Character Index | Proverb Index
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| Character Index | Proverb Index |
Townsend version
A gnat came and said to a Lion, "I do not in the least fear you, nor are you stronger than I am. For in what does your strength consist? You can scratch with your claws and bite with your teeth an a woman in her quarrels. I repeat that I am altogether more powerful than you; and if you doubt it, let us fight and see who will conquer." The Gnat, having sounded his horn, fastened himself upon the Lion and stung him on the nostrils and the parts of the face devoid of hair. While trying to crush him, the Lion tore himself with his claws, until he punished himself severely. The Gnat thus prevailed over the Lion, and, buzzing about in a song of triumph, flew away. But shortly afterwards he became entangled in the meshes of a cobweb and was eaten by a spider. He greatly lamented his fate, saying, "Woe is me! that I, who can wage war successfully with the hugest beasts, should perish myself from this spider, the most inconsiderable of insects!"
L'Estrange version
As a lyon was blustering in the forrest, up comes a gnat to his very beard, and enters into an expostulation with him upon the points of honour and courage. What do I value your teeth, or your claws, says the gnat, that are but the arms of every bedlam slut? As to the matter of resolution; I defy ye to put that point immediately to an issue. So the trumpet sounded and the combatants enter'd the lists. The gnat charged into the nostrils of the Iyon, and there twing'd him, till he made him tear himself with his own paws. And in the conclusion he master'd the lyon. Upon this, a retreat was sounded, and the gnat flew his way: but by ill-hap afterward, in his flight, he struck into a cobweb, where the victor fell a prey to a spider. This disgrace went to the heart of him, after he had got the better of a lyon to be worsted by an insect.
Moral
'Tis in the power of fortune to humble the pride of the mighty, even by the most despicable means, and to make a gnat triumph over a lyon: wherefore let no creature, how great or how little soever, presume on the one side, or despair on the other.
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Tom Simondi, All Rights Reserved