Customer Reviews

Aesop's Fables in Latin: Ancient Wit and Wisdom from the Animal Kingdom

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Laura Gibbs has already done students and teachers of Latin a favor with her online Latin fables: [...] Now she has produced this treasure-chest of a book with eighty of Aesop's fables.

Geared towards the student who already has some knowledge of the language, the fables in this volume may be short, but they are not necessarily simple. For example, take the first fable:

Leaena, cum a Vulpe saepe exprobaretur quod, quolibet partu, unum dumtaxat catulum parturiret, respondet, 'Unum sane, at pol Leonem!'

Instead of just giving the translation, Laura gives vocabulary and grammar clues and lets you work it out for yourself. The fables get longer and more challenging as the book progresses. The book is is also packed full of charming illustrations, mottoes and - best of all - short backgrounds to each fable.

My resolution is to do one a day: unum sane, at pol leonem!

For centuries students were introduced to Latin through Aesop's fables. This book makes that possible again, but with much better student aids than the old textbooks ever had. This is fully equipped with a vocabulary, an introduction, and cross-references to enable a student to proceed steadily and when necessary, backtrack to review.

Additional improvements over former editions are the reproductions of engravings from the renowned (and rare) 1687 edition of Francis Barlow and a battery of on-line supplements. The Latin versions (Aesop spoke Greek) are by Robert Codrington, and are taken from the same edition of Barlow.

Animating the entire book is the editor's exuberant enthusiasm for Aesop. She does her utmost to make the Latin fables attractive. The book is very well printed and produced, in large format.

This is a wonderful production - if you have some basic Latin it will give you everything else you need to enjoy reading the fables.

Do have a look at the 'search inside this book' section - you'll get a good idea how well Laura Gibbs has done in putting the volume together.