of the power dynamics present in Roman society—as he is in poem fifteen. The importance of both pieces is their ability to show awareness at the hands of the inferior person, so that the inferior person is aware of the exploitative system which they inhabit but are powerless to stop. In her 2013 dissertation, Cara Jordan deconstructs our understanding of fables as the genre of the lower class—like Phaedrus would have us believe in this passage—and argues that elites usurp the fable genre by representing themselves in marginalized positions to establish and justify their rule. She argues that this is a form of social control reflecting anxieties about increased social mobility. Though pessimistic, Jordan’s work is particularly illuminating for poem fifteen. We can take notice of how the epimythium reinforces that listeners remain socially stagnant while there are political changes happening because, presumptively, they will remain in a state of inferiority regardless. The Donkey makes this very clear when he replies to the Old Shepherd.

Therefore, I chose to translate this poem because it easily resonates with a universal and timeless theme. The powerlessness of the Donkey is not crushing or daunting, but is rather turned into a joke that makes the superior Old Shepherd desperate and the Donkey stoic.

 

Bibliography: 

Phaedrus. Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabulae Aesopiae. Edited by Lucian Mueller, Teubner, 1876.

Jordan, Cara. Voicing Power through the Other: Elite Appropriations of Fable in the 1st-3rd 

Centuries CE. University of Toronto, 2013, https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=TC-OTU-43607&op=pdf&app=Library.

 

Dara Sánchez (College ‘25) is a student at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Classical Studies.