A SLAVE ran away from
his master, by whom he had been most cruelly treated, and, in order to
avoid capture, betook himself into the desert. As he wandered about in
search of food and shelter, he came to a cave, which he entered and found
to be unoccupied. Really, however, it was a Lion's den, and almost
immediately, to the horror of the wretched fugitive, the Lion himself
appeared.
Раб убежал от
своего хозяина, который с ним очень
жестоко обращался, и для того, чтобы
избежать поимки, направился в пустыню.
Бродя по пустыне в поиске пищи и крова,
он пришел к пещере, в которую он вошел и
нашел, (что она) не занята. На самом деле,
однако, это было логово Льва и почти
немедленно, к ужасу бедняги беглеца,
появился сам Лев.
The man gave himself
up for lost: but, to his utter astonishment, the Lion, instead of springing
upon him and devouring him, came and fawned upon him, at the same time
whining and lifting up his paw. Observing it to be much swollen and
inflamed, he examined it and found a large thorn embedded in the ball of
the foot.
Человек
решил, что он пропал: но к его крайнему
удивлению Лев, вместо того чтобы
набросится на него и съесть, подошел к
нему и завилял хвостом, одновременно
скуля и поднимая вверх свою лапу. Видя,
что она очень опухла и воспалена, он (человек)
осмотрел ее и нашел большую колючку,
впившуюся в подушку лапы.
He accordingly removed
it and dressed the wound as well as he could: and in course of time
it healed up completely. The Lion's gratitude was unbounded; he looked
upon the man as his friend, and they shared the cave for some time
together. A day came, however, when the Slave began to long for the
society of his fellow-men, and he bade farewell to the Lion and returned
to the town. Here he was presently recognized and carried off in chains to
his former master, who resolved to make an example of him, and ordered
that he should be thrown to the beasts at the next public spectacle in the
theatre.
Он,
соответственно, удалил ее и перевязал
рану как сумел. Через некоторое время
рана зажила полностью. Благодарность
Льва была безграничной. Он смотрел на
человека как на своего друга, и они
некоторое время жили вместе в одной
пещере. Наступил, тем не менее, день,
когда Раб начал тосковать по обществу
своих друзей-товарищей. Он попрощался со
Львом и возвратился в город. Здесь он был
сразу опознан и в цепях доставлен к его
бывшему хозяину, который решил сделать
пример из него (в назидание другим рабам)
и приказал: раб должен быть брошен к
диким животным на следующем публичном
представлении в театре.
On the fatal day the
beasts were loosed into the arena, and among the rest a Lion of huge bulk
and ferocious aspect; and then the wretched Slave was cast in among them.
What was the amazement of the spectators, when the Lion after one glance
bounded up to him and lay down at his feet with every expression of
affection and delight! It was his old friend of the cave 1 The audience
clamoured that the Slave's life should be spared: and me governor of the
town, marvelling at such gratitude and fidelity in a beast, decreed that
both should receive their liberty.
В роковой
день животные были выпущены на арену, и
среди прочих (зверей) - Лев громадных
размеров и свирепого вида. А затем был
брошен несчастный Раб к ним. Каково было
удивление зрителей, когда Лев после
быстрого взгляда на него склонился
перед ним и лег у его ног, выражая всем
своим видом любовь и восхищение! Это был
его старый пещерный друг! Публика шумно
требовала, чтобы жизнь раба была
обязательно сохранена: и, удивительно,
правитель города восхищаясь, такой
благодарностью и верностью дикого зверя,
повелел, чтобы оба получили свободу.
By Aesop
Aesop -- the supposed author of a collection of Greek fables, almost certainly a legendary figure. Various attempts were made in ancient times to establish him as an actual personage. Herodotus in the 5th century BC said that he had lived in the 6th century and that he was a slave, and Plutarch in the 1st century AD made him adviser to Croesus, the 6th-century-bc king of Lydia. One tradition holds that he came from Thrace, while a later one styles him a Phrygian. An Egyptian biography of the 1st century AD places him on the island of Samos as a slave who gained his freedom from his master, thence going to Babylon as riddle solver to King Lycurgus, and, finally, meeting his death at Delphi. The probability is that Aesop was no more than a name invented to provide an author for fables centring on beasts, so that "a story of Aesop" became synonymous with "fable."
The importance of fables lay not so much in the story told as in the moral derived from it.
The first-known collection of the fables ascribed to Aesop was produced by Demetrius Phalareus in the 4th century BC, but it did not survive beyond the 9th century AD. A collection of fables that relied heavily on the Aesop corpus was that of Phaedrus, which was produced at Rome in the 1st century AD. Phaedrus' treatment of them greatly influenced the way in which they were used by later writers, notably by the 17th-century French poet and fabulist Jean de La Fontaine.
1994-2001 Encyclopedia Britannica
1. The man gave himself up
for lost - человек потерял надежду
остаться в живых (человек решил, что
он пропал).
2. springing upon him -
бросился на него.
3. dressed the wound -
перевязал рану (досл. одел рану).
(C) The English-Russian World newspaper - WWW.ERW.ULN.RU
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