In English: Every living thing comes from an egg.
I thought I would continue with the previous days' proverbs about eggs with this famous Latin saying about the egg! This is not a proverbial saying but rather a scientific motto, a fundamental principle of the modern life sciences.
Although we are all now used to the idea that every living thing comes from eggs, even human beings, this was not always a universally accepted principle. Instead, many people believed in "spontaneous generation," the idea that living creatures could arise from non-living matter, especially decaying organic materials, such as maggots that seemed to grow in rotting meat or mice growing in moldy grain or frogs growing in the mud of the Nile river.
Because Aristotle promoted the idea of spontaneous generation, it remained a fundamental tenet of western science for many centuries, until the rise of modern science. In addition, with regard to human generation, it is worth noting that Aristotle and many other ancient scientists did not believe that the female contributed an egg; rather, they thought that the male provided the human embryo in the sperm, and the woman was simply a container who carried the embryo until it became an infant.
Over time, however, the evidence for spontaneous generation was dismissed by scientific investigators. In the late 17th century, an Italian scientist, Francesco Redi, proved that maggots did not grow in meat where flies were prevented from laying their eggs there.
The belief that omne vivum ex ovo is most closely associated with William Harvey, the 17th-century English doctor who explained the circulation of blood in the body. As he argued, omnia omnino animalia, etiam vivipara, atque hominem adeo ipsum, ex ovo progigni, "absolutely all animals, including those who give birth to live young, and even man himself, are born from an egg." This is a very striking contention to make in the 17th century, given that the actual mammalian egg was not found until 1827!
I'm excited about the way learning Latin proverbs can be a way to promote general cultural literacy - and this time, the Latin saying provides a bit of scientific literacy, too!
So here is today's proverb read out loud:
481. Omne vivum ex ovo.
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. You can also hear this saying read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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April 30, 2007
April 29, 2007
Via ovicipitum dura est
In English: The way of the eggheads is hard.
After the sayings about eggs I've posted in the past few days, I had to include this delightful saying, which is most famously associated with the American politician, Adlai Stevenson.
The word ovicipitum is a genitive plural form of oviceps, "egg-head." This is a Latin word found in scientific literature, as in the Scarus oviceps, commonly called the "egghead parrotfish." What Stevenson has done, however, is to appropriate the Latin word for a peculiarly American idiom: the "egghead" intellectual.
Stevenson himself was notoriously an intellectual, and he was also balding - the quintessential egghead. Richard Nixon actually called Stevenson an "egghead" during Stevenson's run for the presidency in 1952. You can read more about this in the wikipedia article, which is illustrated with a very egghead-y photo of Stevenson.
The earliest citation for "egghead" in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1907, yet there is a flurry of citations from the 1950s when the word became a key term in American political discourse. There are even two citations about Adlai Stevenson in the Oxford English dictionary, both from 1952. The first citation: "A good many intelligent people..obviously admired Stevenson. ‘Sure,’ was the reply, ‘all the egg heads love Stevenson.’" The second citation: "Writers of letters to editors tend to be in the intellectual or ‘egg~head’ category where Stevenson sentiment is strong."
Stevenson, however, did not disavow the label. Instead, he embraced it. So, in a lecture he gave at Harvard on March 17 in 1954, Stevenson remarked, “Via ovicipitum dura est, or, for the benefit of the engineers among you: The way of the egghead is hard.” I guess in the 1950s Stevenson could assume that all the literature and history majors would understand the Latin without a translation, so he offers the English for the benefit of the engineering students in the audience.
About a week later, he is reported to have made another egghead joke, in English this time, as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary and dated March 23, 1954: "Eggheads of the world, unite," Stevenson said; "you have nothing to lose but your yolks." Ha! I love it: Stevenson gets my vote!
So here is today's proverb read out loud:
280. Via ovicipitum dura est.
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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After the sayings about eggs I've posted in the past few days, I had to include this delightful saying, which is most famously associated with the American politician, Adlai Stevenson.
The word ovicipitum is a genitive plural form of oviceps, "egg-head." This is a Latin word found in scientific literature, as in the Scarus oviceps, commonly called the "egghead parrotfish." What Stevenson has done, however, is to appropriate the Latin word for a peculiarly American idiom: the "egghead" intellectual.
Stevenson himself was notoriously an intellectual, and he was also balding - the quintessential egghead. Richard Nixon actually called Stevenson an "egghead" during Stevenson's run for the presidency in 1952. You can read more about this in the wikipedia article, which is illustrated with a very egghead-y photo of Stevenson.
The earliest citation for "egghead" in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1907, yet there is a flurry of citations from the 1950s when the word became a key term in American political discourse. There are even two citations about Adlai Stevenson in the Oxford English dictionary, both from 1952. The first citation: "A good many intelligent people..obviously admired Stevenson. ‘Sure,’ was the reply, ‘all the egg heads love Stevenson.’" The second citation: "Writers of letters to editors tend to be in the intellectual or ‘egg~head’ category where Stevenson sentiment is strong."
Stevenson, however, did not disavow the label. Instead, he embraced it. So, in a lecture he gave at Harvard on March 17 in 1954, Stevenson remarked, “Via ovicipitum dura est, or, for the benefit of the engineers among you: The way of the egghead is hard.” I guess in the 1950s Stevenson could assume that all the literature and history majors would understand the Latin without a translation, so he offers the English for the benefit of the engineering students in the audience.
About a week later, he is reported to have made another egghead joke, in English this time, as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary and dated March 23, 1954: "Eggheads of the world, unite," Stevenson said; "you have nothing to lose but your yolks." Ha! I love it: Stevenson gets my vote!
So here is today's proverb read out loud:
280. Via ovicipitum dura est.
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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April 28, 2007
Ab ovo usque ad mala
In English: From the egg all the way to the apples.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, which also featured an egg. But be careful: yesterday's proverb was about a malum ovum, a "bad egg," but today's proverb is about the ovum and the malum, Latin "apple," plural mala, "apples." The phrase ab ovo usque ad mala, "from egg to apples," is like the English saying, "from soup to nuts," meaning from the start of the meal to the finish. Metaphorically, it means from the start to the finish of anything in general, the whole thing.
By itself, the saying ab ovo, "from the egg," means from the beginning of something, right from the start.
The similar spelling of malus, "bad," and malus, "apple tree" (malum, "apple") can definitely cause some problems for Latin students! Even worse, there is also the word malus, meaning "ship's mast, pole."
Of course, English-speakers have no right to complain about such things. Every time I go into a car wash and see where it says "WAX AND POLISH," I wonder why they would ever want to give you a wax along with something from Poland! So, in English, we have "polish" (shine) and "Polish" (from Poland), just as Latin has malus and malus and malus. The technical term for this phenomenon is a "homograph," two words that are written the same way. A homograph may or may not be a homonym (a word pronounced the same way as another, although not necessarily spelled the same way - like English "to," "too" and "two").
English actually abounds in homographs, such as bow (and arrow) and bow (kneel), close (near) and close (shut), does (plural of doe) and does (what they do), dove (a bird) and dove (when you dive), lead (the chemical element) and lead (what a leader does), number (as in more numb) and number (for counting), sewer (for plumbing) and sewer (who makes dresses), tear (when you cry) and tear (when you rip something), wind (that blows) and wind (like winding a watch), and wound (after you wind something) and wound (hurt).
So, if you have learned to live with all these crazy-making English homographs, you can definitely learn to live with Latin malus (bad), malus (apple-tree) and malus (mast).
So, with apples in mind, here is today's proverb read out loud:
100. Ab ovo usque ad mala.
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. You can also hear the saying ab ovo aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, which also featured an egg. But be careful: yesterday's proverb was about a malum ovum, a "bad egg," but today's proverb is about the ovum and the malum, Latin "apple," plural mala, "apples." The phrase ab ovo usque ad mala, "from egg to apples," is like the English saying, "from soup to nuts," meaning from the start of the meal to the finish. Metaphorically, it means from the start to the finish of anything in general, the whole thing.
By itself, the saying ab ovo, "from the egg," means from the beginning of something, right from the start.
The similar spelling of malus, "bad," and malus, "apple tree" (malum, "apple") can definitely cause some problems for Latin students! Even worse, there is also the word malus, meaning "ship's mast, pole."
Of course, English-speakers have no right to complain about such things. Every time I go into a car wash and see where it says "WAX AND POLISH," I wonder why they would ever want to give you a wax along with something from Poland! So, in English, we have "polish" (shine) and "Polish" (from Poland), just as Latin has malus and malus and malus. The technical term for this phenomenon is a "homograph," two words that are written the same way. A homograph may or may not be a homonym (a word pronounced the same way as another, although not necessarily spelled the same way - like English "to," "too" and "two").
English actually abounds in homographs, such as bow (and arrow) and bow (kneel), close (near) and close (shut), does (plural of doe) and does (what they do), dove (a bird) and dove (when you dive), lead (the chemical element) and lead (what a leader does), number (as in more numb) and number (for counting), sewer (for plumbing) and sewer (who makes dresses), tear (when you cry) and tear (when you rip something), wind (that blows) and wind (like winding a watch), and wound (after you wind something) and wound (hurt).
So, if you have learned to live with all these crazy-making English homographs, you can definitely learn to live with Latin malus (bad), malus (apple-tree) and malus (mast).
So, with apples in mind, here is today's proverb read out loud:
100. Ab ovo usque ad mala.
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. You can also hear the saying ab ovo aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
April 27, 2007
Mali corvi malum ovum
In English: Bad egg from a bad crow.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb about people being of eiusdem farinae. This proverb also belongs to the "cut from the same cloth" type, the idea being that one bad thing (the bad crow, malus corvus) gives rise to something else bad (the bad egg, malum ovum).
This saying found its way into Erasmus's Adagia, and he gives a variety of different ways in which the saying can be applied. For example, he says that "this is rightly applied whenever a bad student proceeds from a bad instructor," apte usurpabitur, quoties a malo praeceptore discipulus malus proficiscitur. That is a very fitting warning for someone like me. Let's hope there are not too many bad eggs to be found amongst my legions of students!
He also notes that it can be applied to "a wicked son from a wicked father," ex improbo patre filius improbus, and likewise "an unremarkable man from an unremarkable country," ex patria illaudata vir illaudatus, and finally "a criminal outrage that comes from a criminal person," denique facinus sceleratum ab homine scelesto.
Erasmus also ponders just why the crow is the vehicle used to express this metaphorical meaning: "Some relate this meaning to the nature of the creature, which itself is not fit for human consumption, and which generates an egg that is good for nothing," Metaphoram alii referunt ad naturam animantis, quae nec ipsa est idonea cibis humanis, nec ovum parit ad quidquam utile.
He also cites others who allege something even more sinister about the crows and their offspring: "There are those who would say that it happens that the chicks of the crows devour their own parents, if by chance the parents have not supplied them with enough to eat," Sunt, qui dicant, fieri, ut coruorum pulli parentes ipsos devorent, si forte non pascant illos ad satietatem.
In English, too, the crow is not a bird with especially positive connotations, so the metaphorical application of the "bad crow" and the "bad egg" works very well for us, too, even if we do not believe that greedy crow chicks actually consume their poor parents!
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
80. Mali corvi malum ovum.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb about people being of eiusdem farinae. This proverb also belongs to the "cut from the same cloth" type, the idea being that one bad thing (the bad crow, malus corvus) gives rise to something else bad (the bad egg, malum ovum).
This saying found its way into Erasmus's Adagia, and he gives a variety of different ways in which the saying can be applied. For example, he says that "this is rightly applied whenever a bad student proceeds from a bad instructor," apte usurpabitur, quoties a malo praeceptore discipulus malus proficiscitur. That is a very fitting warning for someone like me. Let's hope there are not too many bad eggs to be found amongst my legions of students!
He also notes that it can be applied to "a wicked son from a wicked father," ex improbo patre filius improbus, and likewise "an unremarkable man from an unremarkable country," ex patria illaudata vir illaudatus, and finally "a criminal outrage that comes from a criminal person," denique facinus sceleratum ab homine scelesto.
Erasmus also ponders just why the crow is the vehicle used to express this metaphorical meaning: "Some relate this meaning to the nature of the creature, which itself is not fit for human consumption, and which generates an egg that is good for nothing," Metaphoram alii referunt ad naturam animantis, quae nec ipsa est idonea cibis humanis, nec ovum parit ad quidquam utile.
He also cites others who allege something even more sinister about the crows and their offspring: "There are those who would say that it happens that the chicks of the crows devour their own parents, if by chance the parents have not supplied them with enough to eat," Sunt, qui dicant, fieri, ut coruorum pulli parentes ipsos devorent, si forte non pascant illos ad satietatem.
In English, too, the crow is not a bird with especially positive connotations, so the metaphorical application of the "bad crow" and the "bad egg" works very well for us, too, even if we do not believe that greedy crow chicks actually consume their poor parents!
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
80. Mali corvi malum ovum.
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.
April 26, 2007
Homines sunt eiusdem farinae
In English: People are (made) from the same flour.
After yesterday's proverb involving Latin farina, "flour," I pretty much had to include this famous saying today! You can see this idiom used in one of the satires of Persius, writing about someone who used to be of the same "flour," cum fueris nostrae paulo ante farinae, "since you only a short while ago were of our flour."
There are many English sayings that express this same idea, such as being "cut from the same cloth" or "birds of a feather flock together."
Now when it comes to birds and cloths, we can certainly understand that there are many kinds of birds and many types of cloth. With flour, however, we may be a bit baffled, since we think of flour being pretty much the same, in an era of mass-produced, fine, white flour.
Yet if you think back to Roman times, you took your grain to the miller so that it could be ground into flour - and there were many different "grinds" of flour. There could be very fine-ground flour, and flour that is ground not so fine! So to be of the "same flour" as someone else, eiusdem farinae, is to share the same degree or quality or refinement (or lack of refinement!) as they do.
Consider a related Latin saying: sunt eiusdem furfuris, "they are made of the same bran." In other words, they are not finely ground flour at all, but the dark, hard outer layer of the grain which accumulates as a by-product of the milling process - much like the proverbial chaff, which is left to be blown away by the winds or burnt in the fire, as in Matthew 3: congregabit triticum suum in horreum paleas autem conburet igni inextinguibili, "he will gather his wheat into his barn; the chaff, however, he will burn with unquenchable fire."
So, hoping you have had a day of flour without too much chaff, here is today's proverb read out loud:
809. Homines sunt eiusdem farinae.
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. You can also hear this saying read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
After yesterday's proverb involving Latin farina, "flour," I pretty much had to include this famous saying today! You can see this idiom used in one of the satires of Persius, writing about someone who used to be of the same "flour," cum fueris nostrae paulo ante farinae, "since you only a short while ago were of our flour."
There are many English sayings that express this same idea, such as being "cut from the same cloth" or "birds of a feather flock together."
Now when it comes to birds and cloths, we can certainly understand that there are many kinds of birds and many types of cloth. With flour, however, we may be a bit baffled, since we think of flour being pretty much the same, in an era of mass-produced, fine, white flour.
Yet if you think back to Roman times, you took your grain to the miller so that it could be ground into flour - and there were many different "grinds" of flour. There could be very fine-ground flour, and flour that is ground not so fine! So to be of the "same flour" as someone else, eiusdem farinae, is to share the same degree or quality or refinement (or lack of refinement!) as they do.
Consider a related Latin saying: sunt eiusdem furfuris, "they are made of the same bran." In other words, they are not finely ground flour at all, but the dark, hard outer layer of the grain which accumulates as a by-product of the milling process - much like the proverbial chaff, which is left to be blown away by the winds or burnt in the fire, as in Matthew 3: congregabit triticum suum in horreum paleas autem conburet igni inextinguibili, "he will gather his wheat into his barn; the chaff, however, he will burn with unquenchable fire."
So, hoping you have had a day of flour without too much chaff, here is today's proverb read out loud:
809. Homines sunt eiusdem farinae.
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. You can also hear this saying read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
April 25, 2007
Ubi triticum non est, ibi non est farina
In English: Where there is no wheat, there is no flour.
This proverb is based on the same ubi...ibi pattern in yesterday's saying. I've been trying to come up with a good English equivalent for today's proverb, but I cannot really think of one - perhaps we just live in a world where flour seems to grow effortlessly on grocery store shelves, so we cannot appreciate the profound law of agricultural consequences in this saying, where a time without wheat means that there is going to be a time, a grim time, without flour.
Apropos of this saying, I wanted to share an Aesop's fable, not about wheat and flour, but about wheat and its sharp beard, called in Latin arista. This is not a classical Greek or Roman fable; rather, it is one of the fables of Abstemius published in the late 16th century. Although Abstemius has been long forgotten, his fables were quite popular in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Clarke's Aesop's Fables for Beginners, published in 1787, includes the fable, which goes as follows:
So, as the poor farmer has learned, in order to get an "easy" harvest, he lost his wheat. Without the protection offered by the beard, the wheat was easily consumed by the little birds in the fields. This causes a real crisis for the farmer: as today's proverb warns him, where there is no wheat, there is no flour. The farmer and his family are going to go hungry this winter, unless he is able to get the goddess Ceres to give him some bread. Will the goddess grant him another favor? Probably not; the gods and goddesses are usually not in the habit of granting additional requests to human beings who previously squandered their divine favor on foolish indulgences, as this farmer did.
So, hoping your harvest today has been plentiful, whatever it is you are cultivating, here is today's proverb read out loud:
987. Ubi triticum non est, ibi non est farina.
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.
This proverb is based on the same ubi...ibi pattern in yesterday's saying. I've been trying to come up with a good English equivalent for today's proverb, but I cannot really think of one - perhaps we just live in a world where flour seems to grow effortlessly on grocery store shelves, so we cannot appreciate the profound law of agricultural consequences in this saying, where a time without wheat means that there is going to be a time, a grim time, without flour.
Apropos of this saying, I wanted to share an Aesop's fable, not about wheat and flour, but about wheat and its sharp beard, called in Latin arista. This is not a classical Greek or Roman fable; rather, it is one of the fables of Abstemius published in the late 16th century. Although Abstemius has been long forgotten, his fables were quite popular in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Clarke's Aesop's Fables for Beginners, published in 1787, includes the fable, which goes as follows:
Quidam Rusticus impetraverat a Cerere, ut triticum nasceretur absque aristis, ne laederet manus metentium et triturantium. Quod, cum inaruit, est depastum a minutis avibus: Tum Rusticus inquit, "Quam digne patior! Qui causa parvae commoditatis perdidi etiam maxima emolumenta."If you would like to see Clarke's 18th-century translation, complete with 18th-century capitalization, you can see the text reproduced at the aesopica.net website.
A certain countryman had requested from Ceres that his wheat should grow without beards, so that it would not hurt the hands of the reapers and threshers. The wheat, when it grew ripe, was eaten up by the tiny birds. Then the countryman said, "How rightly I suffer! For the sake of a small convenience, I also lost the greatest advantage."
So, as the poor farmer has learned, in order to get an "easy" harvest, he lost his wheat. Without the protection offered by the beard, the wheat was easily consumed by the little birds in the fields. This causes a real crisis for the farmer: as today's proverb warns him, where there is no wheat, there is no flour. The farmer and his family are going to go hungry this winter, unless he is able to get the goddess Ceres to give him some bread. Will the goddess grant him another favor? Probably not; the gods and goddesses are usually not in the habit of granting additional requests to human beings who previously squandered their divine favor on foolish indulgences, as this farmer did.
So, hoping your harvest today has been plentiful, whatever it is you are cultivating, here is today's proverb read out loud:
987. Ubi triticum non est, ibi non est farina.
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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April 24, 2007
Ubi dolor, ibi digitus
In English: Where there's pain, there's the finger.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about music, the medicine of pains, dolores. Today's saying tells us that when somebody's got some kind of pain, dolor, they cannot help but finger it. Compare the English saying, "One must needs scratch where it itches." (This is precisely the gloss that Robert Burton provides on the Latin saying in his Anatomy of Melancholy.)
One of the most curious instances of today's Latin saying is its use as an inscription of a monument called "The Stanley Child," erected circa 1460 in the village of Elford in Staffordshire, England. The stone sculpture honors "Young John," the last male heir to the Elford estate, who was killed by a tennis ball.
Yes, the story goes that the boy was hit in the head by a tennis ball, which caused his death. In the stone sculpture, he is shown reclining, with his feet resting on a little dog. In his left hand, he holds a ball, and with his right hand he is reaching up and touching his head. Hence the Latin inscription, which reads clearly Ubi dolor, ibi digitus. You can see the inscription, along with the little dog, and the boy's pathetic gesture, touching his wounded head, in this black-and-white drawing, originally published in Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1903). You can also get a good view in this photograph, which is taken looking down at the poor boy from above (source).
The place of tennis in Renaissance England is immortalized in this passage from Shakespeare's Henry V. The French ambassador has brought gifts from the Dauphin for Henry, and Henry asks:
K. Henry. What treasure, uncle?
Exeter. Tennis balls, my liege.
K. Henry. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
Hazard indeed! As poor "Young John" from Staffordshire discovered, tennis balls can be deadly.
So, here is today's proverb read out loud - but no flying tennis balls, I promise!
984. Ubi dolor, ibi digitus.
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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I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about music, the medicine of pains, dolores. Today's saying tells us that when somebody's got some kind of pain, dolor, they cannot help but finger it. Compare the English saying, "One must needs scratch where it itches." (This is precisely the gloss that Robert Burton provides on the Latin saying in his Anatomy of Melancholy.)
One of the most curious instances of today's Latin saying is its use as an inscription of a monument called "The Stanley Child," erected circa 1460 in the village of Elford in Staffordshire, England. The stone sculpture honors "Young John," the last male heir to the Elford estate, who was killed by a tennis ball.
Yes, the story goes that the boy was hit in the head by a tennis ball, which caused his death. In the stone sculpture, he is shown reclining, with his feet resting on a little dog. In his left hand, he holds a ball, and with his right hand he is reaching up and touching his head. Hence the Latin inscription, which reads clearly Ubi dolor, ibi digitus. You can see the inscription, along with the little dog, and the boy's pathetic gesture, touching his wounded head, in this black-and-white drawing, originally published in Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1903). You can also get a good view in this photograph, which is taken looking down at the poor boy from above (source).
The place of tennis in Renaissance England is immortalized in this passage from Shakespeare's Henry V. The French ambassador has brought gifts from the Dauphin for Henry, and Henry asks:
K. Henry. What treasure, uncle?
Exeter. Tennis balls, my liege.
K. Henry. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
Hazard indeed! As poor "Young John" from Staffordshire discovered, tennis balls can be deadly.
So, here is today's proverb read out loud - but no flying tennis balls, I promise!
984. Ubi dolor, ibi digitus.
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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April 23, 2007
Musica laetitiae comes, medicina dolorum
In English: Music is a companion to joy and a medicine for pains.
I thought this would be a positive follow-up to the proverbs about doctors and medicine I've posted in the past few days. As today's saying explains, music is something that can be enjoyed by people when things are going well (laetitiae comes) and when they are not doing well, music is as good as medicine.
Of course, just as there are many music lovers out there, there are many variants on this saying, such as Musica laborum dulce levamen, "Music is a sweet relief for labors," Musica magnorum solamen dulce laborum, "Music is a sweet solace for great labors," or Musica mentis medicina maestae, "Music is medicine for a sad mind."
The form of the saying which I chose for today has been made especially famous through being included by Vermeer as the inscription on one of the instruments in his painting "The Music Lesson." You can use the "zoom" feature at Royal Collection website in order to see the inscription (which uses the early modern rather than the classical spelling: letitie, rather than laetitiae).
And while it's not related to the musica...medicina theme, I think it is worth noting that both the words laetitiae and dolorum give us pretty names in English: Leticia (also spelled Lettice, or Letizia, the name of Napoleon's mother), and also Dolores (an epithet of the Virgin Mary, "Our Lady of Sorrows," in Spanish Nuestra Señora de los Dolores).
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud!
275. Musica laetitiae comes, medicina dolorum.
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.
I thought this would be a positive follow-up to the proverbs about doctors and medicine I've posted in the past few days. As today's saying explains, music is something that can be enjoyed by people when things are going well (laetitiae comes) and when they are not doing well, music is as good as medicine.
Of course, just as there are many music lovers out there, there are many variants on this saying, such as Musica laborum dulce levamen, "Music is a sweet relief for labors," Musica magnorum solamen dulce laborum, "Music is a sweet solace for great labors," or Musica mentis medicina maestae, "Music is medicine for a sad mind."
The form of the saying which I chose for today has been made especially famous through being included by Vermeer as the inscription on one of the instruments in his painting "The Music Lesson." You can use the "zoom" feature at Royal Collection website in order to see the inscription (which uses the early modern rather than the classical spelling: letitie, rather than laetitiae).
And while it's not related to the musica...medicina theme, I think it is worth noting that both the words laetitiae and dolorum give us pretty names in English: Leticia (also spelled Lettice, or Letizia, the name of Napoleon's mother), and also Dolores (an epithet of the Virgin Mary, "Our Lady of Sorrows," in Spanish Nuestra Señora de los Dolores).
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud!
275. Musica laetitiae comes, medicina dolorum.
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.
April 22, 2007
Morborum medicus omnium mors ultimus
In English: The last doctor of every disease is death.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to the sayings about doctors I've covered in the past couple of days. Today's saying has a very intricate word order which is a bit unusual for Latin proverbs, so it's worth mapping it out - paying careful attention to the word endings, and also the word order, which accounts for much of the proverb's effect:
morborum: genitive plural, "of diseases." This gives us a kind of topic for the saying, and now we are waiting for a noun to govern this genitive.
medicus: nominative singular, "doctor." This gives us the noun we wanted, although no clear meaning has really emerged yet: "the doctor of diseases" is what we have so far.
omnium: genitive plural, "all, every." The case and number agree with diseases, yielding: "the doctor of all diseases" or "the doctor of every disease."
mors: nominative singular, "death." This gives us the key to the grammatical structure of the sentence: if there are two nominative nouns, they need to have a subject-predicate relationship to one another, which gives us a complete sentence: "The doctor of every disease is death."
ultimus: nominative singular, "ultimate, final, last." The gender - masculine - gives us the clue which noun is it modifying: "The last doctor of every disease is death."
English cannot save the surprise ultimus for the end of the sentence, which is exactly what happens in the Latin saying. Latin here uses its amazing flexibility of word order as a way to convey meaning. The displacement of ultimus to the end of the sentence is a surprise punch, giving an overwhelming emphasis to the particular quality of "Dr. Death." Sure, there are plenty of doctors, and someone who is really ill might see doctor after doctor after doctor. There are many doctors, indeed, but the ultimus medicus for every disease, for the disease of life itself you might say, is death.
Of course, our knowledge of the inevitability of death is matched only by our resolute denial of this fact. The Latin phrase memento mori, "remember (that you are going) to die" is a bit of wisdom we should probably be more grateful for than we normally are.
Just last night we watched that most amazing movie, The Green Mile. I won't give away the ending of the movie if you have not seen it (and if you have not seen it, you should!), but of the many lessons in that movie, there is one very wise lesson about length of life and time of death. It's a movie very much worth watching... or watching again, if you have not seen it in a while.
In fact, The Green Mile contains one of Michael Jeter's best performances... Michael Jeter who has since met up with that last doctor. He died in 2003 just after having completed the film Open Range (another great movie!). Requiescat in pace, Michael Jeter... he left us so many fine films.
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
522. Morborum medicus omnium mors ultimus.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to the sayings about doctors I've covered in the past couple of days. Today's saying has a very intricate word order which is a bit unusual for Latin proverbs, so it's worth mapping it out - paying careful attention to the word endings, and also the word order, which accounts for much of the proverb's effect:
morborum: genitive plural, "of diseases." This gives us a kind of topic for the saying, and now we are waiting for a noun to govern this genitive.
medicus: nominative singular, "doctor." This gives us the noun we wanted, although no clear meaning has really emerged yet: "the doctor of diseases" is what we have so far.
omnium: genitive plural, "all, every." The case and number agree with diseases, yielding: "the doctor of all diseases" or "the doctor of every disease."
mors: nominative singular, "death." This gives us the key to the grammatical structure of the sentence: if there are two nominative nouns, they need to have a subject-predicate relationship to one another, which gives us a complete sentence: "The doctor of every disease is death."
ultimus: nominative singular, "ultimate, final, last." The gender - masculine - gives us the clue which noun is it modifying: "The last doctor of every disease is death."
English cannot save the surprise ultimus for the end of the sentence, which is exactly what happens in the Latin saying. Latin here uses its amazing flexibility of word order as a way to convey meaning. The displacement of ultimus to the end of the sentence is a surprise punch, giving an overwhelming emphasis to the particular quality of "Dr. Death." Sure, there are plenty of doctors, and someone who is really ill might see doctor after doctor after doctor. There are many doctors, indeed, but the ultimus medicus for every disease, for the disease of life itself you might say, is death.
Of course, our knowledge of the inevitability of death is matched only by our resolute denial of this fact. The Latin phrase memento mori, "remember (that you are going) to die" is a bit of wisdom we should probably be more grateful for than we normally are.
Just last night we watched that most amazing movie, The Green Mile. I won't give away the ending of the movie if you have not seen it (and if you have not seen it, you should!), but of the many lessons in that movie, there is one very wise lesson about length of life and time of death. It's a movie very much worth watching... or watching again, if you have not seen it in a while.
In fact, The Green Mile contains one of Michael Jeter's best performances... Michael Jeter who has since met up with that last doctor. He died in 2003 just after having completed the film Open Range (another great movie!). Requiescat in pace, Michael Jeter... he left us so many fine films.
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
522. Morborum medicus omnium mors ultimus.
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.
April 21, 2007
Medico male est, si nemini male est
In English: The doctor's bad off, if nobody is bad off.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about doctors and diseases. Today's saying emphasizes the paradoxical situation in which the doctor finds himself: if everybody is well, things do not go well for the doctor! For the doctor to do well, somebody has to be doing poorly.
You can find this saying in many different variants, such as Medico nunquam bene est, nisi male sit aliis, "it is never well for the doctor, unless things are going badly for others;" Heu quam habet male omnis medicus, cum nemo sese habet male, "Oh how bad it goes for every doctor, when no one feels bad," and so on.
This is a proverb I often think about when I lapse into occasional despair about how my students cannot write English very well, how they have so few computer skills... but if they already wrote wonderful English and had all kinds of computer skills, they wouldn't need me to teach them, would they? And like the doctor when everyone is feeling well, I would be out of a job!
Today's Latin proverb is a good way to learn a very useful Latin idiom that expresses the idea of being well, or poorly: bene/male est plus the dative. So the phrase medico male est means "the doctor is not doing well, things are not going well for the doctor, the doctor is sick," etc. Likewise, nemini male est means "nobody is sick, nobody is doing poorly, everybody is doing fine, etc."
So, if you want to say that you are doing well, you can say mihi bene est, "I'm doing well" - and, if not, then mihi male est, "I'm sick, things are not going well for me, I'm doing poorly," etc.
So, hoping that bene tibi est hodie, here is today's proverb read out loud:
328. Medico male est, si nemini male est.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about doctors and diseases. Today's saying emphasizes the paradoxical situation in which the doctor finds himself: if everybody is well, things do not go well for the doctor! For the doctor to do well, somebody has to be doing poorly.
You can find this saying in many different variants, such as Medico nunquam bene est, nisi male sit aliis, "it is never well for the doctor, unless things are going badly for others;" Heu quam habet male omnis medicus, cum nemo sese habet male, "Oh how bad it goes for every doctor, when no one feels bad," and so on.
This is a proverb I often think about when I lapse into occasional despair about how my students cannot write English very well, how they have so few computer skills... but if they already wrote wonderful English and had all kinds of computer skills, they wouldn't need me to teach them, would they? And like the doctor when everyone is feeling well, I would be out of a job!
Today's Latin proverb is a good way to learn a very useful Latin idiom that expresses the idea of being well, or poorly: bene/male est plus the dative. So the phrase medico male est means "the doctor is not doing well, things are not going well for the doctor, the doctor is sick," etc. Likewise, nemini male est means "nobody is sick, nobody is doing poorly, everybody is doing fine, etc."
So, if you want to say that you are doing well, you can say mihi bene est, "I'm doing well" - and, if not, then mihi male est, "I'm sick, things are not going well for me, I'm doing poorly," etc.
So, hoping that bene tibi est hodie, here is today's proverb read out loud:
328. Medico male est, si nemini male est.
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.
April 20, 2007
Plus a medico quam a morbo periculi
In English: More danger from the doctor than from the disease.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, multa fercula, multos morbos, "many dishes, many diseases." Today's proverb warns you about the dangers that can arrive after you've gotten sick, when the cure is worth than the disease.
The sound-play in this Latin proverb is very elegant with the proverb framed by the phrase plus...periculi, along with the parallel phrases a medico and a morbo. Although I will not claim that my proposed English translation here is equally as elegant, I was glad about getting the sound-play of "danger...doctor...disease."
Not surprisingly, this proverb makes an appearance in that remarkable book The Anatomy of Melancholy, By "Democritus Junior," the pen-name of Robert Burton, in a chapter devoted to the topic of "Of Physic which cureth with Medicines." Burton is very skeptical of the physician's art, and notes that "many are overthrown by preposterous use of it, and thereby get their bane, that might otherwise have escaped: some think physicians kill as many as they save [...] and according to the Dutch proverb, a new physician must have a new churchyard." He provides a history of medicine going back to the Greeks, and then explains: "The Arabians received it from the Greeks, and so the Latins, adding new precepts and medicines of their own, but so imperfect still, that through ignorance of professors, impostors, mountebanks, empirics, disagreeing of sectaries, (which are as many almost as there be diseases) envy, covetousness, and the like, they do much harm amongst us."
He then cites today's proverb, along with this saying about the death of the emperor Hadrian: multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, "a multitude of doctors killed the commander".
Finally, Burton goes on to compare doctors to butchers: "But it is their ignorance that doth more harm than rashness, their art is wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and got by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-slayers; chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed the physicians' hangman, carnifices, and common executioners; though to say truth, physicians themselves come not far behind; for according to that facete epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference?"
Here is the epigram that Burton cites:
Chirurgicus medico quo differt? scilicet isto,
Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu:
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur,
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito.
In English: What is the difference between the surgeon and the doctor? It's obvious: the doctor kills with medicines, while the surgeon kills with his hand; they both seem to differ from the hangman in this way only: these do more slowly what he does quickly.
Robert Burton wrote these bitter reflections on medicine back around 400 years from now, and the malpractice insurance business is still going strong!Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
743. Plus a medico quam a morbo periculi.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, multa fercula, multos morbos, "many dishes, many diseases." Today's proverb warns you about the dangers that can arrive after you've gotten sick, when the cure is worth than the disease.
The sound-play in this Latin proverb is very elegant with the proverb framed by the phrase plus...periculi, along with the parallel phrases a medico and a morbo. Although I will not claim that my proposed English translation here is equally as elegant, I was glad about getting the sound-play of "danger...doctor...disease."
Not surprisingly, this proverb makes an appearance in that remarkable book The Anatomy of Melancholy, By "Democritus Junior," the pen-name of Robert Burton, in a chapter devoted to the topic of "Of Physic which cureth with Medicines." Burton is very skeptical of the physician's art, and notes that "many are overthrown by preposterous use of it, and thereby get their bane, that might otherwise have escaped: some think physicians kill as many as they save [...] and according to the Dutch proverb, a new physician must have a new churchyard." He provides a history of medicine going back to the Greeks, and then explains: "The Arabians received it from the Greeks, and so the Latins, adding new precepts and medicines of their own, but so imperfect still, that through ignorance of professors, impostors, mountebanks, empirics, disagreeing of sectaries, (which are as many almost as there be diseases) envy, covetousness, and the like, they do much harm amongst us."
He then cites today's proverb, along with this saying about the death of the emperor Hadrian: multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, "a multitude of doctors killed the commander".
Finally, Burton goes on to compare doctors to butchers: "But it is their ignorance that doth more harm than rashness, their art is wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and got by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-slayers; chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed the physicians' hangman, carnifices, and common executioners; though to say truth, physicians themselves come not far behind; for according to that facete epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference?"
Here is the epigram that Burton cites:
Chirurgicus medico quo differt? scilicet isto,
Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu:
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur,
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito.
In English: What is the difference between the surgeon and the doctor? It's obvious: the doctor kills with medicines, while the surgeon kills with his hand; they both seem to differ from the hangman in this way only: these do more slowly what he does quickly.
Robert Burton wrote these bitter reflections on medicine back around 400 years from now, and the malpractice insurance business is still going strong!Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
743. Plus a medico quam a morbo periculi.
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.
April 19, 2007
Multa fercula, multos morbos
In English: Many dishes, many diseases.
I thought this saying would be a perfect follow-up to yesterday's proverb, Cibus non qui plurimus, sed qui suavissimus, "Food: not the largest quantity but the most pleasant." If you ignore that good advice, you can probably expect to run into the danger pointed out in today's saying.
As someone who had dinner at Old Chicago Pizza (yes, I really did eat an entire spinach-artichoke calzone!), I might be learning this lesson myself later tonight!
It's worth noting a very important grammatical feature of today's proverb. The phrase multa fercula, "many dishes," is neuter plural, so it is ambiguously either nominative or accusative. When you look at the other phrase, multos morbos, "many diseases," you can see that it is unambiguously accusative. With morbos as the accusative object of an implied verb, you are left with fercula as the nominative subject of an implied verb: "many dishes bring on many diseases," or something like that.
The Latin word ferculum is actually derived from the verb ferre, "to carry," the idea being that the ferculum is the tray or dish on which the food is carried (the word is not limited to food: the ferculum is a tray or litter that can be used for all kinds of purposes). So, ferculum is closer to the idea of a "course" of food rather than a single dish, in the sense that a single tray could be carried out with a variety of foods on the tray, which constituted that particular "course" of the meal.
Yet even though ferculum is more precisely a course rather than a dish, I chose to use the word "dish" in the English translation of today's saying in order to get the nice English word-play between "dish" and "disease." Given the many times I've had to sacrifice the Latin word-play when translating a saying into English, it's nice to be able to get some extra word-play in this particular English translation, as if by way of compensation!
Of course with the multa...multos and the alliterative multos morbos, there's still plenty of word-play in the Latin too:
79. Multa fercula, multos morbos.
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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I thought this saying would be a perfect follow-up to yesterday's proverb, Cibus non qui plurimus, sed qui suavissimus, "Food: not the largest quantity but the most pleasant." If you ignore that good advice, you can probably expect to run into the danger pointed out in today's saying.
As someone who had dinner at Old Chicago Pizza (yes, I really did eat an entire spinach-artichoke calzone!), I might be learning this lesson myself later tonight!
It's worth noting a very important grammatical feature of today's proverb. The phrase multa fercula, "many dishes," is neuter plural, so it is ambiguously either nominative or accusative. When you look at the other phrase, multos morbos, "many diseases," you can see that it is unambiguously accusative. With morbos as the accusative object of an implied verb, you are left with fercula as the nominative subject of an implied verb: "many dishes bring on many diseases," or something like that.
The Latin word ferculum is actually derived from the verb ferre, "to carry," the idea being that the ferculum is the tray or dish on which the food is carried (the word is not limited to food: the ferculum is a tray or litter that can be used for all kinds of purposes). So, ferculum is closer to the idea of a "course" of food rather than a single dish, in the sense that a single tray could be carried out with a variety of foods on the tray, which constituted that particular "course" of the meal.
Yet even though ferculum is more precisely a course rather than a dish, I chose to use the word "dish" in the English translation of today's saying in order to get the nice English word-play between "dish" and "disease." Given the many times I've had to sacrifice the Latin word-play when translating a saying into English, it's nice to be able to get some extra word-play in this particular English translation, as if by way of compensation!
Of course with the multa...multos and the alliterative multos morbos, there's still plenty of word-play in the Latin too:
79. Multa fercula, multos morbos.
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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April 18, 2007
Cibus non qui plurimus, sed qui suavissimus
In English: Food: not the largest quantity but the most pleasant.
The link between today's proverb and yesterday's saying is the word plurimus. This word is the superlative form of multus, working in tandem in today's saying with suavissimus, the superlative of suavis. I guess you could call this the opposite of "supersize me" in Latin, the idea being to eat not as much as possible, but rather to eat as well as possible.
The Latin adjective suavis is etymologically related to the English word "sweet." You can see that it is a quite productive root in Latin, found in various compounds such as suaviloquens, "sweet-speaking," suaveolens, "sweet-smelling," and so on. It is also the root lurking in the verb suadere, meaning "to recommend," in other words, "to make sweet" for someone. There is then a whole series of nouns and adjectives derived from this verbal root, such as suadela, "persuasion," suadus, "persuasive," and so on.
In English, we end up with the elegant word "suave," which entered our language during the Renaissance. Originally, English "suave" meant sweet or tasty, much as in today's Latin saying about food. The OED offers this delightful citation from Charlotte Bronte in 1849: To whom the husky oat-cake was from custom suave as manna (I'm actually a big fan of oat-cakes myself!).
Later on, the English word "suave" came to mean something more like sophisticated or urbane, pleasantly agreeable. There's a quite interesting citation in the OED for this meaning as well - it's W.E.B. DuBois writing in The Souls of Black Folk, "We cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and suaveness." In other words, some tough talk rather than mere pleasantries, will be required to tangle with the problem of racism in America.
So, just as in the range of Latin words from suavis to suadela, the range of usage in the English "suave" shows that sometimes sweetness is a matter of taste, and sometimes a matter of temperament.
So, hoping you had a most suavis supper this evening, here is today's proverb read out loud:
924. Cibus non qui plurimus, sed qui suavissimus.
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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The link between today's proverb and yesterday's saying is the word plurimus. This word is the superlative form of multus, working in tandem in today's saying with suavissimus, the superlative of suavis. I guess you could call this the opposite of "supersize me" in Latin, the idea being to eat not as much as possible, but rather to eat as well as possible.
The Latin adjective suavis is etymologically related to the English word "sweet." You can see that it is a quite productive root in Latin, found in various compounds such as suaviloquens, "sweet-speaking," suaveolens, "sweet-smelling," and so on. It is also the root lurking in the verb suadere, meaning "to recommend," in other words, "to make sweet" for someone. There is then a whole series of nouns and adjectives derived from this verbal root, such as suadela, "persuasion," suadus, "persuasive," and so on.
In English, we end up with the elegant word "suave," which entered our language during the Renaissance. Originally, English "suave" meant sweet or tasty, much as in today's Latin saying about food. The OED offers this delightful citation from Charlotte Bronte in 1849: To whom the husky oat-cake was from custom suave as manna (I'm actually a big fan of oat-cakes myself!).
Later on, the English word "suave" came to mean something more like sophisticated or urbane, pleasantly agreeable. There's a quite interesting citation in the OED for this meaning as well - it's W.E.B. DuBois writing in The Souls of Black Folk, "We cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and suaveness." In other words, some tough talk rather than mere pleasantries, will be required to tangle with the problem of racism in America.
So, just as in the range of Latin words from suavis to suadela, the range of usage in the English "suave" shows that sometimes sweetness is a matter of taste, and sometimes a matter of temperament.
So, hoping you had a most suavis supper this evening, here is today's proverb read out loud:
924. Cibus non qui plurimus, sed qui suavissimus.
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.
April 17, 2007
Corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges
In English: The most corrupt state, the most laws.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying, leges sine moribus vanae, "laws without character are worthless." Taken together, I think these sayings both provide an apt critique of the problems we are facing in our society, problems that reach a crisis point in situations like the shootings at Virginia Tech. Yesterday's saying asserted that it is not laws which provide a solid foundation for society, but rather the characters of the people who constitute that society. Today's saying approaches the problem from a different angle: as a society suffers more and more from people's failure of character, it tends to make more and more laws... which are not able to solve the underlying problem.
The Latin saying comes from the Roman historian Tacitus (read more about Tacitus at wikipedia), in his Annals. The saying caps a historical digression, when Tacitus shifts the discussion from contemporary Rome to a backward-looking perspective, seeking causes in the past for the corruption Tacitus saw in the present day.
According to Tacitus, at the dawn of time, humanity lived at peace, with no need for laws: Vetustissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libidine, sine probro, scelere eoque sine poena aut coercitionibus agebant, "The most ancient people lived as yet without any evil passion, without shame, without crime and hence without punishment or coercive measures." In the same way that negative reinforcement was not required, positive reinforcement was also not necessary: neque praemiis opus erat cum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur, "nor was there any need of rewards, since right-minded things were sought out as a natural tendency." Tacitus then makes what strikes me as a very profound observation: ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantur, "when they desired nothing that went against customary conduct (mos), they were prohibited nothing because of fear."
This seems to me a crucial point: when there is a crisis of character, of habit, or personal inclination, then fear enters into the equation, and a vicious cycle begins. Fear begets weakness, crime, and all kinds of failure, fostering a breakdown of what could and should be guaranteed by human nature, the mos that is a primary foundation of human existence.
For example: my university today was reeling from the almost ridiculous effects of fear in the wake of the terrible shootings at Virginia Tech. At about 9:30 a.m. this morning, the campus was shut down, all buildings locked, a flurry of emergency emails sent to tens of thousands of people... all because of a "suspicious" person observed carrying a "suspicious" package. Then it was announced that the suspicious package was apparently a yoga mat. And then the man himself called police and explained: it was actually an umbrella. Yes, the man was carrying an umbrella (it rained all day today), and thus he struck fear into the heart of the campus administration. Read all about it, if you want, at the OU Daily.
Back to Tacitus. With fear comes a retreat from equality, replaced by ambition and by violence, ambitio et vis. This led to a situation where people then made kings and despots for themselves. They then grew tired of kings, and replaced the kings with laws. Tacitus provides a long list of legendary lawgivers: Minos, Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus and finally Servius Tullius.
Yet Roman society grew still worse and worse, with Tarquin provoking the establishment of decemvirs and new laws, such as the Twelve Tables, which Tacitus calls finis aequi iuris, "the last of equal law." As Roman society continued its downward spiral, it reached the point described in today's saying: corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges, "The most corrupt state, the most laws."
Tacitus is not an author whom I know well at all, but I really enjoyed looking at this passage, and seeing this overview - part mythological, part historical - which Tacitus proposed as an aetiology for the crisis in Roman society which he saw around him. What kind of aetiology - mythological or historical - would we provide for the serious problems clearly afflicting our society today, I wonder?
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
764. Corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges.
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. You can also hear this saying read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's saying, leges sine moribus vanae, "laws without character are worthless." Taken together, I think these sayings both provide an apt critique of the problems we are facing in our society, problems that reach a crisis point in situations like the shootings at Virginia Tech. Yesterday's saying asserted that it is not laws which provide a solid foundation for society, but rather the characters of the people who constitute that society. Today's saying approaches the problem from a different angle: as a society suffers more and more from people's failure of character, it tends to make more and more laws... which are not able to solve the underlying problem.
The Latin saying comes from the Roman historian Tacitus (read more about Tacitus at wikipedia), in his Annals. The saying caps a historical digression, when Tacitus shifts the discussion from contemporary Rome to a backward-looking perspective, seeking causes in the past for the corruption Tacitus saw in the present day.
According to Tacitus, at the dawn of time, humanity lived at peace, with no need for laws: Vetustissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libidine, sine probro, scelere eoque sine poena aut coercitionibus agebant, "The most ancient people lived as yet without any evil passion, without shame, without crime and hence without punishment or coercive measures." In the same way that negative reinforcement was not required, positive reinforcement was also not necessary: neque praemiis opus erat cum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur, "nor was there any need of rewards, since right-minded things were sought out as a natural tendency." Tacitus then makes what strikes me as a very profound observation: ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantur, "when they desired nothing that went against customary conduct (mos), they were prohibited nothing because of fear."
This seems to me a crucial point: when there is a crisis of character, of habit, or personal inclination, then fear enters into the equation, and a vicious cycle begins. Fear begets weakness, crime, and all kinds of failure, fostering a breakdown of what could and should be guaranteed by human nature, the mos that is a primary foundation of human existence.
For example: my university today was reeling from the almost ridiculous effects of fear in the wake of the terrible shootings at Virginia Tech. At about 9:30 a.m. this morning, the campus was shut down, all buildings locked, a flurry of emergency emails sent to tens of thousands of people... all because of a "suspicious" person observed carrying a "suspicious" package. Then it was announced that the suspicious package was apparently a yoga mat. And then the man himself called police and explained: it was actually an umbrella. Yes, the man was carrying an umbrella (it rained all day today), and thus he struck fear into the heart of the campus administration. Read all about it, if you want, at the OU Daily.
Back to Tacitus. With fear comes a retreat from equality, replaced by ambition and by violence, ambitio et vis. This led to a situation where people then made kings and despots for themselves. They then grew tired of kings, and replaced the kings with laws. Tacitus provides a long list of legendary lawgivers: Minos, Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus and finally Servius Tullius.
Yet Roman society grew still worse and worse, with Tarquin provoking the establishment of decemvirs and new laws, such as the Twelve Tables, which Tacitus calls finis aequi iuris, "the last of equal law." As Roman society continued its downward spiral, it reached the point described in today's saying: corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges, "The most corrupt state, the most laws."
Tacitus is not an author whom I know well at all, but I really enjoyed looking at this passage, and seeing this overview - part mythological, part historical - which Tacitus proposed as an aetiology for the crisis in Roman society which he saw around him. What kind of aetiology - mythological or historical - would we provide for the serious problems clearly afflicting our society today, I wonder?
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
764. Corruptissima respublica, plurimae leges.
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. You can also hear this saying read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
April 16, 2007
Leges sine moribus vanae
In English: Laws without character are worthless.
I'm guessing that most of the readers of this blog are either teachers or students, and so they have been struck today by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech University. It's certainly been on my mind all day today, and I know my students have been thinking about it too; it's been the dominant theme in their blog postings today.
So, I wanted to post a Latin proverb today that offers some perspective on the situation. There are so many tragedies here, and so many different perspectives that one can take. I was prompted to choose this proverb because of the reaction at my university here, in Norman, Oklahoma. Very shortly after the news broke, the president of the university, David Boren (a former governor of the state, and former U.S. Senator) issued an email to the entire university community. Here is what it said: "As an extra security precaution in light of the tragic events at Virginia Tech University, the security doors in our residence halls will be locked 24 hours a day for the remainder of the semester and require an ID card or room key for access."
That is the entire message that was sent. I was so disappointed by this. The rush to make new rules, as if we have accomplished something by doing that, strikes me as misguided at best, and self-serving more than anything else. We need something from the heart here; that message does not come from the heart. This is a problem of the heart, and I believe it needs a heartfelt response. We are here at the university because of something we believe in, and what happened in Virginia, violates what we believe in. We need to affirm our beliefs, despite this terrible event. We will keep on being teachers and kept on being students because we do believe that we can work together, educating ourselves and each other
Something went terribly wrong today, and it is undeniably a symptom of something wrong with human relationships in our society, with the inner rules that govern people's lives, Latin mores. The problem is not a lack of laws, Latin leges, but some staggering gap in our capacity to be human beings, building a society together.
My university is definitely not immune to this crisis of the heart. Last year, a student blew himself up on this campus. Yes, he packed explosives on his body and blew himself up right in the middle of our campus. It provoked a brief media frenzy, but the feeding frenzy of the media requires an endless supply of fresh violence, and I'm guessing many people don't remember much about the OU student bomber, Joel Henry Hinrichs III. A National Merit Scholar. A fraternity member. To this day, it is not clear if he was trying to get into the football stadium - it was a game day - in order to detonate the bomb there, killing others. Perhaps he only meant to kill himself. We heard the explosion here at home, about three miles from campus.
I don't have a solution to any of this, but I do not think locking our dorms does anything to help. The president of our university took this opportunity to communicate with the students, faculty and staff of the university today in a vitally important way and it was squandered on law, rather than character.
Better by far was this statement in Wesley Fryer's blog. If you are not already overwhelmed by the news from Virginia Tech, I highly recommend his reflections. It expresses many of the concerns I feel and questions I am pondering.
If you are wondering about the classical source for the proverb, it is adapted from Horace: quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?, "what profit laws, empty, when they are without character?" In this form - leges sine moribus vanae - the saying is the motto of the University of Pennsylvania.
So here is today's proverb read out loud:
352. Leges sine moribus vanae.
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. You can also hear this saying in an alternate form - quid leges sine moribus? - read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
I'm guessing that most of the readers of this blog are either teachers or students, and so they have been struck today by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech University. It's certainly been on my mind all day today, and I know my students have been thinking about it too; it's been the dominant theme in their blog postings today.
So, I wanted to post a Latin proverb today that offers some perspective on the situation. There are so many tragedies here, and so many different perspectives that one can take. I was prompted to choose this proverb because of the reaction at my university here, in Norman, Oklahoma. Very shortly after the news broke, the president of the university, David Boren (a former governor of the state, and former U.S. Senator) issued an email to the entire university community. Here is what it said: "As an extra security precaution in light of the tragic events at Virginia Tech University, the security doors in our residence halls will be locked 24 hours a day for the remainder of the semester and require an ID card or room key for access."
That is the entire message that was sent. I was so disappointed by this. The rush to make new rules, as if we have accomplished something by doing that, strikes me as misguided at best, and self-serving more than anything else. We need something from the heart here; that message does not come from the heart. This is a problem of the heart, and I believe it needs a heartfelt response. We are here at the university because of something we believe in, and what happened in Virginia, violates what we believe in. We need to affirm our beliefs, despite this terrible event. We will keep on being teachers and kept on being students because we do believe that we can work together, educating ourselves and each other
Something went terribly wrong today, and it is undeniably a symptom of something wrong with human relationships in our society, with the inner rules that govern people's lives, Latin mores. The problem is not a lack of laws, Latin leges, but some staggering gap in our capacity to be human beings, building a society together.
My university is definitely not immune to this crisis of the heart. Last year, a student blew himself up on this campus. Yes, he packed explosives on his body and blew himself up right in the middle of our campus. It provoked a brief media frenzy, but the feeding frenzy of the media requires an endless supply of fresh violence, and I'm guessing many people don't remember much about the OU student bomber, Joel Henry Hinrichs III. A National Merit Scholar. A fraternity member. To this day, it is not clear if he was trying to get into the football stadium - it was a game day - in order to detonate the bomb there, killing others. Perhaps he only meant to kill himself. We heard the explosion here at home, about three miles from campus.
I don't have a solution to any of this, but I do not think locking our dorms does anything to help. The president of our university took this opportunity to communicate with the students, faculty and staff of the university today in a vitally important way and it was squandered on law, rather than character.
Better by far was this statement in Wesley Fryer's blog. If you are not already overwhelmed by the news from Virginia Tech, I highly recommend his reflections. It expresses many of the concerns I feel and questions I am pondering.
If you are wondering about the classical source for the proverb, it is adapted from Horace: quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?, "what profit laws, empty, when they are without character?" In this form - leges sine moribus vanae - the saying is the motto of the University of Pennsylvania.
So here is today's proverb read out loud:
352. Leges sine moribus vanae.
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. You can also hear this saying in an alternate form - quid leges sine moribus? - read aloud at a Polish website: Wladyslawa Kopalinskiego Slownik wyraz?w obcych i zwrot?w obcojezycznych (weblink).
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.
April 14, 2007
Aliis lingua, aliis dentes
In English: Some people have got tongues, other people have got teeth.
I thought this would be a good saying to follow-up on the previous days' posts about forms of alius. Today's proverb uses the dative in a way that is typically Latin, so that no verb is required. Literally, it would mean "to some [there is] a tongue; to others [there are] teeth." You can also find variants on this saying: Aliis lingua, aliis vero molares, "For some, a tongue; for others, indeed, molars," etc.
Given that it is expressed so elliptically, this is one of those proverbs which does not give you a lot of clues about its possible applications. One of the applications discussed by Erasmus in his citation of this proverb in the Adagia is at banquets: at banquets, some people come to talk and talk (lingua), while others come to eat and eat (dentes).
After having spent much of yesterday at a wedding reception, I can affirm that this is definitely the case. You can classify people as being with the party of the bride or the groom, of course - but you could also make a handy classification between the tongues and the teeth, the talkers and the eaters. There are other Latin sayings that express this same basic idea: Alteri loquaces, alteri voraces, "Some are talkers, others are eaters," or Illi enim loquaces, hi voraces, "Those, in fact, are talkers; these are eaters."
Of course, the dining arena is not the only way that this proverb can be applied. The powers of metaphor are multifarious, and it is just a matter of your own creativity in how you decide to make use of any proverb's poetic potential. For example, you could imagine this proverb to be a description of the types of people you encounter in your professional life and in your business dealings: they are some people who use their tongues (talk) in order to accomplish their goals, while other people are more ruthless: watch out for those teeth!
The proverb does not say which is more dangerous, of course. There is no guarantee that someone cannot do just as much harm with threatening words (tongue) as they might do with threatening deeds (teeth). Compare the Biblical saying from the Book of Psalms: dentes eorum lancea et sagittae et lingua eorum gladius acutus, "their teeth are a spear and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword."
Of course, not all words are weapons! So, here is today's proverb read out loud - with no sharp edges, I promise:
817. Aliis lingua, aliis dentes.
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.
I thought this would be a good saying to follow-up on the previous days' posts about forms of alius. Today's proverb uses the dative in a way that is typically Latin, so that no verb is required. Literally, it would mean "to some [there is] a tongue; to others [there are] teeth." You can also find variants on this saying: Aliis lingua, aliis vero molares, "For some, a tongue; for others, indeed, molars," etc.
Given that it is expressed so elliptically, this is one of those proverbs which does not give you a lot of clues about its possible applications. One of the applications discussed by Erasmus in his citation of this proverb in the Adagia is at banquets: at banquets, some people come to talk and talk (lingua), while others come to eat and eat (dentes).
After having spent much of yesterday at a wedding reception, I can affirm that this is definitely the case. You can classify people as being with the party of the bride or the groom, of course - but you could also make a handy classification between the tongues and the teeth, the talkers and the eaters. There are other Latin sayings that express this same basic idea: Alteri loquaces, alteri voraces, "Some are talkers, others are eaters," or Illi enim loquaces, hi voraces, "Those, in fact, are talkers; these are eaters."
Of course, the dining arena is not the only way that this proverb can be applied. The powers of metaphor are multifarious, and it is just a matter of your own creativity in how you decide to make use of any proverb's poetic potential. For example, you could imagine this proverb to be a description of the types of people you encounter in your professional life and in your business dealings: they are some people who use their tongues (talk) in order to accomplish their goals, while other people are more ruthless: watch out for those teeth!
The proverb does not say which is more dangerous, of course. There is no guarantee that someone cannot do just as much harm with threatening words (tongue) as they might do with threatening deeds (teeth). Compare the Biblical saying from the Book of Psalms: dentes eorum lancea et sagittae et lingua eorum gladius acutus, "their teeth are a spear and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword."
Of course, not all words are weapons! So, here is today's proverb read out loud - with no sharp edges, I promise:
817. Aliis lingua, aliis dentes.
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.
April 13, 2007
Alius est amor, alius cupido
In English: Love is one thing, desire another.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to the previous proverb - Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet, "Desire urges one thing, reason another" - for various reasons, both thematical and grammatical.
In terms of theme, the previous proverb set up an opposition between cupido, "Cupid, desire," and mens, "the mind, reason." Today's proverb sets up a different kind of opposition, that between desire and amor, "love." Both terms, love and desire, amor and cupido, are widely used in Latin, and are part of very productive semantic systems. With amor goes the verb amare, "to love," the noun amator, "lover," and so on. With cupido goes the verb cupere, "to long for, desire," the adjective cupidus, "desirous, passionate," etc.
Given that the English words "love" and "desire" do a very good job of expressing this different, the meaning of this Latin saying comes through quite clearly for us. Yet it is worth pointing out that the English word "desire" comes to us by way of a different Latin verb, desiderare. The word "desire" and its related forms is far more important in English than any of the words derived from Latin cupido, such as English cupidity, concupiscence, etc.
In terms of grammar, it is definitely worth noting how the word alius, masculine, is being used in today's proverb, as opposed to the use of aliud, neuter, in yesterday's saying. In today's saying, alius is in the predicate, agreeing with the nouns amor and cupido. Because these are both masculine nouns, the masculine form alius is used in the predicate. In yesterday's proverb - Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet, "Desire urges one thing, reason another" - the word aliud, meaning "another thing," is the neuter object of the verb, suadet.
So, as a result, in one proverb you get alius cupido and in the other proverb you find aliud cupido. This is because word order and proximity do not mean anything in terms of Latin grammar. In alius cupido you are dealing with a noun and a predicate pronoun that stand next to each other in the sentence. In aliud cupido, you are dealing with a noun and a direct object that stand next to each other in the sentence. The fact that the words stand next to each other does not mean anything in terms of grammar. Instead, you have to use the word endings and the syntax to reveal what the actual grammatical structure is in each instance.
So, hoping you experience some sweet love today instead of just the sting of Cupid's arrows, here is today's proverb read out loud:
810. Alius est amor, alius cupido.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to the previous proverb - Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet, "Desire urges one thing, reason another" - for various reasons, both thematical and grammatical.
In terms of theme, the previous proverb set up an opposition between cupido, "Cupid, desire," and mens, "the mind, reason." Today's proverb sets up a different kind of opposition, that between desire and amor, "love." Both terms, love and desire, amor and cupido, are widely used in Latin, and are part of very productive semantic systems. With amor goes the verb amare, "to love," the noun amator, "lover," and so on. With cupido goes the verb cupere, "to long for, desire," the adjective cupidus, "desirous, passionate," etc.
Given that the English words "love" and "desire" do a very good job of expressing this different, the meaning of this Latin saying comes through quite clearly for us. Yet it is worth pointing out that the English word "desire" comes to us by way of a different Latin verb, desiderare. The word "desire" and its related forms is far more important in English than any of the words derived from Latin cupido, such as English cupidity, concupiscence, etc.
In terms of grammar, it is definitely worth noting how the word alius, masculine, is being used in today's proverb, as opposed to the use of aliud, neuter, in yesterday's saying. In today's saying, alius is in the predicate, agreeing with the nouns amor and cupido. Because these are both masculine nouns, the masculine form alius is used in the predicate. In yesterday's proverb - Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet, "Desire urges one thing, reason another" - the word aliud, meaning "another thing," is the neuter object of the verb, suadet.
So, as a result, in one proverb you get alius cupido and in the other proverb you find aliud cupido. This is because word order and proximity do not mean anything in terms of Latin grammar. In alius cupido you are dealing with a noun and a predicate pronoun that stand next to each other in the sentence. In aliud cupido, you are dealing with a noun and a direct object that stand next to each other in the sentence. The fact that the words stand next to each other does not mean anything in terms of grammar. Instead, you have to use the word endings and the syntax to reveal what the actual grammatical structure is in each instance.
So, hoping you experience some sweet love today instead of just the sting of Cupid's arrows, here is today's proverb read out loud:
810. Alius est amor, alius cupido.
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.
April 11, 2007
Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet
In English: Desire urges one thing, reason another.
Like yesterday's proverb, today's saying uses the coordinating pronouns aliud...aliud, "one thing... another thing..." as the objects of the verb suadet, with the nouns cupido and mens as the subject of the verb.
The passage comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of Medea and Jason. Medea exclaims:
Yet for the ancient Romans, Mens was a goddess, known also as Bona Mens, "Good Mind." She had a festival on June 8 (a. d. VI Idus Iun.), and she had a temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, dating back to the third century B.C.E. (You can read an account in Livy of the temple for "Good Mind," founded after the battle of Trasimenus during the Second Punic War.)
It is fun to speculate just what a fully personified "Good Mind" might look like, juxtaposed with the familiar image of Cupid, the young boy toting his arrows. If you are a Latin teacher, that might be a fun classroom activity: you could review the literature and iconography of Cupid, and then imagine just what the iconography of "Good Mind" could convey! Perhaps "Good Mind" would be like the depiction of medieval angels based on Aquinas's assertion that the angels had an intelligence without body, prompting artists to depict them as heads with wings, but no body from the neck down!
So, as you listen to today's proverb, try to imagine just what that "Good Mind" looks like, urging Medea to come to her senses! Here is the proverb read out loud:
1511. Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet.
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.
Like yesterday's proverb, today's saying uses the coordinating pronouns aliud...aliud, "one thing... another thing..." as the objects of the verb suadet, with the nouns cupido and mens as the subject of the verb.
The passage comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of Medea and Jason. Medea exclaims:
sed trahit invitam nova vis, aliudque cupido,The Latin actually says cupido, "Cupid," which I have translated here as "Desire," although I could justifiably have said "Cupid" in English. This is a fascinating problem in translating the Latin, in fact. We are used to the idea of "Cupid" in English, toting around his arrows, making people fall in love (whether they like it or not!), but the same is not as true of the other noun in the sentence, Mens, "mind, reason, understanding." We do not have a ready-made divine personification of "Mens" that is a counterpart to "Cupid."
mens aliud suadet: video meliora proboque,
deteriora sequor...
Some strange force pulls me, unwilling; Desire urges one thing, Reason another. I see what is better, and I approve it, but I pursue what is worse.
Yet for the ancient Romans, Mens was a goddess, known also as Bona Mens, "Good Mind." She had a festival on June 8 (a. d. VI Idus Iun.), and she had a temple on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, dating back to the third century B.C.E. (You can read an account in Livy of the temple for "Good Mind," founded after the battle of Trasimenus during the Second Punic War.)
It is fun to speculate just what a fully personified "Good Mind" might look like, juxtaposed with the familiar image of Cupid, the young boy toting his arrows. If you are a Latin teacher, that might be a fun classroom activity: you could review the literature and iconography of Cupid, and then imagine just what the iconography of "Good Mind" could convey! Perhaps "Good Mind" would be like the depiction of medieval angels based on Aquinas's assertion that the angels had an intelligence without body, prompting artists to depict them as heads with wings, but no body from the neck down!
So, as you listen to today's proverb, try to imagine just what that "Good Mind" looks like, urging Medea to come to her senses! Here is the proverb read out loud:
1511. Aliud cupido, mens aliud suadet.
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.
April 10, 2007
Aliud ex alio malum
In English: One bad thing from another.
After yesterday's proverb from Terence's Andria, I thought I would use a saying found in Terence's Eunuchus for today.
The saying means something like the English exclamation, "one bad thing after another!", in the sense that when things start going wrong, all kinds of things start to go wrong. The Latin phrase as cited here does not have a verb, but you can also find variants of the Latin saying that do include a verb: Aliud ex alio malum gignitur, "one bad thing is spawned from another," or Aliud oritur ex alio malum, "one bad thing arises from another," Aliud ex alio malum nascitur, "one bad thing is born from another," etc.
One of the big hurdles that Latin students face as they get started is coming to grips with the Latin demonstrative pronouns and adjectives, like the word aliud here in today's saying. This is the neuter form, agreeing with malum. A word like aliud is distinctively odd in Latin, ending as it does with the letter "d." Yet if you can just remember the familiar neuter pronoun id (made so famous by Freud!), then you will have a good clue for remembering that aliud is a neuter form. You can also remember illud and istud this way. And don't forget quod and quid.
It's always easier to remember things by analogy, so just keep them all these neuter pronouns in mind together: id, quid, quod, illud, istud, aliud. And if you still feel a fundamental hostility to Latin pronouns, just remember today's saying: one bad thing follows another... there are indeed lots of Latin pronouns to learn, one after another!
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
813. Aliud ex alio malum.
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.
After yesterday's proverb from Terence's Andria, I thought I would use a saying found in Terence's Eunuchus for today.
The saying means something like the English exclamation, "one bad thing after another!", in the sense that when things start going wrong, all kinds of things start to go wrong. The Latin phrase as cited here does not have a verb, but you can also find variants of the Latin saying that do include a verb: Aliud ex alio malum gignitur, "one bad thing is spawned from another," or Aliud oritur ex alio malum, "one bad thing arises from another," Aliud ex alio malum nascitur, "one bad thing is born from another," etc.
One of the big hurdles that Latin students face as they get started is coming to grips with the Latin demonstrative pronouns and adjectives, like the word aliud here in today's saying. This is the neuter form, agreeing with malum. A word like aliud is distinctively odd in Latin, ending as it does with the letter "d." Yet if you can just remember the familiar neuter pronoun id (made so famous by Freud!), then you will have a good clue for remembering that aliud is a neuter form. You can also remember illud and istud this way. And don't forget quod and quid.
It's always easier to remember things by analogy, so just keep them all these neuter pronouns in mind together: id, quid, quod, illud, istud, aliud. And if you still feel a fundamental hostility to Latin pronouns, just remember today's saying: one bad thing follows another... there are indeed lots of Latin pronouns to learn, one after another!
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
813. Aliud ex alio malum.
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.
April 09, 2007
Proximus sum egomet mihi
In English: I myself am closest to myself.
After yesterday's post from Terence's Andria, I thought I would include another saying from the same play.
As you will recall from yesterday's plot summary, the young man, Charinus, is in love with a woman who is engaged to be married to his best friend (his best friend, however, is in love with the disreputable "girl from Andros" of the play's title). As Charinus realizes that he has been betrayed, he confronts the fact that everyone is fundamentally selfish and he was perhaps foolish to have expected his friend to have changed his wedding plans in order to accommodate Charinus's affections.
Here, then, are the words that Charinus imagines he can hear on the lips of the friend who has betrayed him (even though, in fact, no real betrayal has taken place): quis tu es? quis mihi es? quor meam tibi? heus proxumus sum egomet mihi,, "Who are YOU? Who are you to me? Why [should I yield] mine to you? By god, I myself am closest to myself."
Originally, Charinus expected his friend to act, not in his own interest, but in an altruistic manner, deferring to the fact that Charinus is madly in love with his own fiancee. With these words, Charinus now realizes that true altruism is hard to find in this world! Instead, there is rampant egotism, proxumus sum egomet mihi.
The language of Roman comedy is often a bit difficult for beginning Latin students, who are used to having things always spelled the same way. Here in Terence, instead of the expected proximus, you have proxumus. This is simply because spelling is not an exact science, especialy when it comes to unstressed short vowels! Eventually, -imus because the standard spelling for the superlative in Latin, although you can find forms such as proxumus, maxumus, etc. in archaic Latin.
The emperor Claudius, who had quite an interest in the Latin language, realized that there were not enough letters to keep up with the sounds of the Latin language as he knew it. As a result, he proposed that three new letters be added to the Latin language! It seems likely one of those letters was intended precisely for the vowel that was in-between "i" and "u" in pronunciation, accounting for the sound that fluctuated between "i" and "u" in Latin orthography.
English, of course, suffers from the same problems and the most famous promoter of a reform in English orthography was Ben Franklin! The “Franklin Fonetic” alphabet would consist of 26 letters, like our existing alphabet, but he proposed removing 6 of the letters and replacing them with new letters of his own devising. You can read a discussion of Franklin's alphabet online here, and Franklin's own writing on the subject is also available online.
So here is today's proverb read out loud, with the standard classical spelling proximus:
770. Proximus sum egomet mihi.
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.
After yesterday's post from Terence's Andria, I thought I would include another saying from the same play.
As you will recall from yesterday's plot summary, the young man, Charinus, is in love with a woman who is engaged to be married to his best friend (his best friend, however, is in love with the disreputable "girl from Andros" of the play's title). As Charinus realizes that he has been betrayed, he confronts the fact that everyone is fundamentally selfish and he was perhaps foolish to have expected his friend to have changed his wedding plans in order to accommodate Charinus's affections.
Here, then, are the words that Charinus imagines he can hear on the lips of the friend who has betrayed him (even though, in fact, no real betrayal has taken place): quis tu es? quis mihi es? quor meam tibi? heus proxumus sum egomet mihi,, "Who are YOU? Who are you to me? Why [should I yield] mine to you? By god, I myself am closest to myself."
Originally, Charinus expected his friend to act, not in his own interest, but in an altruistic manner, deferring to the fact that Charinus is madly in love with his own fiancee. With these words, Charinus now realizes that true altruism is hard to find in this world! Instead, there is rampant egotism, proxumus sum egomet mihi.
The language of Roman comedy is often a bit difficult for beginning Latin students, who are used to having things always spelled the same way. Here in Terence, instead of the expected proximus, you have proxumus. This is simply because spelling is not an exact science, especialy when it comes to unstressed short vowels! Eventually, -imus because the standard spelling for the superlative in Latin, although you can find forms such as proxumus, maxumus, etc. in archaic Latin.
The emperor Claudius, who had quite an interest in the Latin language, realized that there were not enough letters to keep up with the sounds of the Latin language as he knew it. As a result, he proposed that three new letters be added to the Latin language! It seems likely one of those letters was intended precisely for the vowel that was in-between "i" and "u" in pronunciation, accounting for the sound that fluctuated between "i" and "u" in Latin orthography.
English, of course, suffers from the same problems and the most famous promoter of a reform in English orthography was Ben Franklin! The “Franklin Fonetic” alphabet would consist of 26 letters, like our existing alphabet, but he proposed removing 6 of the letters and replacing them with new letters of his own devising. You can read a discussion of Franklin's alphabet online here, and Franklin's own writing on the subject is also available online.
So here is today's proverb read out loud, with the standard classical spelling proximus:
770. Proximus sum egomet mihi.
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.
April 08, 2007
Facile omnes cum valemus recta consilia aegrotis damus
In English: We all find it easy to give the right advice to the sick when we are well.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb about how a person's attitude in the world is very much a matter of context. In yesterday's proverb, we saw that when the mouse was full he did not have a very high estimation of common fare. Today's proverb uses the metaphor of sickness and health: we all find it easy to give the right advice to sick people when we are well, we find it easy to give the right advice to poor people when we are rich, easy to give the right advice to students who are failing a class when we are getting an "A" and so on. What you think about the world is based on just who you are and how you are living your own life.
The English saying comes from Terence's comedy, Andria, "the girl from Andros." The story is about a young man, Pamphilus, in love with a disreputable "girl from Andros," although his father has arranged for him to be married to a very respectable girl next door. Just to complicate things, as in any good comedy, the young man's best friend, Charinus, is in love with his betrothed, the girl next door. Of course, everything works out well in the end. It turns out the girl from Andros is really the long lost daughter of the family next daughter, and hence sister to the girl next door. Our hero marries his beloved, his best friend marries the girl next door, and everyone lives happily ever after. Curious? You can read an English translation at Google Books. (Normally, I'd link to the English version at the Perseus website, but the Perseus website has been dead for several days now; I wonder if they will manage to bring it back to life after the latest server crash.)
Today's saying comes up early in the play, when a slave has come to tell Charinus the good news: the Pamphilus is getting married to the girl next door. Charinus, of course, is devastated. The slave advises him to just to put the woman out of his mind: quanto satiust te id dare operam qui istum amorem ex animo amoveas tuo,quam id loqui quo mage lubido frustra incendatur tua!, "how much better it would be for you to direct your efforts to removing that love from your mind, rather than to talk about it, when it only inflames your passion even more, to no avail." Although this is definitely good advice, Charinus explains that it does not do him any good: facile omnes quom valemu' recta consilia aegrotis damus, "We all find it easy to give the right advice to the sick when we are well."
Charinus then goes on to add: tu si hic sis aliter sentias, "you, if you were in my place, would feel differently."
That, indeed, is the unspoken implication of today's saying. We are very good at giving advice to the sick when we are well, but if we ourselves succumb to sickness, all that good advice just goes out the window! It's all a matter of context. If this slave were love-sick, as his master is, he would not find it so easy to keep his mind from turning constantly to thoughts of his beloved.
I will confess to being a great fan of Roman comedies. Even if you are just a beginning Latin student, you can read the wonderful adapted comedy, Auricula Meretricula, "The Little Prostitute Named Earlobe," which reprises the stock characters and basic plot of the comedies. It's easy enough to read in the first semester of Latin, and is great preparation for reading Plautus and Terence later on!
Meanwhile, in honor of Roman comedy, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1560. Facile omnes cum valemus recta consilia aegrotis damus.
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.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb about how a person's attitude in the world is very much a matter of context. In yesterday's proverb, we saw that when the mouse was full he did not have a very high estimation of common fare. Today's proverb uses the metaphor of sickness and health: we all find it easy to give the right advice to sick people when we are well, we find it easy to give the right advice to poor people when we are rich, easy to give the right advice to students who are failing a class when we are getting an "A" and so on. What you think about the world is based on just who you are and how you are living your own life.
The English saying comes from Terence's comedy, Andria, "the girl from Andros." The story is about a young man, Pamphilus, in love with a disreputable "girl from Andros," although his father has arranged for him to be married to a very respectable girl next door. Just to complicate things, as in any good comedy, the young man's best friend, Charinus, is in love with his betrothed, the girl next door. Of course, everything works out well in the end. It turns out the girl from Andros is really the long lost daughter of the family next daughter, and hence sister to the girl next door. Our hero marries his beloved, his best friend marries the girl next door, and everyone lives happily ever after. Curious? You can read an English translation at Google Books. (Normally, I'd link to the English version at the Perseus website, but the Perseus website has been dead for several days now; I wonder if they will manage to bring it back to life after the latest server crash.)
Today's saying comes up early in the play, when a slave has come to tell Charinus the good news: the Pamphilus is getting married to the girl next door. Charinus, of course, is devastated. The slave advises him to just to put the woman out of his mind: quanto satiust te id dare operam qui istum amorem ex animo amoveas tuo,quam id loqui quo mage lubido frustra incendatur tua!, "how much better it would be for you to direct your efforts to removing that love from your mind, rather than to talk about it, when it only inflames your passion even more, to no avail." Although this is definitely good advice, Charinus explains that it does not do him any good: facile omnes quom valemu' recta consilia aegrotis damus, "We all find it easy to give the right advice to the sick when we are well."
Charinus then goes on to add: tu si hic sis aliter sentias, "you, if you were in my place, would feel differently."
That, indeed, is the unspoken implication of today's saying. We are very good at giving advice to the sick when we are well, but if we ourselves succumb to sickness, all that good advice just goes out the window! It's all a matter of context. If this slave were love-sick, as his master is, he would not find it so easy to keep his mind from turning constantly to thoughts of his beloved.
I will confess to being a great fan of Roman comedies. Even if you are just a beginning Latin student, you can read the wonderful adapted comedy, Auricula Meretricula, "The Little Prostitute Named Earlobe," which reprises the stock characters and basic plot of the comedies. It's easy enough to read in the first semester of Latin, and is great preparation for reading Plautus and Terence later on!
Meanwhile, in honor of Roman comedy, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1560. Facile omnes cum valemus recta consilia aegrotis damus.
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.
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