Two Dogs and a Bone

Two Dogs and a Bone. Two dogs, Nero and Phylax, together found a great big bone. Each dog claimed the whole bone for himself. They begin to quarrel heatedly; finally the friends start fighting. The ground flows with their blood. Finally Phylax drives Nero away and, rejoicing, he goes back to where they had left their prize. But the bone was gone. A wiser dog had carried it off while they were fighting.

Canes Duo et Os. Canes duo, Nero et Phylax, una invenerant eximium os. Uterque totum os postulat; rixa exardescit; postremo amici pugnam committunt. Fluebat solum sanguine. Tandem Phylax Neronem fugavit, exsultansque, ad locum ubi praedam reliquerant rediit. At aberat os. Canis prudentior id abstulerat, dum illi pugnabant.

Notes. This is Gildersleeve 6, a fable which is not part of the Aesopic corpus, although it has something in common with the story of how the fox managed to steal a fawn from the lion and the bear while they were fighting over it, Perry 147. There is a wonderful rhyming medieval proverb about what happens when otherwise friendly dogs start fighting over a bone: Dum canis os rodit, socium quem diligit odit, "When a dog is chewing a bone, he hates the friend whom he loved." I'm not sure what Gildersleeve's source was for this story, or how he came up with the Latin (Nero) and Greek (Phylax) dog names - if anyone has any information about that, let me know!