Rana rupta et bos

The Ox and the Frog, Wenceslaus Hollar, 17th century

Rana rupta et bos (The Frog that exploded, and the ox) is a Latin retelling from the Liber primus of the Fabulae (1:24) of the Roman poet Phaedrus (1st century); the Latin text is itself based on The Frog and the Ox, one of Aesop's Fables.

The Fable

Latin original	Poetic free translation by Henry Thomas Riley	Literal translation by Christopher Smart	Interpretation
Rana rupta et bos Inops, potentem dum vult imitari, perit. In prato quondam rana conspexit bovem, et tacta invidia tantae magnitudinis rugosam inflavit pellem. Tum natos suos interrogavit an bove esset latior. Illi negarunt. Rursus intendit cutem maiore nisu, et simili quaesivit modo, quis maior esset. Illi dixerunt ‘bovem’. Novissime indignata, dum vult validius inflare sese, rupto iacuit corpore.	The Proud Frog When poor men to expenses run, And ape their betters, they’re undone. An Ox the Frog a-grazing view’d, And envying his magnitude, She puffs her wrinkled skin, and tries To vie with his enormous size: Then asks her young to own at least That she was bigger than the beast. They answer, No. With might and main She swells and strains, and swells again. “Now for it, who has got the day?” The Ox is larger still, they say. At length, with more and more ado, She raged and puffed, and burst in two.	The needy man, while affecting to imitate the powerful, comes to ruin. Once on a time, a Frog espied an Ox in a meadow, and moved with envy at his vast bulk, puffed out her wrinkled skin, and then asked her young ones whether she was bigger than the Ox. They said: “No.” Again, with still greater efforts, she distended her skin, and in like manner enquired which was the bigger. They said: “The Ox.” At last — while, full of indignation, she tried, with all her might, to puff herself out — she burst her body on the spot.	The fable teaches that one should not pretend to be something that he is not in reality. It appeals to us to be satisfied with what we have and not to yield to envy or to covet what others have more of. Though the fable addresses a concern over lack of bodily size, it can readily be extended to a concern over lack of wealth or power. Maxims like “puffed up like a frog”, “inflated sense of self-importance” or “bursting with envy” derive from this fable.

External links

• Der Frosch und der Ochse (“The Frog and the Ox”), p. 90, illustrated Latin manuscript, at uni-mannheim.de