Death! Death! Death take us all!
Oct. 4th, 2010 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goldvermilion87But I digress.
Back to me being morbid. We had to rewrite an Aesop's fable for a class, and then we had (I think...if anyone is actually reading this, and can identify a source for the second story, I'd like to hear it, because I may be misremembering) to come up with our own moral and write our own story for it. To see proof that I was morbid, read below.
(Just to prove that you can always find someone worse than you, I should point out that I, at least, did not draw diagrams of interestingly evil torture chambers during indoor recess like most of the boys in my class.)
Minos had been one of farmer Ægus’ bulls. [Trick of the trade: use the "ae" as much as possible. that looks REALLY classical! Other trick of the trade: make sure that you show your teacher that you understand all about apostrophes in the Englished possessifying of classical names.] The bulls on Ægus’ pasture led a good life. They were fed only the best of oats [do oxen eat oats?] and clean water, but Ægus was not a good master in one respect – he didn’t send anyone to care for his herds. Now, the particular pasture that the bulls were kept in was the haunt of one particularly hungry lion. Leonus [get it? get it? huh? do you get it?] was a bully. He would come into the pasture like a regular Goliath and taunt.
“You puny little oxen. You’re scared to death of a big lion like ME.” He laughed like the overgrown bully that he was. “I will eat every one of you and then we’ll see who’s leading the good life. No more nice, warm beds at night and good oats before you go to sleep. I’ll live the satisfied life. My stomach will be full of pieces of the favorite –Minos and the petted Bovinus and maybe even the Taurii, the most typical pair of bulls that ever walked the face of this earth, stupid and strong. I’ll save for last the worst ox – Theseus. But, maybe your friends will beg me to take you. You know they hate being yelled at and argued with so often.” Each bull colored (if a bull can) while they were being described. [Lack of subject-verb agreement. It burns! It bites! It freezes!] Leonus knew their soft spots. But the Taurii were especially taken aback. It was known that they weren’t very bright, but they were the most valued team of oxen ever. They worked in perfect unison. Each of the two took offence for the other.
“Get away from here,” they bellowed, “if you value your life.”
“Not so fast, not so fast,” the lion purred. “You can’t possibly think that I am afraid of your senseless bellowings. I am the king of the beasts. I am stronger than you are. Now I hope that you all take track because I am about to eat the first big fat COWard that I can lay my hands on.”
The bulls, however, did a strange, but oddly enough, effective thing. They got in a ring with their horns facing outward. The supercilious lion could do absolutely nothing to harm them. [I must admit--the word "supercilious" has never gotten old.]
“It’s just not fair,” he whined, and crept away from the field, defeated.
The next day the bulls were experiencing something of the nature of what some of our revered colleagues would call “stupid arguments” [I think that was an inside joke. It's sat to be on the outside of your own inside joke...]
“That is really the best place for me to roll around!” Minos shouted ecstatically to his friends. He had just come back from a hard day’s work. He had plowed, made wine, and pulled the mistress’ wagon to pick up her new water fountain. She was redecorating the garden again! Minos always loved a good roll in the grass after a job.
“I really don’t think you should. My coat will get dirty if I roll anywhere else. The pasture is beginning to lose grass and there are enough dirt holes around to suit you. I want the lush spot of grass.” Bovinus thought he always deserved the best. He was the Ægean family pet.
“We think that we should get that rolling-place,” the Taurii started to complain. “We have been hauling rocks all day.”
“Well I’m sure that’s nothing like what I did today.” Minos was getting angry.
“None of you deserve it,” Bovinus howled. “You’re all arguing so I will take the spot.”
“No you won’t!” cried the other bulls in unison.
“Well,” screeched Theseus, “I want that spot so I’ll have it”
“No! It’s mine!”
“You’re wrong, I asked for it first.”
“We should get it!”
“No one’s getting it” Minos roared. Everyone stopped talking. “If I don’t get it, nobody does. And I’m not talking to anyone here for the rest of the week.”
“Me neither!” shouted the others. Each bull walked his own separate way. (Except, of course for the Taurii.)
In about an hour Minos heard a strange noise. He looked to the edge of the field. It was the death groan of the last Taurii. In fact the last bull of the herd. Leonus was running for him too. Minos ran, ran like the wind. Leonus was catching up to him. Minos ran into the courtyard, but just as he did so Leonus swiped at him. The claw tore down his foreleg. But Minos got in safely. However it would have been just as well if he did not get in. He was crippled for life and was to be sent to the glue factory. [Morbid, adj.: 1. obsessed with death. 2. characteristic of those who send fictional quadrupeds to the glue factory. 3. goldvermilion87 at the age of 12]
He thought on this as he walked toward the place where many have entered, but few have escaped. [If you guessed C.S. Lewis allusion, you are correct!]
“I have too late learned that strife brings destruction.”
Of Nests and Night
“I really hate being squashed into this little nest.” Avisus was never content with what he had. He was spoiled rotten, being the handsomest of the whole bunch that year. If he did not like the worm he had gotten for lunch, (and he never did) his mother, Avisa, would make either Volarus or Columbina, his siblings, give him theirs. Now that he had become so very fat from all those big worms, he felt that the nest was a little short on space.
“Mater,” he announced one fine morning, “I have decided that this nest is getting a bit too small. Everyone must be out of the nest by sunset tomorrow.”
“But Avisus,” his mother whined, “we need a home too.”
“That’s just too bad,” Avisus shouted. “I want to have the nest to myself, so I will.”
“Very well,” Avisa sighed. She was a slave to her son. She pushed Volarus and Columbina straight out of the nest. They lay on the ground crying pitifully for a time. Soon, however, the mistress of a nearby villa, Diana, came near. She saw the birds and took compassion on them.
“You poor things,” she cried, “you must come home with me. I have been keeping my eyes our for a pair of turtledoves for my children.”
“Of course we will,” Columbina cooed. “We were pushed our of the nest at our big brother’s command. Now we are starving and cold.”
“Bad boy!” Diana shouted up at Avisus. “No good will come out of this. You will be cold with no one to share the nest.”
“I really don’t care!” Avisus bellowed as loud as a dove can. “I will have this nest, so there!”
“I hope the nest falls down!”
“It never will.”
“Good-bye!” Diana walked off in a huff carrying the two small doves with her.
Columbina and Volarus were the most petted doves in all of Rome. (And every other country on earth for that matter.) They had a huge courtyard where they were allowed to roam at will. The children would hold them and pet them as much as any animal could desire. And whenever the doves got tired of being held, the children would let them go. They never lacked anything. Columbina, in fact, began even to feel sorry for her selfish big brother, who was missing a lot of fun.
Back in the nest, things were not going as well for Avisus. For one thing, his mother was getting tired of having to put up with his self-serving ways.
“I have decided to give up being your slave. If you want to live all by yourself, you can care for yourself too. You can provide your own food and your own house. Now get out of my house.”
“Mater, what shall I do without a place to live?”
“You should have thought about that when you sent your brother and sister out of the house. I have been giving in to you for long enough and I won’t put up with it any longer. Get out of my house, this instant!”
She shoved an indignant little bird out of the house and into the world to take care of himself.
Avisus sat on the ground and scolded like a squirrel. He was unhappy and his pride was hurt. Moreover, it was just about his dinnertime and he wanted something to eat. He knew he couldn’t get anything from his mother, so he decided to search for food, himself.
Avisus wasn’t sure exactly where one could get a nice fat worm. Certainly not in a tree. There were none flying around in the air. He couldn’t think of any other spot that a worm could be kept. His little stomach was growling. He went to ask another bird, the wise old owl.
In an old oak tree lived Nestor and Athena, a pair of owls that had all the experience in the world. Nestor was nearing his 100th birthday and Athena couldn’t have been much younger. They would be just the people to ask. At least they would if Avisus could get them to hear him. (They were both going a bit deaf.)
“Nestor! Athena!” Poor Avisus could not get their attention. He tried again, even louder this time. “NESTOR! ATHENA!” He was just about to give up when he saw something move in one of the tree-branches. An old gray owl poked his head out the window of his hole.
“Hoo-whoo is calling at my window?”
“It’s me, Avisus.”
“Who?”
“AVISUS”
“Oh, AnEEsus. Now who do you think could name her kid a thing like that? Poor wipper-snapper. What do you want, AnEEsus ”
“I wanted to ask you a question.”
“A question? Well how about that. I haven’t had a question since, since – well, in a long time. I’ll go in and ask Athena if she can remember.”
“Athena! Athena!”
“What is it?” a soft, hooty kind of voice answered back.
“This young boy here wants to know when it was that last anyone asked me a question. It’s been so long ago that I’ve plumb forgot.”
“There hasn’t been one since yesterday.”
“Yesterday! No wonder I was so bored. I always am when we don’t have callers for a long time. Well, thanks for calling, boy. Bye.”
“Wait!” shouted Avisus. “I really need to ask you a question.” But it was too late. The old bird had already went into his nest and it would have been useless to call him again.
“I guess I’ll just have to find the worms by myself.” Avisus thought mournfully. Just then, he saw a little thing sticking out of the ground. It started to move. A worm!
Avisus grabbed it up and started eating. So that’s where they came from. But Avisus ran into a little bit of trouble. The worm didn’t come the whole way out. Avisus tugged and sweated. He began to appreciate the trouble his mother went through when she went out to find food for him. He got the worm out but he found that he would have more trouble. Where could he stay for the night? He sat on the ground and began to cry. Avisus cried and cried `till he had no more tears left. He was exhausted, so he curled up and fell immediately into a deep sleep. When he woke, it was about midnight. He heard strange noises. A shadow fell over him. It was the bird that he had been always taught to shun – Phoenixius, the hawk. The little dove started running, but the shadow was quicker than he was. Phoenixius swooped down towards poor penitent Avisus.
The next day, near her favorite worming-grounds, Avisa saw two white tail-feathers. She recognized them immediately as her sons.
“He was too late in realizing his fault,” she mourned. “Perhaps I may learn from this that he who lives to himself will die by himself.”