Latin Via Proverbs

Ad omnia trepidat, licet vel mus movet

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:19:00 +0000

In English: He trembles at everything, even if so much as a mouse moves.

Today's saying describes someone who is scared of absolutely everything, even something as small as a mouse. It's something like the English saying about somebody "being scared of his own shadow," which is to say, someone who is scared of something insubstantial that cannot do him any harm at all. The scurrying of mouse makes a perceptible sound so that it is something you would notice - but only somebody who is really trembling with fear is going to shudder at the movement of that mouse.

The idea behind this proverb is a very simple one, and easy for us to grasp. Yet the Latin here can really trip students up, since we are in the realm here of "little" Latin words, words like licet and vel, which do not have a simple formulaic English translation that can be applied in all cases. These little words are, indeed, like the mouse of today's proverb: it is the scurrying of these little Latin words that can strike fear into the heart of the Latin student. But no need: the words are here to convey meaning, not to do you any harm. So, let's take a look at both of these little words, licet and vel.

The word licet can be a real conundrum for Latin students. Sometimes licet can be a verb which is used impersonally to express permission or license to do something, as in one of my favorite Latin proverbs, Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, "What is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to the ox." Here licet is being used as the main verb in each clause, with a dative complement.

Sometimes, however, licet is used, not as a verb, but as an adverb. In particular, it can be used as a conjunction, expressing the idea that (even if) something is permitted, (nevertheless) something else. For a specific example, here's a line from Seneca: Vita brevis est, licet supra mille annos exeat, "Life is short, even if it were to extend more than a thousand years." Notice that in English we render this licet with the conjunctive adverbial phrase "even if." You can tell that licet is not really functioning as a verb in this sentence, because there is another finite verb right there in the same clause: exeat. So, exeat is the verb, and licet is serving as an adverb. That is the same case in today's proverb: Ad omnia trepidat, licet vel mus movet, where movet is the verb, and licet is playing the role of an adverb (the fact that the verb used here is indicative, rather than subjunctive, shows that the saying is probably post-classical in origin).

What then about the vel? This is a word that students are often taught to automatically render with the English word "or" - a word which obviously will not work here: the sentence, "He trembles at everything, even if or a mouse moves," simply does not make sense.

If you think about the etymology of Latin vel, you can find a good clue for how to proceed here. Like licet, the adverbial vel also comes from a verbal root: volo. The word vel is, in fact, an old imperative form of the verb volo: "want!" So, historically, the way to understand the meaning of the Latin word vel is something very much like our English idiom, "if you please," where some kind of alternative is expressed in terms of the subjective wishes of the recipient of the message: "(or if) you like."

The problem, of course, is that the use of the English idiom "if you like" is a bit heavy-handed for translating the Latin vel. So, what you have to do whenever you face a Latin vel, is to try a range of English translations - the simple "or" might suffice, but if it does not, as in the case of today's proverb, you need to be prepared to search through a wider range of English idioms. I opted for "so much as a mouse" in today's translation, hoping to capture some more of the charm of the Latin alliteration in mus movet. As always, translation is an art - imperfect at best - where being able to convey the "spirit" of the original sometimes requires a bit of creativity with the "letter" of the original - if you please! :-)

So, hoping you will not tremble at the mouse-like little words of Latin that you find scurrying about in today's proverb, here it is read out loud:

1537. Ad omnia trepidat, licet vel mus movet.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, or you can sign up to receive the latest posts by email.

Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.

March 26: Aesop's Fables at Amazon SALE

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:11:00 +0000

Hi everybody, I hope it is okay to send this note around about my Aesop's Fables in Latin book at Amazon - somehow it has become part of an Amazon promotion, and I don't know how long it will last, but it is 40% off at the moment, listed for just $20: Aesop's Fables in Latin - Amazon Promotion.

To learn about the contents of the book, sample pages, supplementary materials (including audio), you can find lots of material at the Aesopus Ning.

Agnos lupi vorant

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:09:00 +0000

In English: The wolves devour the lambs.

This proverb is based on the metaphorical opposition between the wolf and the lamb: the (rapacious, powerful, ruthless) wolves devour the (innocent, meek, powerless) lambs. Because the image of the wolf and the image of the lamb are so powerfully expressive and unambiguous, the proverb is able to speak to us in code, giving us a maxim we can apply to the human world at large. The word "wolf" has even given us a verb of its own in English: to "wolf" your food means to eat it in haste, to gobble or devour it.

What is worth nothing about the Latin phrase Agnos lupi vorant is not so much the words themselves (which are used in a very familiar metaphor), but the word order. In particular, we should note that the the word agnos is in the first position. This gives the word a special emphasis in the sentence. The other emphatic position in the sentence is the final word, vorant. So, by means of the word order, the Latin chooses to give special emphasis to the words agnos and vorant, with the least emphasis being given to the word lupi.

When it comes to the English translation, we are really in trouble as a result, since in English word order is not a matter of style, but a matter of grammar. The subject comes first in an English sentence, and is then followed by the verb which is followed by the object: S-V-O. So, in English we translate the statement, "The wolves eat the lambs," giving the first position the wolves, the word which was least emphatic in the Latin word order.

So, as always in translating, you are faced with a real dilemma. Do you just stick to the grammar? There is no grammar of Latin word order (only style), but in English there is a strict grammar of word order, and the only grammaticaly sentence you can make with these words is, "The wolves devour the lambs." If you wanted to convey the style of the Latin word order, you'd have to use a round-about expression, something like: "It's the lambs whom the wolves devour." Such a long and complicated sentence puts the lambs before the subject and the verb, but the length and complexity of the resulting sentence has not created a stylistic difference that is far removed from the simplicity of the Latin.

As always, then, my recommendation is just not to translate into English. Enjoy the Latin on its own terms for its own sake! Latin puts the word agnos first, as if to say in English, "Oh my gosh: the LAMBS...! The wolves are devouring the lambs." Latin also puts some emphasis on vorant, being in the final position, as if to say in English: "Oh my gosh: the LAMBS...! The wolves are devouring the lambs - not just eating them, DEVOURING them." This is a paraphrase which manages to suggest in English what the Latin is able to convey through the word order. Of course, it would not qualify as a translation for the purposes of an AP Latin exam - but it is what you need to have in mind if you want to have a sense in English of just what the Latin sentence is saying, and how it is choosing to say it.

So, thinking about those poor little lambs, being devoured in the emphatic first position, here is today's proverb read out loud:

1071. Agnos lupi vorant.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, or you can sign up to receive the latest posts by email.

Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.

A deo est omnis medela

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:40:00 +0000

In English: All healing is from God.

Today's proverb comes from the book of the Bible which is called Ecclesiasticus in the Vulgate, not to be confused with the book of Ecclesiastes!

The word Ecclesiastes is a Greek noun adopted into Latin, meaning a member of the assembly (traditional Greek usage) or a member of the "church" (Christian usage gave the Greek word "ekklesia" a new sense related to the assembly of believers). When the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was prepared, the book of the Hebrew Bible called Qohelet was rendered in Greek as Ecclesiastes. Then, in the Vulgate Bible, the Greek name of the book was transliterated into Roman characters, rather than being translated into an actual Latin word. Jerome had argued that the book should be called Concionator (a translation of the Latin word), but Jerome's suggestion met with no success and the word concionator failed to become part of the Christian Latin vocabulary.

What, then, about Ecclesiasticus? This is a non-canonical book of the Bible, but it has a special status among those non-canonical books, as reflected in the name itself. The Latin word ecclesiasticus is an adjective, meaning "belonging to the church (ecclesia)," and it was a name bestowed on this book of the Bible by the early Latin Fathers of the Church in acknowledgment of the fact that passages from this book were widely known and also used in church worship services. So, even though the book is not part of the Bible, it came to be called "the church book," Ecclesiasticus, among the Latin fathers, and was even included in the canon of Epiphanius.

Before it acquired the name Ecclesiasticus, however, this book was known by another name: The Wisdom of Ben-Sira, or The Wisdom of the Son of Sira. In Greek, it was called simply Sirach (the final "ch" being added to the name to indicate its Hebrew origin, even though the "ch" is not part of the Hebrew spelling of the name). The early Latin versions of the book followed this same convention, calling the book Sirach.

Yet who was the "Son of Sira"? In some versions of the title, his name is given as the Hebrew name Yeshua, which is Jesus in Latin, so the book has this title in the Vulgate: Liber Iesu filii Sirach, which is to say, The Book of Jesus, the son of Sirach.

Confusing enough? You will indeed find this book referred to by all manner of titles in English, sometimes based on the Hebrew or Greek or Latin. So: Ecclesiasticus, Ben Sira, Sira, Sirach, Ben Sirach (a rather bizarre amalgam of Hebrew and Greek!), Siracides (a Greek neologism meaning "son of Sirac"), Wisdom of Ben Sira, and Wisdom of Jesus son of Sira.

What is really important, of course, is what an AMAZING book this is. Given my own interest in proverbs and wisdom literature, this is one of my own favorite books of the Bible. If you have never read through this book of the Bible, it is definitely worth your attention. There is a parallel edition of Sirach at Sacred Texts with Greek, Latin, and English (the book was originally written in Hebrew, but a complete Hebrew text has not survived, although major portions of the Hebrew text have been recovered from the famous Cairo Geniza). You can also read more about the background of the book in this Wikipedia article, and also in this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia online.

So, as a sample of the "wisdom of the son of Sira," here is today's proverb read out loud:

505. A deo est omnis medela

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, or you can sign up to receive the latest posts by email.

Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.

Calidum et frigidum ex eodem ore efflat

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:30:00 +0000

In English: He blows hot and cold from the same mouth.

Yes, I'm back blogging here again. I finally figured out how to salvage the old posts from this blog and to start adding new ones again (details here if you are curious). To get back into the swing of things, I'm going to work my way through the proverbs that are included in the Aesop's Fables in Latin book that just came out - it's got around 130 proverbs interspersed with the fables (list of proverbs here).

The one I picked out for today about blowing hot and cold out of the same mouth can be found in Erasmus's Adagia (1.8.30) and goes with the Aesop's fable of the satyr who found a man frozen in the snow. Here's one version of that story in Latin:

Satyrus Viatorem, nive obrutum atque algore enectum, misertus ducit in antrum suum. Refocillantem manus anhelitu oris percontatur causam; “Ut calefiant,” inquit. Postea, cum accumberent, sufflat Viator in polentam. Quod cur ita faceret interrogatus “Ut frigescat,” inquit. Tunc continuo Satyrus Viatorem eiiciens: “Nolo (inquit) in meo ut sis antro, cui tam diversum est os.”

The Satyr took pity on a traveller who was overwhelmed by snow and laid low by ice, and led the man into his cave. As the man warmed his hands by blowing on them with his mouth, the satyr asked why he did this, and the man said, "To warm them." Then when they sat down to dinner, the traveller blew on his porridge. Asked why he did this, he said, "To cool it." Then straightaway the Satyr threw the traveller out, saying, "I don't want you to be in my cave, since your mouth goes this way and that way."

When the satyr thinks that the man can blow hot and cold from the same mouth, it terrifies him. Yet it is also worth noting a quite different use of the same metaphorical materials in the Bible, from the Book of Revelation. In Chapter 3, this is the message to be addressed to the church in Laodicea:

Scio opera tua: quia neque frigidus es, neque calidus: utinam frigidus esses, aut calidus: sed quia tepidus es, et nec frigidus, nec calidus, incipiam te evomere ex ore meo.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

So, you can see there are perils in both directions - you need to beware of people who blow both hot and cold... and also to beware of people so tepid that they don't blow one way or the other.

1286. Calidum et frigidum ex eodem ore efflat.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, or you can sign up to receive the latest posts by email.

Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.

Parentes patientia vince

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:43:00 +0000

In English: Overcome your parents with patience.

I think anybody who has had troubles with family members can appreciate the wisdom of this saying! I thought I would post this for all of us who are treading the waters of making plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, trying hard not to offend our parents or other family members, while also keeping our sanity intact.

The saying goes back to the collection of monostich proverbs attributed to Cato. You can also find it in the singular form with an adverb in place of the ablative noun, Parentem patienter vince, as well as in this form with a so-called "gerundive of necessity," i.e. Parentes patientia esse ferendos, "Parents are to be endured in patience."

Elsewhere, in a distich proverb, Cato lauds the power of patience as follows: Quem superare potes, interdum vince ferendo, / Maxima enim morum semper patientia virtus.’, "Sometimes the person whom you are able to overpower, you should conquer by endurance, for patience is always the greatest virtue of all the character traits."

In the monstichs, Cato also urges simply, Parentes ama, "Love your parents." Of course, for those of us who are not always up to the saintly task of loving others, being able to suffer other people in patience is a good second choice!

There is a lovely sundial with the parentes patientia vince motto in Puy St. Vincent which I found at this website, where the saying has been badly mistranslated as "patience of man will win." Definitely not a correct rendering of the Latin, but I am very grateful for the lovely photo, which you can see here and also here.

So, all is well as your family contemplates holiday plans, here is today's proverb read out loud:

2450. Parentes patientia vince.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Maluisses cloacas Augeae purgare

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:20:00 +0000

In English: You would have preferred to clean the sewers of Augeas.

As you might have noticed, this blog has been on hiatus for a while - the Aesop book got me sidetracked over the summer, and then school started, which always gets me sidetracked! I decided to spring back into action with this proverb about the hero Hercules, since Hercules is always a favorite topic among my students and this semester, as in every semester, several students have chosen Hercules as their Myth-Folklore topic for the semester.

This saying (which you can find in the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca) refers to one of the mythical labors of Hercules which is less famous than his slaying of monsters like the Nemean Lion of the Lernean Hydra. For this particular task, Hercules was condemned to clean out the sewer drains of the stables of King Augeas, who was famous for his horses, and who also owned more cattle than anyone in Greece, along with thousand of sheep and goats and other livestock, and the story goes that the stables had not been cleaned out in thirty years. As you can imagine, his stables were a mess! Moreover, Hercules was given only one day in which to clean them out. This was clearly a dirty job, and its inclusion in the list of heroic labors shows that the motivation behind these labors was not to give Hercules an opportunity to show off his strength in facing deadly challenges, but rather to condemn him to doing the ugly work of a slave.

Instead of using brute force to accomplish the task, Hercules used his wits instead. He made a large hole in the wall at one end of the enormous stables, and another hole at the other end. Then, Hercules dug a trench and diverted the two rivers Alpheus and Peneus so that they flowed through the stables and cleaned them out!

You can read about this labor in the fables of Hyginus, where it is explain here in Fable 30: Augeae regis stercus bobile uno die purgavit, maiorem partem Iove adiutore; flumine ammisso totum stercus abluit, "He cleaned in one day the cow manure of King Augeas, largely with Zeus helping him; when he had let in the river, it washed away all the manure." Just how Zeus helped his son here is not stated explicitly by Hyginus: perhaps his father gave him the idea to use the rivers to do the work, rather than trying to rely on his own strength.

The proverb cited here cites a comparison: maluisses, "you would have preferred," which is part of an implied contrary-to-fact past conditional, "(if you had had a choice - but you did not), you would have preferred to clean the stables of Augeas." In other words, there is some task even worse than the cleaning out of the stinking stables of Augeas - a task so onerous that cleaning the stables of Augeas would have looked easy by comparison.

I think they were talking about what it will take for me to clean out the garage! Ha ha.

So, hoping you don't face such arduous household cleaning tasks, here is today's proverb read out loud:

3446. Maluisses cloacas Augeae purgare.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Perdimus anguillam dum manibus stringimus illam

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:56:00 +0000

In English: We lose the eel as we are squeezing it between our hands.

Here is the latest in what is turning into a nice long series of proverbs featuring animals. In today's proverb, the nice rhyme - anguillam... illam - betrays its medieval origins. There are some other nice medieval variants on the same idea: anguilla a digitis saepe est dilapsa peritis, "an eel often has slipped out of fingers that are skilled" (the word order of a digitis... peritis is very nice!), or non habet anguillam per caudam qui tenet illam, "someone who's grasped an eel by the tail doesn't hold it."

Obviously, all three proverbs depend on the slipperiness of the eel - and even in English today, "slippery as an eel" is still a familiar cliche. Yet each of these Latin proverbs casts a slightly different emphasis on the slipperiness of that eel. Something can get away even from the most skilled operator (someone with digiti periti). Alternatively, if you think you've grabbed hold of something, that doesn't mean you've really got it (habet versus tenet).

What I like best about the version I selected for today, however, is the way it uses first person plural to pull us all into the situation: this is not about a generic person, but about all of us. Just as we think we are seizing the objective, grasping it in our own hands, it's going to slip away from us. That could be health or wealth or happiness - any of those cosmically slippery things that might slide right out of our hands just as we are hanging on as tightly as we can.

The proverb is not prescriptive, of course - it does not tell us what to do. Instead, it is an enlightenment proverb. Just in case you had fooled yourself into thinking you really had got hold of that eel... think again! :-)

So, hoping you are not suffering too much from the slipperiness of life today, here is the proverb read out loud:

1933. Perdimus anguillam dum manibus stringimus illam.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Dimittis pullos sub custodia vulpis

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:20:00 +0000

In English: You're leaving the chickens in the care of the fox.

This is the latest animal proverb, and it belongs to that venerable set of proverbs about foolish behaviors. Leaving the fox to guard the henhouse is obviously a bad idea, and even if you don't have a henhouse you are trying to protect, there are all kinds of way you can apply this saying to modern life. In particular, there are all kinds of public, political situations to which it can be applied, such as having pharmaceutical companies conduct their own clinical trials, eh?

Although there is not an Aesop's fable where the fox is put in charge of the hens, there are some fine fables in which the wolf becomes aspires to become a shepherd! Here is one of my favorite versions, as told by the medieval preacher, Odo of Cheriton - I love how the shepherd plays detective to determine the wolf's guilt!

Contigit quod quidam Paterfamilias habuit XII Oues. Voluit peregrinari et commendavit Oves suas Ysemgrino, id est Lupo, compatri suo. Et compater iuravit quod bene conservaret eas. Profectus est statim. Ysemgrinus interim cogitavit de Ovibus et uno die comedit de una, altera die de alia, ita quod vix tres invenit Paterfamilias, quando reversus est. Quaerebat a compatre quid factum fuerit de aliis Ovibus. Respondit Ysemgrimus quod mors ex temperalitate venit super eas. Et dixit Paterfamilias: Da mihi pelles; et inventa sunt vestigia dentium Lupi. Et ait Paterfamilias: Reus es mortis; et fecit Lupum suspendi.

It happened that a certain man had twelve sheep. He wanted to go on a journey, and he entrusted the sheep to Isengrimus, that is, to the wolf, his associate. And his associate swore that he would take good care of them. The man departed immediately. Isengrimus meanwhile got to thinking about the sheep and one day he ate one sheep, and the next day he ate another sheep, and so on until the man found scarcely three sheep when he returned home. He asked his associate what had happened to the other sheep. Isengrimus answered that death had come upon them unseasonably. And the man said: Give me their skins, and the traces of the Wolf's teeth could be seen there. And the man said: You are guilty of a capital crime, and he had the wolf hanged.

There are all kinds of fascinating medieval details here, such as Isengrimus (Ysengrimus), the name given to the wolf in the beast epic tradition (for some nice illustrations, here is the German wikipedia article about that). Odo of Cheriton's fables are one of my favorite medieval story collections, and if you are not familiar with them, they are well worth reading, believe me - there's even a delightful English translation of Odo available in paperback!

Meanwhile, hoping all the hens in your henhouse are safe from the marauding fox or the wolf, here is today's proverb read out loud:

1846. Dimittis pullos sub custodia vulpis.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Vade ad formicam, o piger!

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:54:00 +0000

In English: Turn to the ant, you lazy person!

Here's the latest in my ongoing series of animal proverbs in Latin, although this time the animal is not a furry creature, but instead a tiny insect - formica, the ant - and the source for this saying is not Roman, but rather the Vulgate Latin translation of the Bible. The verse in the Book of Proverbs reads as follows: Vade ad formicam, o piger, et considera vias eius, et disce sapientiam.

The King James version renders the saying in English as "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and consider her ways, and be wise." I especially appreciate how the King James Bible lets the ant keep her gender; in Latin, the ant, formica, is feminine, as she also is in Hebrew: ‎ nemâlâh. (Not so, however, in Greek: μύμηξ is masculine.)

Anyone who has watched ants working knows how busy they are, and the busy-ness of the ants provides the basis for one of the most famous of Aesop's fables - the story of the ant and grasshopper. Here is a simple Latin version of that story by the 13th-century scholar, Vincent of Beauvais:

Formica hieme frumentum ex caverna trahens siccabat quod aestate colligens coagulaverat. Cicada autem eam rogabat esuriens ut daret aliquid illi de cibo, ut viveret. Cui Formica: Quid faciebas, inquit, in aestate? At illa: Non mihi vacabat: per saepes oberrabam cantando. Formica igitur, ridens et frumentum includens, ait: Si aestate cantasti, hieme salta.

During winter the ant dragged out and drained grain from its hole which she had collected and conglomerated in summer. The grasshopper, on the other hand, was hungry and asked the ant to give her some of the food so that she could live. The ant said to her: What were you doing while it was summer? The grasshopper replied: I was very busy: I wandered through all the hedgerows singing. So the ant, laughing and shutting away her grain, said: As you sang in summer, so you must dance in winter.

The fable is good example of the harshness of Aesop's world: the ant's role in this story is not to help a fellow creature, but instead to point out her mistakes. If only the grasshopper had read the Biblical Book of Proverbs and learned to look to the ant, before it was too late!

So, hoping you are finding time for both singing this summer and preparing for winter (school starts in just a month - eee!), here is today's proverb read out loud:

2421. Vade ad formicam, o piger!

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Audacem reddit felis absentia murem

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:07:00 +0000

In English: The cat's absence makes the mouse grow bold.

I thought I would post this animal proverb in honor of our new cat, Ralph, who is busily consuming a lizard as I write this. Yes, despite the ready abundance of cat chow in a bowl on the porch (on which Ralph eagerly chows down), our cat is a killer. My husband had just remarked a few days ago that since we had gotten the cat, we weren't seeing so many lizards running around our garden as we used to. Clearly, the lizards know that when the cat is around, life is not safe.

And, in fact, when I went out to see the cat just a few minutes ago, he was meowing piteously, gripping a still-twitching lizard tail in his paw, looking about frantically to find where the rest of the lizard had gone. After digging around in the grass for a few minutes, he emerged with a good-sized lizard (a skink perhaps?) dangling from his mouth. I left him to eat his meal in peace.

Ralph came to us as a stray about a month ago, and he is a wonderful cat. Watching him in our yard (he is an all-outdoor cat, and doesn't even seem to understand what doors are for; I suspect he has never been inside a house), we have seen him eating grasshoppers and also lizards. Probably that is how he survived on his own. Now that he has adopted us, he is in seventh heaven, since he has all this human affection he could want (he was even more starved for affection than he was for food), and he has several acres of grass and woods to hunt for grasshoppers and lizards - plus cat chow on the porch, tame and tedious as it may seem compared to lizard sushi.

So, whether they might be mice or lizards, the little creatures need to know to watch out for the cat, and to take advantage of the cat's absence whenever possible, as the Latin proverb tells us. Or, as the English saying has it, "when the cat's away, the mice play." Although I like the idea of the bold mouse, the audax mus, which the Latin version emphasizes.

Meanwhile, hoping that you have managed to avoid any predators in your world today, here is the Latin proverb read out loud:

1822. Audacem reddit felis absentia murem.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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Et canis in somnis vestigia latrat

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:48:00 +0000

In English: A dog also barks at the trail when dreaming.

A fuller version of the Latin saying reads, et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat, "A dog also barks at the rabbit's trail when dreaming." I thought I would choose this for today's animal proverb, since a friend sent me an email this morning where he mentioned his little Beagle chasing rabbits in her sleep. Of course, cats do this too - my new cat spends a lot of time lounging on the porch, while chasing after lizards in his dreams (so far in real life, all the lizards in our garden have escaped his reach). The little et in the proverb, et canis, expresses the idea that dogs to this, too, just like humans.

I read somewhere in fact that all mammals dream (with exception of anteaters? there was some exception to the rule - I just don't remember which creature it was!). Dreaming is definitely a mystery in Darwinian terms, because sleeping is a quite dangerous thing for a creature to do, especially the deep sleep in which dreaming takes place. When animals, be they dogs or humans, are dreaming, they are extremely vulnerable to attack. So there has to be some huge advantage of dreaming, an advantage big enough to outweigh the vulnerability that goes with it. If you are curious about some of the science here, check out these researchers at MIT, and what they learned from studying the dreams of rats: Animals have complex dreams, MIT researcher proves. And for some mind-blowing ideas about dreaming in general, the best book I know is Ursula LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven - a genius combination of science fiction, dream physiology, and Eastern philosophy. Plus the Beatles. :-)

The Latin saying about dogs and their dreams comes from a poem which is preserved in a medieval (ninth-century) manuscript. It appears with two other poems that are found in the ancient novel by Petronius, the Satyricon, leading some scholars to believe that perhaps this poem also had its place in the novel, which has only survived in part. Since I was not able to find a handy version of the poem online (and no English translation at all), I've transcribed the poem here, with a rough-and-ready English translation:

Somnia, quae mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,
non delubra deum nec ab aethere numina mittunt.
sed sibi quisque facit, nam cum prostrata sopore
urguet membra quies et mens sine pondere ludit,
quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit. oppida bello
qui quatit et flammis miserandas eruit urbes,
tela videt versasque acies et funera regum
atque exundantes profuso sanguine campos.
qui causas orare solent, legesque forumque
et pavidi cernunt inclusum cordi tribunal.
condit avarus opes defossumque invenit aurum.
venator saltus canibus quatit. eripit undis
aut premit eversam periturus navita puppem.
scribit amatori meretrix, dat adultera munus.
et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.
in noctis spatium miserorum vulnera durant.

Dreams, whose fleeting shadows toy with the mind, are not sent by the shrines of the gods nor by the divinities in heaven. Rather, each person dreams for himself: when sleep weighs upon the body's members stretched out at rest, and the mind is at play, free from weight, then whatever happened in day light unfolds in the darkness. The person who shatters towns with warfare and topples pitiable cities with fires - he sees weapons and the battle line routed and the deaths of kings and fields flowing with spilled blood. The people who plead cases by profession - they witness writs and courts and the tribunal enclosed within the coward's heart. The greedy man heaps up wealth and discovers buried gold. The hunter bursts through the thickets with his dogs. The sailor survives the waves or faces death, clinging to his overturned ship. The prostitute writes to her lover, the adulterer gives her gifts. The dog, too, barks at the rabbit's trail in dreams. The wounds of the afflicted last into the night time.

So, hoping you are able to follow your own dream trail in your waking life today, here is the Latin saying read out loud:

1163. Et canis in somnis vestigia latrat.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:16:00 +0000

In English: A bird in the right hand is better than four outside.

This latest "animal proverb" in Latin is most familiar in the English form, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," where the stylistic charm of the saying is based on the assonance of "bird...bush." The Latin has a wonderful stylistic charm of its own, of course, because it rhymes: Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra.

Rhyme is one of the distinctive features of medieval Latin proverbs and poetry which I find enormously charming. The classical Romans, for whatever reasons, tended to avoid rhyme, rather than to cultivate it. So, when you find a rhyming proverb, the odds are that it will be a medieval Latin saying, rather than a classical one.

Here's another rhyming Latin variation on the same idea: Capta avis est pluris quam mille in gramine ruris, "A caught bird is better than a thousand in the grass of the field."

In the medieval tradition of legends of Reynard the Fox (sometimes called the "beast epic" tradition), you can find this version: Una avis in laqueo plus valet octo vagis, "One bird in the snare is worth more than eight at large."

As you can see, the number really doesn't matter - one bird compared to two, or four or eight - or, in this variation, compared to ten: Melior est avis in manu vel nido, quam decem in aere, "Better is a bird in the hand or its nest, than ten in the air."

It's also possible to base the comparison on size rather than number, as in this variant: plus valet in manibus passer, quam sub dubio grus, "a sparrow in the hands is worth more than a dubious crane."

This simple idea can be expanded into a full-blow elegiac couplet, as here in this couplet about the crane and the sparrow: Grus quae pennarum celeri secat aera motu, / Passere Iam capto dicitur esse minor, "A crane which cuts the sky with the swift motion of its feathers can be said to be less than a sparrow which is already captured."

I also found this couplet about counting the number of birds in hand and at large: Plus certa comprensa manu valet una volucris / Innumeris, alte quas levis aura vehit, "One bird is worth more, caught with a sure hand, than countless birds which the light air carries aloft."

So, hoping that you have got your birds firmly in hand today, certa manu, here the rhyming version of the proverb read out loud:

754. Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Elephantus culicem non curat

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:50:00 +0000

In English: An elephant doesn't notice a gnat.

Continuing on with the animal proverbs, we have today a proverbially big animal, the elephant, and a proverbially small animal, the gnat. That yields a nice animal version of the familiar English saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff!" I'm glad I was able to capture the alliteration in the Latin, culicem curat, with the English alliteration, "notice a gnat" - that's definitely part of the charm of this proverb!

Although there's not an Aesop's fable involving this specific pair of animals, there's a great little fable about a camel, camelus, and a gnat that conveys the same idea. In typical Aesopic fashion, however, the story is based on foolishness - in this case, a gnat who is foolish enough to think he matters to a camel! Here is the version in Ademar:

A gnat happened to land on the back of a camel and lingered there on top of the baggage. When he finally decided to disembark, he said, 'I will let myself down now as fast as I can so as not to burden you any longer, weighed down as you are.' 'Much obliged,' said the camel, 'but I was not even aware that you had landed, and your departure is not going to lighten my load.'
If you pay no attention to rank and try to rival your superiors, you will earn our scorn.

Culex dum forte in Cameli dorso morasset cum omnibus sarcinis, deinde saliens dixit: Ideo me ocius ad terram mitto, ne te attritum gravem. At ille: Gratum est, inquit; sed nec imposito te sentire pondus potui, nec deposito habere levamen.Qui se superiori absque ordine coaequare nititur, in despectum notatus devenit.

If you were to amplify today's proverb based on the Aesop's fable, you could say that the elephant does not pay attention to a gnat - even when the gnat thinks he is a weighty matter indeed!

So, hoping your problems today have been all gnat-sized, here is today's proverb read out loud:

1162. Elephantus culicem non curat.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Mutare non potest pardus varietates suas

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:53:00 +0000

In English: A leopard cannot change his spots.

I'm carrying on with the theme of proverbs about animals, and this is definitely one of the most famous. The source of this saying is the Book of Jeremiah in the Bible. As you can see, the proverbial form has been adapted from the more complex rhetorical statement in Jeremiah. Jeremiah is warning the people of Jerusalem that their evil ways will lead to their destruction. They need to change their ways, but it seems impossible that this will happen! Here is what Jeremiah says:

Si mutare potest Aethiops pellem suam, aut pardus varietates suas, et vos poteritis benefacere, cum didiceritis malum.

Literally: If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots, you also could do good, when you have learned to do evil. In other words, Jeremiah knows that the people will not change, and destruction will come upon them.

The Greek reading is almost identical to the Latin, the only difference between that the phrase "when you have learned to do evil" is a participle, "you-who-have-learned to do evil."

εἰ ἀλλάξεται Αἰθίοψ τὸ δέρμα αὐτοῦ καὶ πάρδαλις τὰ ποικίλματα αὐτῆς καὶ ὑμεῖς δυνήσεσθε εὖ ποιῆσαι μεμαθηκότες τὰ κακά

The Hebrew, however, expresses the same idea in a slightly different form, without the use of the word "if" as it is expressed in the Greek and the Latin. I haven't had good luck reproducing Hebrew right-to-left fonts here in Blogger, but this is a transliteration of the Hebrew text that might be helpful:

ha.ya.ha.fokh (change) ku.shi (Ethiopian) o.ro (his skin), ve.na.mer (leopard) kha.var.bu.ro.tav (spots, stripes)? gam-a.tem (you all likewise) tukh.lu (can) le.hei.tiv (do good) li.mu.dei (who are instructed, accustomed to) ha.re.a (do bad, evil)

The King James version follows the Hebrew closely:

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

One of the interesting questions, of course, is whether a leopard would want to change his spots! In a wonderful little Aesop's fable about the leopard, we learn that he is very proud of his spots indeed, and has no desire to change them. Here is the debate between the leopard and the fox:

Vulpes et Pardus de pulchritudine concertabant et, Pardo suam pellem versicolorem extollente, Vulpes, cum suam praeponere non possit, dicebat Pardo, "At quanto ego sum speciosior, et quam longe formosior, quae non corpus, sed animum versicolorem et variis notis insignem sortita sum?"

A fox and a leopard were disputing about their beauty, with the leopard praising his multi-colored pelt, and when the fox was not able to put her pelt ahead of the leopard's, she said to him, "But how much more lovely am I, and how much more beautiful by far, since I have been allotted not a multi-colored pelt, but an intelligence that is multi-colored and distinguished for its various qualities?"

The fox nicely contrasts the versatility of her mind with the variety of design in the leopard's coat. Still, even after this rebuke by the fox, I'm pretty sure the leopard will want to keep his good looks - which is the point of Jeremiah's saying after all: the leopard is not going to change his spots. And, as far as the leopard is concerned, there's no reason to. :-)

So, hoping you are looking good today, in whatever skin you might be wearing, here is today's proverb read out loud:

2158. Mutare non potest pardus varietates suas.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Greek and Latin Proverb of the Day

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:30:00 +0000

Instead of an essay on a Latin proverb today, I wanted to let you all know about a new proverb widget I've created. Someone who has taken on the exciting project of teaching herself Greek this summer asked me to create a "Greek Proverb of the Day" widget that she could add to her blog, just like the Latin Proverb of the Day widget I created a while ago. So, what I've done is to collect a year's worth of proverbs from Apostolios, WITH the Latin translations. This way, the widget is good not just for studying Greek, but Latin, too.

You can find the new Greek Proverb of the Day script at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website. There is also a Random Greek Proverb script, if you prefer. If you would like to add this to your Blogger.com blog, you can do that with a single click; here are some more specific instructions. You can also add the widget to any webpage, blog or wiki that is javascript-friendly. (For more hints about that, check out my How-To Technology Tips blog.)

Here is the script in action, showing random Greek proverbs with a version each time in Latin, too:

Some dynamic content may not display if you are reading this blog via RSS or through an email subscription. You can always visit the Bestiaria Latina blog to see the full content, and to find out how to subscribe to the latest posts.

Ne capra contra leonem

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:05:00 +0000

In English: A goat should not (confront) a lion.

Carrying on with the theme of animal proverbs (like yesterday's hedgehog), I chose this saying about the goat and the lion for today. With this elegant use of the word ne in Latin, no verb needs to be specified. It is a kind of all-purpose, blanket negative injunction: the goat should not fight against a lion, confront a lion, stand up to a lion, etc. etc. In English, we have to choose to supply a specific verb, but Latin is able to create a saying here that covers all possible situations: whatever the goat is thinking about doing against a lion, the goat should not do that thing!

You can find this phrase in Erasmus's Adagia (instead of capra, "goat," the version in Erasmus has caprea, a wild goat, or silvestris capreolus). A fuller form of the Latin does contain a verb: Ne capra contra leonem pugnet, "A goat should not fight against a lion." Such a saying seems to conjure up an Aesop's fable, although there is not an extant Aesop's fable which has exactly this moral. There is, of course, the story of the "lion's share" where some meek animals - a cow, a goat, a sheep - go hunting together with a lion, and the lion ends up claiming everything they catch for himself. So in that fable, the goat definitely makes a mistake by making an alliance with the lion, but that is not quite the same as the idea expressed in today's saying. A proverbial saying for that fable might be something like ne capra con leone, "let no goat (go hunting) with a lion."

To find an Aesop's fable which has a moral comparable to that of today's saying, we need to turn to the story of a goat and a wolf, rather than a lion. Here is a translation of a medieval Latin version of that story:

A wolf was chasing the billy goat of the herd, intending to capture him. The goat climbed up on a tall cliff where he was safe, so the wolf besieged the goat from the bottom of the cliff. After two or three days, when the wolf had grown hungry and the goat had grown thirsty, they each went away: the wolf left first in order to look for food and then the goat went away to find a drink of water. When he had quenched his thirst, the goat noticed his reflection in the water and said, 'Oh what fine legs I have and what a beautiful beard and what great horns! Just let that wolf try to make me run away: this time I will defend myself! I will not let that wolf have any power over me!' Behind the goat's back, the wolf had been listening in silence to every word the goat said. Then, as he plunged his teeth deep into the goat's flank, the wolf asked, 'What is this you are saying, brother goat?' The goat, when he realized he was trapped, said, 'O my lord wolf, I admit my mistake and beg your forgiveness! After a goat has something to drink, he says things he shouldn't.' But the wolf showed no mercy and devoured the goat.
The fable warns us that weak and poor people should not try to rebel against the high and mighty.

So, whether the saying is ne capra contra leonem, or ne capra contra lupum, it is very clear that goats should not challenge such big creatures with such big teeth, whether they be lions or wolves!

Meanwhile, hoping you have steered clear of all large carnivores today, here is the proverb read out loud:

897. Ne capra contra leonem.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Echinus partum differt

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:26:00 +0000

In English: The hedgehog postpones its giving birth.

Carrying on with the theme of proverbs related to Aesop's fables and to the animals who inhabit them, I decided to choose this marvelous saying about the hedgehog for today.

Obviously, since the hedgehog is a spiny creature, giving birth to baby hedgehogs seems like it could be an unpleasant experience. So, it makes sense that the expectant hedgehog might want to defer the moment of child-bearing, since giving birth to prickly little hedgehogs could hurt.

The real force of the proverb, however, is that the longer the hedgehog puts off giving birth, the spinier the babies get, and the worse the situation becomes! That is the ultimate message of today's saying: if you put off some unpleasant task (like giving birth to hedgehogs), that task will only get worse and worse the longer that you put it off (just as the hedgehogs get spinier and spinier, making the birth process even more painful).

Here is what Erasmus says about the proverb: De iis dici suetum, qui prorogarent quippiam suo malo: veluti, "This is usually said about those people who put off something to their own disadvantage." He then explains the logic of the saying as follows: Aiunt, Echinum terrestrem, stimulata alvo, remorari partum, deinde, iam asperiore, ac duriore facto fetu, mora temporis, maiore cruciatu parere, "They say that the hedgehog (the land animal, not the sea urchin), when her womb is feeling labor pains, delays giving birth, and then, because the baby becomes more pointy and unbending with the delay of time, she gives birth with even greater suffering."

Ouch!

There is also a great Aesop's fable about the prickly hedgehog - it's the story of the hedgehog who was a houseguest, sharing a den with a viper! Here's how the story is told in Abstemius:

Erinaceus hiemem adventare praesentiens, blande Viperam rogavit, ut in propria illius caverna adversus vim frigoris locum sibi concederet. Quod cum illa fecisset, erinaceus huc atque illuc se provolvens spinarum acumine viperam pungebat, et vehementi dolore torquebat. Illa, male secum actum videns, quando Erinaceum suscepit hospitio, blandis eum verbis, ut exiret orabat, quandoquidem locus esset ambobus angustus. Cui Erinaceus: Exeat, inquit, qui hic manere non potest. Quare Vipera, sentiens sibi locum ibi non esse, illi cessit hospitio. Fabula indicat, eos in consortia non admittendos, qui nos possunt eiicere.

A hedgehog, sensing that winter was coming, nicely asked the viper if she would grant him a place in her own den against the force of the winter cold. When the viper did this, the hedgehog, as he rolled this way and that, stung the viper with the sharp end of his spines and tormented her with a sharp pain. The viper, seeing that she had gotten herself into trouble when she took the hedgehog into her lodging, asked him, nicely, to leave, since the place was too narrow for the both of them. The hedgehog replied: Let the one go out who is unable to remain here. As a result the viper, realizing that there was no place for her there, yielded the lodging to him. This fable shows that we should not admit into our company those who are able to toss us out.

Although this is not a fable attested in the classical corpus of Aesop's fables, Abstemius has definitely made good use of the hedgehog and its spines in order to express a pointed moral to the story!Meanwhile, hoping that you can find the resolve to face whatever unpleasant tasks might confront you today, so that you won't put them off like the expectant hedgehog, here is today's proverb read out loud:

2209. Echinus partum differt.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

For more Latin proverbs, fables and commentary, visit the Bestiaria Latina blog, where you can subscribe to the latest posts by email or by RSS.

Post nubila Phoebus

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

In English: After clouds, the sun.

Although this is not an animal proverb, it does have something in common with a famous Aesop's fable, which is why I have chosen it here. This use of the "clouds" and the "sun" as metaphors for life's ups and downs is a powerful truism. There is no denying that there each person's life has cloudy days and sunny days. The optimistic force of the proverb is that whenever there are clouds, you know that sooner or later the sun will come out again. A more cynical and pessimistic version of the proverb could likewise state, "After the sun, clouds." It's one of those glass half-full or glass half-empty situations. Being of the Pollyanna persuasion, of course I prefer the optimistic, sunny version of the saying, which we have here. Yet I also like the old joke about the Polish optimist, which goes like this: A Polish pessimist knows that things are bad, but a Polish optimist knows that they can always get worse!

Today's Latin saying actually got a new lease on life by being included in Enya's song Cursum Perficio, which consists of these lines in Latin repeated over and over again: Verbum sapienti, "A word to the wise," Quo plus habent, eo plus cupiunt, "the more they have, they more they want," and Post nubila, Phoebus, "after the clouds, sun."

The Aesop's fable about the power of Phoebus, the sun, is the famous story of the context between the sun and the wind to see who can make a traveler take off his cloak. I've always felt kind of badly for the wind in this contest, since he clearly doesn't have a chance - but then he never should have agreed to the terms of the contest, right? Here is the version of the story in Thomas Bewick's collection of fables, published in 1871:

Phoebus and Aeolus had once a dispute which of them could soonest prevail with a certain traveler to part with his cloak. Aeolus began the attack, and assaulted him with great violence. But the man, wrapping his cloak still closer about him, doubled his efforts to keep it, and went on his way. And now, Phoebus darted his warm insinuating rays, which melting the traveler by degrees, at length obliged him to throw aside that cloak which all the rage of Aeolus could not compel him to resign. Learn hence, said Phoebus to the blustering god, that soft and gentle means will often accomplish what force and fury can never effect.

Here Phoebus, Apollo, stands for the sun, while Aeolus, the legendary keeper of the winds made famous by Homer, is the representative of wind and cloud and cold. In most versions of the fable, it is Boreas or Aquilo, the North Wind personified, who does battle with the sun.

So, hoping it is Phoebus who rules your day today, and not Aeolus, Boreas or Aquilo, here is today's proverb read out loud:

88. Post nubila Phoebus.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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Asinus in tegulis

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:00:00 +0000

In English: A donkey on the roof-tiles.

Following up on the previous animal proverb, I thought I would choose this saying about a donkey. Simply based on what we know about donkeys and what we know about the roof of a house, we can assume that a situation involving a donkey on the roof-tiles would be a ridiculous situation at best, and probably an outright disaster!

In the Greek fables of Babrius, there is a story about a donkey on the roof. He has ended up there as a result of foolishly imitating a monkey who did the same thing:

A donkey went up on the top of a house and while he was frisking about he broke some of the roof tiles. A man came running up and dragged the donkey back down to the ground, beating him with a club. The donkey, his back aching from the blows, said to the man, 'But just yesterday and the day before you were so amused when the monkey did the very same thing!'

This story closely resembles the better-known fable of the donkey who decided to imitate his master's pet dog by jumping up on his master and licking his face. Things did not turn out well for that donkey either, as you can read in Barlow's version of that fable.

For the Latin phrase asinus in tegulis, there is a tantalizing citation in Petronius's Satyricon. After the narrator has finished telling the famous werewolf tale, Trimalchio declares that he also has a story to tell: Nam et ipse vobis rem horribilem narrabo. Asinus in tegulis, "For I myself will tell you all a dreadful thing. A donkey on the roof-tiles." From this usage by Trimalchio, it seems that the donkey on the roof-tiles might have had some kind of sinister element, in addition to being something comical. It is, by implication, a res horribilis, something to make you shudder, something more sinister than "a bull in a china shop," as we say in English.

Within the context of that novel, it is worth pointing out that just previously there had been a strange commotion on the roof indeed, when Trimalchio amazed his guests by lowering the elaborate party favors down from the roof! Here is how the narrator describes that event: repente lacunaria sonare coeperunt totumque triclinium intremuit. Consternatus ego exsurrexi, et timui ne per tectum petauristarius aliquis descenderet. Nec minus reliqui convivae mirantes erexere vultus expectantes quid novi de caelo nuntiaretur. Ecce autem diductis lacunaribus subito circulus ingens, de cupa videlicet grandi excussus, demittitur, "All of a sudden the paneled ceiling began to creak and the whole room shook. Baffled, I raised myself up, and I was afraid that some sort of trapeze performer was going to come down through the roof. The rest of the party-goers were no less amazed, and lifted up their faces, expecting that this was a prelude to something weird from the sky. But look: the paneled ceiling drew back and suddenly a huge hoop, clearly loosened from a large cask, came down." The narrator goes on to explain how there were party favors dangling from the hoop which Trimalchio presented to all the guests at the party.

What I would like to contribute to the collection of stories about unexpected things on the roof is this delightful Islamic legend about the Sufi holy man Ebrahim ibn Adham who lived in the 8th century. He was a wealthy and powerful king, but was called by God to a life of poverty. Here is how that happens, as told by the great Sufi author, Attar:

Ebrahim ibn Adham’s saintly career began in the following manner. He was king of Balkh, and a whole world was under his command; forty gold swords and forty gold maces were carried before and behind him. One night he was asleep on his royal couch. At midnight the roof of the apartment vibrated, as if someone was walking on the roof. “Who is there?” he shouted. “A friend,” came the reply. “I have lost a camel, and am searching for it on this roof.” “Fool, do you look for the camel on the roof?” cried Ebrahim. “Heedless one,” answered the voice, “do you seek for God in silken clothes, asleep on a golden couch?” These words filled his heart with terror. A fire blazed within him, and he could not sleep any more.

In this case, the story is not about an actual camel on the roof, but instead about the absurdity of it. You should not expect to find a camel on the roof any more than you should expect to find salvation in a world of material comfort.

So, hoping that you have no large quadrupeds - donkeys OR camels - clattering about on your roof-tiles,here is today's proverb read out loud:

142. Asinus in tegulis.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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Cicada cicadae cara, formicae formica

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:18:00 +0000

In English: Cricket is dear to cricket, ant to ant.

Summer has finally begun, so that gave me two good reasons for choosing today's proverb. First, since I will be working hard this summer on Aesop, finishing up my Aesop's fable book for Bolchazy-Carducci, I will be paying special attention to Latin animal fables and proverbs. So, this nice little proverb about crickets and ants falls into that category! Plus, in honor of summer, it seems only right to start off with one of the most famous Aesop's fables about how the ant and the cricket spend their summer time.

First, the proverb. The idea of one cricket being dear to another cricket while an ant is dear to another ant is a variation on the "birds of a feather flock together" type of proverb. The saying can be found in Erasmus's Adages, who cites a line from Theocritus: Τέττιξ μὲν τέττιγι φίλος, μύρμακι δὲ μύρμαξ, / ἴρακες δ᾽ ἴραξιν, which he then renders in Latin: Formicae grata est formica, cicada cicadae, / accipiter placet accipitri, "ant is pleasing to ant, cricket to cricket; a hawk pleases a hawk." Erasmus then adds a bit of natural history to go along with his Greek source: nota est formicarum politia, et cicadarum conventus, "the civic community (politia) of ants is well known, as is the gathering of crickets together." (I do have to point out, however, that hawks are not famous for flocking... although at least they do not prey on each other as they do on the lesser birds!)

What the proverb implies but does not state explicitly is that while ants get along famously with each other, or cickets with other crickets, there is no love lost between them, as the famous Aesop's fable about the ant and the cricket shows! Here is the version from Barlow's edition of Aesop:

Dum per aestatem Cicada cantat, Formica suam exercet messem, trahendo in antra grana et in hiemem reponendo. Saeviente autem bruma, famelica Cicada venit ad Formicam et mendicat victum; renuebat autem Formica, dictitans sese laborasse, dum illa cantabat.

For an English version, here is Caxton's marvelous 15th century rendering, where the cricket is referred to as the "sygall": It is good to purueye hym self in the somer season of suche thynges / wherof he shalle myster and haue nede in wynter season / As thow mayst see by this present fable / Of the sygalle / whiche in the wynter tyme went and demaunded of the ant somme of her Corne for to ete / And thenne the Ant sayd to the sygall / what hast thow done al the somer last passed / And the sygalle ansuerd / I haue songe / And after sayd the ante to her / Of my corne shalt not thou none haue / And yf thow hast songe alle the somer / daunse now in wynter /

So, hoping you have a summer worthy of both the cricket AND of the ant, with some forward-looking work but some fun times, too, here is today's proverb read out loud:

35. Cicada cicadae cara, formicae formica.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

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Sapit qui reputat.

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:03:00 +0000

In English: He is wise who thinks twice.

As those of you who are regular readers of this blog will notice, I've moved the address over to the Blogger.com hosting service at blogspot.com:

http://AudioLatinProverbs.blogspot.com

I've done this in order to take advantage of the many great new blogging features that are available only with the blogging software associated with Blogger's hosted space. I've tried to clean up any mess I left behind as a result of changing the address. My apologies for the inconvenience if you are having to change any of your bookmarks or RSS feeds.

Meanwhile, I chose today's proverb in order to bolster my decision! I was reluctant to change simply because it is a lot of trouble, and the old system was working well enough... but as today's saying advises us, it's always good to think things over, re-putare, "to think back, think again." So, that's what I did!

As I was going through the rather tedious process of moving the blog and trying to make sure I left no broken links behind me, I definitely had plenty of time to think over what I was doing. Even though I was listening to a delightful book on tape (the wonderful science fiction novel Hominids, by Robert Sawyer), the process was time-consuming and a bit anxiety-producing as well, since I definitely have a horror of link rot. Yet as I went through my old directories file by file to redirect the old addresses I discovered to my horror two directories that I had never created, filled with hundreds of files: one called XANAX and the other called CIALIS. Yes, the evil hackers had somehow managed to create a directory in my webspace without my even knowing it. It's a bit like sweeeping out the garage and picking up an old newspaper or bag in order to throw it away, only to find a swarm of cockroaches underneath. Ugh! So while for several years I liked the idea of hosting the blog on my own server, I've thought it over (reputavi!) and decided that the advantages could not outweigh such the disadvantage of having to wage war against the forces of evil, the Xanax and Cialis spammers, and their ilk! I'll let Google and Blogger.com handle that for me from now on, thank you.

Given that the Latin word reputare obviously leads to the English word "reputation," I should probably quickly say something about that etymology here as well. Latin did have a noun, reputatio, which meant "thinking over." Yet by the time "reputation" entered in the English language in the Middle Ages, it already had the sense in which we use it today of the public estimate of a person's character. Chaucer uses it already with this meaning in the late 14th century. Moreover, the form "repute" is already in use in the 16th century, as in several examples from Shakespeare, e.g., "Let them be men of good repute and carriage." This English noun, "repute," is derived from the verb "to repute." (Compare the similar use of "dispute" as both noun and verb in English.)

So, hoping your day has been one of good repute (in both the Latin and the English senses of the word!), here is today's proverb read out loud:

2014. Sapit qui reputat.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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NEW BLOG ADDRESS

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Hello, everybody! To take advantage of the new features at blogspot.com, I'm relocating this blog to a new address:

http://AudioLatinProverbs.blogspot.com/

Please visit the blog there, and update your RSS feed as necessary. Thank you!

Ne Hercules quidem adversus duos

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:26:00 +0000

In English: Not even Hercules (fights) against two.

I haven't blogged here for a while because I've been working on a book manuscript - Aesop's fables in Latin, which should be out in August with Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers - and finally I've gotten the manuscript done so I can start blogging again. Yeah!

In that book manuscript I was working on some Latin grammar topics which will also be the focus of my blogging here. One of my main topics of interest is the use of postpositive particles in Latin. Yesterday, I blogged about the use of the particles quidem and vero in a Vulgate Bible verse, and I chose today's saying because of its nice demonstration of how quidem is negated with the word ne, but with quidem still coming in second position after the word that is being emphasized, just as you would expect from a positive positive particle.

So, in this saying, the words ne and quidem form an "emphatic negative sandwich" around the word that is being emphasized in order to make a negative point: Hercules. Hence the English translation "not even Hercules."

Just to make this saying even more interesting is that it has an implied verb. You can guess what the meaning of the verb must be from the prepositional phrase which is part of the predicate also: adversus duos, "against two (men)." So whatever verb you want to supply in English (and in English we really cannot leave verbs implied the same way that Latin can), the verb needs to be compatible with the idea of "against two." For example: Even Hercules does not fight against two men. Even Hercules doesn't march out against two men. Even Hercules does not stand in opposition against two men. And so on. An alternate form of the Latin phrase supplies one possibility: Hercules adversus noluit ire duos, "Hercules refused to go against two." (In an even fuller form: Natura ipsa docet cedendum pluribus esse: Hercules adversus noluit ire duos, "Nature herself teaches that one must yield to the many: Hercules refused to go against two.")

This ne...quidem construction can cause some problems for beginning Latin students, since it is possible to develop a kind of hyperawareness for the way that ne introduces a negative clause with the subjunctive. Yet ne also performs other negative functions in Latin, as for example here where it negates the particle quidem. You can also see ne used to create compound words and expressions in Latin, such as neuter (=ne+uter), nefas (=ne+fas), and so on.

As for the saying itself, Hollywood would probably prefer for Hercules to battle the lion and hydra both at the same time, but the wiser course is definitely to take on one enemy at a time. Of course, poor Hercules did have to face the many heads of the hydra at once: that surely was bad enough in itself!

So, hoping your own metaphorical hydra is not of the many-headed variety, here is today's proverb read out loud:

901. Ne Hercules quidem adversus duos.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

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Te de aliis quam alios de te suavius est fieri doctos

laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:17:00 +0000

In English: It is a sweeter thing for you to become wise from others' mistakes than for others to become wise from your mistakes.

I'm working on the final draft of the manuscript of my new Aesop's fables book for Bolchazy-Carducci (based on Barlow's Aesop of 1687), so of course I've got Aesop's fables even more on the brain than usual. That is what prompted me to choose this saying for today, which expresses the basic principle of the negative exemplum, learning from the mistakes made by others. The idea is that if you can look at the mistakes the foolish characters make the in the fables, you might be able to avoid making the same mistakes in your own life.

The alternative, of course, is that you could make mistakes which could prove to be instructive for others! That is the less desirable option: far better that others make mistakes which you can learn from, rather than vice versa.

Today's saying manages to express that very nicely, with the elegance of a Latin parallel construction and some implied words: Te de aliis (fieri doctum/doctam) quam alios de te suavius est fieri doctos. The Latin does not actually contain the word "mistakes" but simply says de te, "from you," and de aliis, "from others." That seemed so very strange in English that I added in the word "mistakes," although that does detract from the elegance of the Latin, with its beautifully paralleled pronouns, te de aliis quam alios de te....

The saying itself is a very old one, and can be found in the Persa, that delightful comedy by Plautus, where it is none other than the doomed pimp, Dordalus, who utters the words: sed te de aliis, quam alios de te suaviust fieri doctos. The pimp is speaking with the tricky slave Toxilus, the one who will, in fact, lead Dordalus to commit a series of terrible mistakes by the end of the play, so that he is eventually tricked out of his own money by Toxilus, who then uses the money to buy the freedom of his own girlfriend from the pimp.

So, hoping you find yourself in the role of Toxilus rather than Dordalus in the theater of life, here is today's proverb read out loud:

2200. Te de aliis quam alios de te suavius est fieri doctos.

The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.

Keep up with the latest posts... Subscribe by Email. I also post a daily round-up of all the Bestiaria Latina blogs: fables, proverbs, crosswords, and audio.