Frösch- und Mäusekrieg

Abstract

I could not pass this delightful little book up when I saw it. Somehow the art speaks of the old East Germany. I was thus happy to find it in Berlin. The art suggests that the first encounter of mouse and frog was an encounter between the sexes. Page 9 portrays them both rather graphically and also charmingly. Stolberg did this good translation in 1784, and it still reads well now. Whether these are sense lines or unrhyming verse, the work moves easily forward, and the Homeric parody is well sustained. Further good illustrations are those of Semmelnager, the father of the killed mouse, on 24 and the three battle scenes on 44-45 and on the two end-papers. The Nachwort by Herbert Greiner-Mai on 59-63 helps put the work in perspective.