The lifting-stone and the fable of the mouse, weasel and cat
A note on a gripping stone that bears a thousand times its weight, and a short moral fable
A densely written leaf, most of it left untranscribed here, headed by a small sketch at the upper right of a stone caught in a gripping device. The transcribed passage first records that a 'pulling-stone' held in gripping jaws can sustain a thousand times its own weight, tested at the level a c. It then gives a short fable: a mouse besieged in his hole by a watchful weasel is saved when a cat seizes and devours the weasel — only for the mouse, venturing out to enjoy his recovered freedom, to be caught and killed by that same cat. The remainder of the sheet carries further writing that the bundle does not transcribe.
On this page
The pulling-stone that bears a thousand times its weight
Leonardo notes that the stone used for pulling sustains a thousand times its own weight. This is demonstrated, he says, in the jaws that grip the level marked a c, where a wedging stone locks the mechanism against a great load.
Fable of the mouse, the weasel and the cat
A mouse is besieged in his little dwelling by a weasel who watches through a chink for his undoing. A cat then seizes and devours the weasel; the grateful mouse makes offering to Jove and goes out to enjoy his freedom, whereupon the same cat kills him with claws and teeth.