In English: The fingers of the hand are not equal, but all are useful.
I thought this would make a good follow-up to yesterday's saying, which was also about hands and fingers.
Today's proverb is actually one of my favorite sayings in Latin. It combines two things I really value in proverbs: the use of everyday, concrete objects to create a highly suggestive metaphor (I'm not a big fan of proverbs that rely on abstract vocabulary), and it also conveys a truly positive message that focuses on the good in the world (okay, I do enjoy cynical, world-weary sayings too... but positive sayings are even better!).
I found this proverb in the delightful and eccentric book by Augusto Arthaber, Dizionario comparato di proverbi e modi proverbiali. The book is in print and widely available for sale in Italy, so only a partial preview of the book is available at Google Books, but you can see part of the book there.
I should also say something about the nice Latin grammar features of this proverb, since it provides a great object lesson in the tricky ins-and-outs of the fourth declension. The word manus that comes in first position might look like a nominative singular, but it is not: it is a genitive singular, manus digiti, the fingers of the hand. When you look at the word manus without any context, there are four morphological possibilities: nominative singular, genitive singular, nominative plural, and accusative plural. Argh! Not to mention the fact that you might mistake it for the nominative singular of a second declension noun or adjective, which also ends in -us.
In addition to the tricky manus, there is also the word usui, a dative singular form of the fourth declension. It's very useful to associate the ending i with the dative singular, since you will find that in the third and fourth and fifth declensions. Admittedly, the i ending has still other functions in the second declension, but given the superabundance of third declension nouns in Latin, associating i with the dative in your mind is a very good idea.
Given that there are these five declensions in Latin, I was thinking we might even apply the proverb to the five declensions: just as the five fingers of the hand are not equal but all are useful, the same is true of the five declensions of Latin!
So, with due respect to each and every finger and each and every declension, here is today's proverb read out loud:
558. Manus digiti coaequales non sunt, omnes tamen usui.
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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July 31, 2007
Manus operarii corporis, digiti chordarum plectra
In English: The hands are the body's workers, the fingers are pluckers of strings.
Carrying on with the theme of sayings about the hand which I started yesterday, I thought this saying would make a good contribution. It is from the wonderful medieval riddling dialogue, commonly known as the "Dialogue of Alcuin and Pippin," where there is a long series of questions-and-answers about the cosmos, the natural world, and the things found therein, the human body in particular.
Here is the context in which hands and fingers appear, with the questions addressed by P (Pippin) and the answers provided by A (Alcuin):
P. Quid manus? — A. Operarii corporis.
P. Quid sunt digiti? — A. Chordarum plectra.
P. Quid est pulmo? — A. Servator aeris.
P. Quid est cor? — A. Receptaculum vitae.
P. Quid est jecur? — A. Custodia caloris.
What are the hands? They are the body's workers.
What are the fingers? The pluckers of strings.
What is the lung? The keeper of air.
What is the heart? The holder of life.
What is the liver? The guardian of heat.
Intriguing? I will confess that I love this kind of thing, and I borrowed many phrases and riddles from this dialogue in preparing the Latin Via Proverbs book. You can find the complete Latin text of the dialogue from the old Migne edition online, and you can also find a complete English translation online, thanks to the poet-translator Gillian Spraggs!
Riddles have played a profound role in cultures around the world. In my Ancient Indian Epics class each semester, we read the Mahabharata, one of the great epics of India (it contains the Bhagavad-Gita), and you will find there a long riddling dialogue which has a great deal in common with the spirit and even the content of this medieval European dialogue. You can read an English translation online of this famous confrontation between the King Yudhishthira and his father, the god Dharma (Truth), who is concealed as a yaksha guarding the waters of a lake.
Back then to Alcuin's hands and fingers. Take a look at your hand right now: we give it the name "hand," and you can say "hand" and think "this is a hand"... but what is a hand? If you suddenly lost the word "hand" and didn't know the name of this thing, this part of your body, how would you describe it? Well, it is a worker, it does things, makes things, causes things to happen, dressing the body, lifting food to the body's mouth, cleaning the body, etc. It is clearly a worker: the hands, then, are the body's workers.
And what about fingers? If you suddenly did not know the word "finger" and had to say what those strange things are sticking out off the end of your hand, what would you call them? What do they look like? Well surely they are designed to pluck strings, something the fleshy part of the hand could never manage to do. You need the hands to do the work, but the fingers to accomplish the detail, to pluck the strings of the body, of life, of the world, and make them resound.
So, in honor of the Latin digiti, here is today's saying made available to you in DIGITAL audio... let the virtual strings resound!
557. Manus operarii corporis, digiti chordarum plectra.
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.
Carrying on with the theme of sayings about the hand which I started yesterday, I thought this saying would make a good contribution. It is from the wonderful medieval riddling dialogue, commonly known as the "Dialogue of Alcuin and Pippin," where there is a long series of questions-and-answers about the cosmos, the natural world, and the things found therein, the human body in particular.
Here is the context in which hands and fingers appear, with the questions addressed by P (Pippin) and the answers provided by A (Alcuin):
P. Quid manus? — A. Operarii corporis.
P. Quid sunt digiti? — A. Chordarum plectra.
P. Quid est pulmo? — A. Servator aeris.
P. Quid est cor? — A. Receptaculum vitae.
P. Quid est jecur? — A. Custodia caloris.
What are the hands? They are the body's workers.
What are the fingers? The pluckers of strings.
What is the lung? The keeper of air.
What is the heart? The holder of life.
What is the liver? The guardian of heat.
Intriguing? I will confess that I love this kind of thing, and I borrowed many phrases and riddles from this dialogue in preparing the Latin Via Proverbs book. You can find the complete Latin text of the dialogue from the old Migne edition online, and you can also find a complete English translation online, thanks to the poet-translator Gillian Spraggs!
Riddles have played a profound role in cultures around the world. In my Ancient Indian Epics class each semester, we read the Mahabharata, one of the great epics of India (it contains the Bhagavad-Gita), and you will find there a long riddling dialogue which has a great deal in common with the spirit and even the content of this medieval European dialogue. You can read an English translation online of this famous confrontation between the King Yudhishthira and his father, the god Dharma (Truth), who is concealed as a yaksha guarding the waters of a lake.
Back then to Alcuin's hands and fingers. Take a look at your hand right now: we give it the name "hand," and you can say "hand" and think "this is a hand"... but what is a hand? If you suddenly lost the word "hand" and didn't know the name of this thing, this part of your body, how would you describe it? Well, it is a worker, it does things, makes things, causes things to happen, dressing the body, lifting food to the body's mouth, cleaning the body, etc. It is clearly a worker: the hands, then, are the body's workers.
And what about fingers? If you suddenly did not know the word "finger" and had to say what those strange things are sticking out off the end of your hand, what would you call them? What do they look like? Well surely they are designed to pluck strings, something the fleshy part of the hand could never manage to do. You need the hands to do the work, but the fingers to accomplish the detail, to pluck the strings of the body, of life, of the world, and make them resound.
So, in honor of the Latin digiti, here is today's saying made available to you in DIGITAL audio... let the virtual strings resound!
557. Manus operarii corporis, digiti chordarum plectra.
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.
July 30, 2007
Haec manus inimica tyrannis
In English: This hand is hostile to tyrants.
After posting all last week about "ears" in Latin, I thought I would feature a different body part this week: the hand, Latin manus. This is a productive root for many English words, as in "manual labor," etc.
Today's proverb is adapted from a larger saying, Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, "This hand (manus haec, an enemy to tyrants (inimica tyrannis), seeks with the sword ( ense petit) calm peace in freedom (placidam sub libertate quietem)."
In another adapted form, this saying is the motto of the state of Masschusetts: Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, "It seeks by the sword a calm peace in freedom." You can read about the history of this motto in the state of Masschusetts at the great netstate.org website. It was incorporated into the state seal of Massachusetts already in 1775, as you can see in this image of the old state seal.
The Latin original is attributed there to Algernon Sidney, a 17th-century English politician. You can read about his life and political career at wikipedia, which explains that he was convicted of treason and executed in 1683. He was a committed anti-Royalist, and his works apparently exerted quite an influence on American revolutionary thinkers.
Here's another curiosity: Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government is the origin of the phrase "God helps those who help themselves." You can read his Discourses online at constitution.org, and see the famous phrase in context.
That phrase has become one of the best known sayings in the English language (at least in America), thanks to Ben Franklin. As a result of its enormous popularity, many people are convinced (erroneously) that you can find it in the Bible! One of my favorite books of last year is Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy, and this saying is one of the items he used in his "religious literacy quiz."
Meanwhile, hoping you have managed to steer clear of tyrants today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
540. Haec manus inimica tyrannis.
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 posting all last week about "ears" in Latin, I thought I would feature a different body part this week: the hand, Latin manus. This is a productive root for many English words, as in "manual labor," etc.
Today's proverb is adapted from a larger saying, Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, "This hand (manus haec, an enemy to tyrants (inimica tyrannis), seeks with the sword ( ense petit) calm peace in freedom (placidam sub libertate quietem)."
In another adapted form, this saying is the motto of the state of Masschusetts: Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, "It seeks by the sword a calm peace in freedom." You can read about the history of this motto in the state of Masschusetts at the great netstate.org website. It was incorporated into the state seal of Massachusetts already in 1775, as you can see in this image of the old state seal.
The Latin original is attributed there to Algernon Sidney, a 17th-century English politician. You can read about his life and political career at wikipedia, which explains that he was convicted of treason and executed in 1683. He was a committed anti-Royalist, and his works apparently exerted quite an influence on American revolutionary thinkers.
Here's another curiosity: Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government is the origin of the phrase "God helps those who help themselves." You can read his Discourses online at constitution.org, and see the famous phrase in context.
That phrase has become one of the best known sayings in the English language (at least in America), thanks to Ben Franklin. As a result of its enormous popularity, many people are convinced (erroneously) that you can find it in the Bible! One of my favorite books of last year is Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy, and this saying is one of the items he used in his "religious literacy quiz."
Meanwhile, hoping you have managed to steer clear of tyrants today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
540. Haec manus inimica tyrannis.
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.
July 27, 2007
Auribus oculi fideliores sunt
In English: The eyes are more trustworthy than the ears.
Since I have been posting sayings about the ears this week, I thought this would make a good post to finish up that topic. You could compare this Latin saying to the English expression "seeing is believing," the idea being that if you see something with your own eyes, you can be sure of it, but if you have just heard about something, it could simply be a groundless rumor.
You can find an extremely wide range of ways to express this fundamental idea in Latin. For example, instead of stating that the eyes are more reliable than the ears, you can turn it around and say that the ears are less reliable than the eyes: Aures quam oculi minus fidei digni sunt, "Ears are less worthy of trust than eyes."
Also, instead of referring to eyes and ears, you can refer instead to the senses of sight and hearing: Visus fidelior auditu, "Sight is more trustworthy than hearing."
Still, I like better the versions of the saying that involve eyes and ears! Here is a good one that takes a first-person perspective: Arbiter est oculus certior aure meus, "My eye is a more definite judge than my ear."
There are also versions of the saying which put the idea in the context of the legal system and witness testimony, what we could call "hear-say" in English: Testis ex auditu alieno fidem non facit, "A witness testifying from hearing something from someone else does not generate confidence."
You can also express the idea of an "eye-witness" in Latin, as in English: Pluris est oculatus testis unus quam auriti decem, "An eye-witness is worth more than ten ear-witnesses." Of course, we don't have this nice phrase "ear-witness" in English, but it works quite well in Latin.
Meanwhile, so that you can indulge both yours ears and your eyes at this blog, here is today's proverb read out loud:
665. Auribus oculi fideliores sunt.
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.
Since I have been posting sayings about the ears this week, I thought this would make a good post to finish up that topic. You could compare this Latin saying to the English expression "seeing is believing," the idea being that if you see something with your own eyes, you can be sure of it, but if you have just heard about something, it could simply be a groundless rumor.
You can find an extremely wide range of ways to express this fundamental idea in Latin. For example, instead of stating that the eyes are more reliable than the ears, you can turn it around and say that the ears are less reliable than the eyes: Aures quam oculi minus fidei digni sunt, "Ears are less worthy of trust than eyes."
Also, instead of referring to eyes and ears, you can refer instead to the senses of sight and hearing: Visus fidelior auditu, "Sight is more trustworthy than hearing."
Still, I like better the versions of the saying that involve eyes and ears! Here is a good one that takes a first-person perspective: Arbiter est oculus certior aure meus, "My eye is a more definite judge than my ear."
There are also versions of the saying which put the idea in the context of the legal system and witness testimony, what we could call "hear-say" in English: Testis ex auditu alieno fidem non facit, "A witness testifying from hearing something from someone else does not generate confidence."
You can also express the idea of an "eye-witness" in Latin, as in English: Pluris est oculatus testis unus quam auriti decem, "An eye-witness is worth more than ten ear-witnesses." Of course, we don't have this nice phrase "ear-witness" in English, but it works quite well in Latin.
Meanwhile, so that you can indulge both yours ears and your eyes at this blog, here is today's proverb read out loud:
665. Auribus oculi fideliores sunt.
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.
July 26, 2007
Auriculas asini Mida rex habet
In English: King Midas has donkey's ears.
After the previous proverb, which also featured the proverbial ears of the donkey, I thought this saying would make a good follow-up!
Fans of the wonderful Latin text, Auricula Meretricula, will of course recognize the diminutive hear of Latin auris, "ear."Most people today associate King Midas with only one story: the "Midas touch," when King Midas foolishly asked for the power to make everything he touched turn into gold. This led to nothing but disaster, as he discovered when he tried to eat and drink; even the food he touched and the contents of his goblet turned into gold, so that he almost died of starvation as a result of his good fortune. Realizing his terrible mistake, Midas begged the gods to take away the power, and he was told to go bathe in the river Pactolus, which in turn became famous as a river blessed with gold deposits along its banks.
This, however, is not the end of Midas's troubles! He decides to abandon the city and go live in the country, where he had the bad luck to be present at a music contest between Apollo and the rustic god Pan. Although Apollo was declared the winner of the contest, Midas protested, claiming that Pan's music was superior. This made Apollo angry, and he cursed Midas by giving him donkey ears, as donkeys had proverbially no taste in music (a trait perhaps suggested by their raucous braying).
Well, Midas was not happy about those donkey ears, so he covered them up by wearing a turban. As a result, only his barber knew the secret. The barber simply could not keep the secret to himself, however, but he knew Midas would be furious if he were to tell any other person. So, the barber went and dug a hole in the ground and whispered the secret into the hole. Unfortunately, some reeds sprang up in that same spot and the reeds themselves whispered the words "King Midas has donkey ears." So the secret was out, and hence today's proverb!
The story does make an appearance in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but in that version it is not King Midas's barber, but his own wife who betrays his secret.
The story of King Midas and his donkey ears also has a special place in the history of Roman literature. When the Roman satirist Persius included this line about King Midas in one of his poems, it was clearly a veiled reference to the pretensions of the Emperor Nero, who aspired to be a great musician. The philosopehr Lucius Annaeus Cornutus supposedly had the line altered to read, Auriculas asini quis non habet?, "Who does not have a donkey's ears?", thus making the poem an indictment of the fact that each of us does have some deep, dark secret, as opposed to a specific critique of the reigning emperor and his musicianship. You can read more about that incident in this wikipedia article, which notes that in the end Cornutus was banished anyway - trying to appease the Emperor Nero was clearly a losing battle!
So, hoping you have got your turban on tight and a barber you can really trust, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1433. Auriculas asini Mida rex habet.
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 the previous proverb, which also featured the proverbial ears of the donkey, I thought this saying would make a good follow-up!
Fans of the wonderful Latin text, Auricula Meretricula, will of course recognize the diminutive hear of Latin auris, "ear."Most people today associate King Midas with only one story: the "Midas touch," when King Midas foolishly asked for the power to make everything he touched turn into gold. This led to nothing but disaster, as he discovered when he tried to eat and drink; even the food he touched and the contents of his goblet turned into gold, so that he almost died of starvation as a result of his good fortune. Realizing his terrible mistake, Midas begged the gods to take away the power, and he was told to go bathe in the river Pactolus, which in turn became famous as a river blessed with gold deposits along its banks.
This, however, is not the end of Midas's troubles! He decides to abandon the city and go live in the country, where he had the bad luck to be present at a music contest between Apollo and the rustic god Pan. Although Apollo was declared the winner of the contest, Midas protested, claiming that Pan's music was superior. This made Apollo angry, and he cursed Midas by giving him donkey ears, as donkeys had proverbially no taste in music (a trait perhaps suggested by their raucous braying).
Well, Midas was not happy about those donkey ears, so he covered them up by wearing a turban. As a result, only his barber knew the secret. The barber simply could not keep the secret to himself, however, but he knew Midas would be furious if he were to tell any other person. So, the barber went and dug a hole in the ground and whispered the secret into the hole. Unfortunately, some reeds sprang up in that same spot and the reeds themselves whispered the words "King Midas has donkey ears." So the secret was out, and hence today's proverb!
The story does make an appearance in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but in that version it is not King Midas's barber, but his own wife who betrays his secret.
The story of King Midas and his donkey ears also has a special place in the history of Roman literature. When the Roman satirist Persius included this line about King Midas in one of his poems, it was clearly a veiled reference to the pretensions of the Emperor Nero, who aspired to be a great musician. The philosopehr Lucius Annaeus Cornutus supposedly had the line altered to read, Auriculas asini quis non habet?, "Who does not have a donkey's ears?", thus making the poem an indictment of the fact that each of us does have some deep, dark secret, as opposed to a specific critique of the reigning emperor and his musicianship. You can read more about that incident in this wikipedia article, which notes that in the end Cornutus was banished anyway - trying to appease the Emperor Nero was clearly a losing battle!
So, hoping you have got your turban on tight and a barber you can really trust, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1433. Auriculas asini Mida rex habet.
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.
July 24, 2007
E verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellum
In English: We hold a donkey by the ear; we hold fools by their words.
After yesterday's proverb about how the walls have ears, I thought I would dedicate this week to proverbs about ears!
Today's proverb provides a very elegant parallel. Note that, as often in Latin, the verb is not repeated in the parallel phrases: (tenemus) e verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellum. The idea is that donkeys need to be held because they are stubborn and stupid and prone to do things we don't want them to do - but fortunately they come equipped with long ears, so that we can grasp them and grab them. Fools, like donkeys, may not have ears we can grab, but they have notoriously big mouths, and exactly because they talk too much we can grab hold of the foolish things they say and attempt to keep them out of trouble!
Although this saying is not especially famous, it made its way into the Latin textbook Scalae novae, or, A ladder to Latin by D'Arcy Thompson (1829-1902), father of the even more famous Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948), who went on to a remarkable scholar of both the classics and the modern life sciences. Thanks to the miracle of Google Books, you can now read this long out-of-print textbook by Thompson Père online. (Thanks very much to the anonymous commenter, see below, who helped me sort out father and son!)
Meanwhile, prick up your ears for today's proverb read out loud:
1470. E verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellum.
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 about how the walls have ears, I thought I would dedicate this week to proverbs about ears!
Today's proverb provides a very elegant parallel. Note that, as often in Latin, the verb is not repeated in the parallel phrases: (tenemus) e verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellum. The idea is that donkeys need to be held because they are stubborn and stupid and prone to do things we don't want them to do - but fortunately they come equipped with long ears, so that we can grasp them and grab them. Fools, like donkeys, may not have ears we can grab, but they have notoriously big mouths, and exactly because they talk too much we can grab hold of the foolish things they say and attempt to keep them out of trouble!
Although this saying is not especially famous, it made its way into the Latin textbook Scalae novae, or, A ladder to Latin by D'Arcy Thompson (1829-1902), father of the even more famous Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948), who went on to a remarkable scholar of both the classics and the modern life sciences. Thanks to the miracle of Google Books, you can now read this long out-of-print textbook by Thompson Père online. (Thanks very much to the anonymous commenter, see below, who helped me sort out father and son!)
Meanwhile, prick up your ears for today's proverb read out loud:
1470. E verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellum.
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.
July 23, 2007
Parietes habent aures
In English: The walls have ears.
After my previous post about parietes, "walls," I thought this saying would make a good follow-up. The saying "the walls have ears" or "even the walls have ears" is still quite well-known in English, as you can see from this Google Search for the phrase.
The idea, of course, is that even when you think you are alone, someone could be listening! So this saying can be used as a warning to someone you are speaking with, letting them know to be careful what they are saying... since you can never be sure that no one else is listening.With modern electronics, we are used to the idea that rooms could be bugged, with invisible microphones, etc. Yet this Latin saying is found in both ancient and medieval authors, too - as long as there have been people talking, there have been people snooping around, trying to hear conversations that are supposed to be secret.
Consider, for example, this passage in Ammianus Marcellinus, the last great historical writer of ancient Rome. Here, in Book 14 (the first 13 books of his writings are lost), he is writing about events under the reign of Gallus Constantius, "Caesar of the East" during the rule of the emperor Constantius II. Gallus was the youngest son of Julius Constantius, and thus half-brother to the famous Julian the Apostate, who became emperor in 361 A.D. Ammianus has nothing good to say about Gallus, as you can see from this report about Gallus's network of spies and informants:
Meanwhile, no secrets here: you can listen to today's proverb read out loud, without employing hidden surveillance of any kind!
1463. Parietes habent aures.
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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After my previous post about parietes, "walls," I thought this saying would make a good follow-up. The saying "the walls have ears" or "even the walls have ears" is still quite well-known in English, as you can see from this Google Search for the phrase.
The idea, of course, is that even when you think you are alone, someone could be listening! So this saying can be used as a warning to someone you are speaking with, letting them know to be careful what they are saying... since you can never be sure that no one else is listening.With modern electronics, we are used to the idea that rooms could be bugged, with invisible microphones, etc. Yet this Latin saying is found in both ancient and medieval authors, too - as long as there have been people talking, there have been people snooping around, trying to hear conversations that are supposed to be secret.
Consider, for example, this passage in Ammianus Marcellinus, the last great historical writer of ancient Rome. Here, in Book 14 (the first 13 books of his writings are lost), he is writing about events under the reign of Gallus Constantius, "Caesar of the East" during the rule of the emperor Constantius II. Gallus was the youngest son of Julius Constantius, and thus half-brother to the famous Julian the Apostate, who became emperor in 361 A.D. Ammianus has nothing good to say about Gallus, as you can see from this report about Gallus's network of spies and informants:
excogitatum est super his, ut homines quidam ignoti, vilitate ipsa parum cavendi ad colligendos rumores per Antiochiae latera cuncta destinarentur relaturi quae audirent. [...] ideoque etiam parietes arcanorum soli conscii timebantur.Today, we have Homeland Security, but in centuries gone by, it was the spy network of Antioch listening in on conversations, even inside the walls of your house.
After these events, it was devised that certain unknown men, who were little to be feared on account of their utter unimportance, were sent to gather rumores throughout all the corners of Antioch and to report back what they heard. [...] And so even the walls, the lone confidantes of secrets, were feared.
Meanwhile, no secrets here: you can listen to today's proverb read out loud, without employing hidden surveillance of any kind!
1463. Parietes habent aures.
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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July 20, 2007
Parietes amicitiae custodes
In English: Walls are the guardians of friendship.
Continuing on with the theme of proverbs about friendship, today's saying is what you might call a counterpoint to the idea that friends have everything in common. Not so, says today's proverb: you need to keep some things private if you want to be able to preserve your friendship. Hence, walls keep your friendship safe.
This Latin saying always makes me think of the English saying "Good fences make good neighbors" from the Robert Frost poem, "Mending Wall." It's rather long, but I am going to post the whole thing here, since the music of the thing runs right through from start to finish, and I'm loathe to leave any of it out!
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
So, in honor of Frost's neighbor, so sure of "his father's saying," here is today's Latin saying read out loud:
263. Parietes amicitiae custodes.
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.
Continuing on with the theme of proverbs about friendship, today's saying is what you might call a counterpoint to the idea that friends have everything in common. Not so, says today's proverb: you need to keep some things private if you want to be able to preserve your friendship. Hence, walls keep your friendship safe.
This Latin saying always makes me think of the English saying "Good fences make good neighbors" from the Robert Frost poem, "Mending Wall." It's rather long, but I am going to post the whole thing here, since the music of the thing runs right through from start to finish, and I'm loathe to leave any of it out!
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
So, in honor of Frost's neighbor, so sure of "his father's saying," here is today's Latin saying read out loud:
263. Parietes amicitiae custodes.
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.
July 19, 2007
Fortuna amicos parat, inopia amicos probat
In English: Prosperity obtains friends, poverty puts them to the test.
This is another one of those proverbs about friendship. Like yesterday's saying, it points to the pitfalls that a friendship might face. Although it's easy to be friends when things are going well, a friendship is tested when the going gets tough. In yesterday's proverb, a friendship was tested by danger. Today's proverb points to the way that material want can put friendship to the test.
The Latin word Fortune which is featured in this proverb is notoriously difficult to translate into English. Fortuna is, perhaps first and foremost, a goddess, Lady Luck, with her "wheel of fortune" spinning up and down.
Latin fortuna is also "chance" or "luck" itself, as you can see in the related word, forte, "by chance, as luck would have it."
Finally, fortuna is also the material prosperity that good luck brings, hence our English word "fortune" meaning wealth (although someone who is "fortunate" is simply someone who is lucky, not necessarily someone who is rich).
So, the goddess Fortuna might give you friends, or you could consider yourself lucky to have friends, or you could simply attract friends because you are rich. The second part of the proverb makes it clear that this sense of being rich is what is really at stake here, since inopia, poverty, is the opposite of that sense of fortuna, in-opia, being without ops, material resources. For that matter, Ops was also regarded as a female divinity by the Romans, a goddess of plenty and abundance, the wife of Saturn (read more at wikipedia).
So, given the emphasis on the contrast between Fortuna and inopia in this proverb, I've chosen the words "prosperity" and "poverty" for the English translation - although it's always a shame to have to translate Latin Fortuna into English, since it's hard to find a single English word that can convey all the nuances of this great Latin word!
So, hoping you are enjoying good fortune of all kinds today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1100. Fortuna amicos parat, inopia amicos probat.
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 is another one of those proverbs about friendship. Like yesterday's saying, it points to the pitfalls that a friendship might face. Although it's easy to be friends when things are going well, a friendship is tested when the going gets tough. In yesterday's proverb, a friendship was tested by danger. Today's proverb points to the way that material want can put friendship to the test.
The Latin word Fortune which is featured in this proverb is notoriously difficult to translate into English. Fortuna is, perhaps first and foremost, a goddess, Lady Luck, with her "wheel of fortune" spinning up and down.
Latin fortuna is also "chance" or "luck" itself, as you can see in the related word, forte, "by chance, as luck would have it."
Finally, fortuna is also the material prosperity that good luck brings, hence our English word "fortune" meaning wealth (although someone who is "fortunate" is simply someone who is lucky, not necessarily someone who is rich).
So, the goddess Fortuna might give you friends, or you could consider yourself lucky to have friends, or you could simply attract friends because you are rich. The second part of the proverb makes it clear that this sense of being rich is what is really at stake here, since inopia, poverty, is the opposite of that sense of fortuna, in-opia, being without ops, material resources. For that matter, Ops was also regarded as a female divinity by the Romans, a goddess of plenty and abundance, the wife of Saturn (read more at wikipedia).
So, given the emphasis on the contrast between Fortuna and inopia in this proverb, I've chosen the words "prosperity" and "poverty" for the English translation - although it's always a shame to have to translate Latin Fortuna into English, since it's hard to find a single English word that can convey all the nuances of this great Latin word!
So, hoping you are enjoying good fortune of all kinds today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1100. Fortuna amicos parat, inopia amicos probat.
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.
July 18, 2007
Rarus fidus amicus
In English: A faithful friend is rare.
Carrying on with the topic of proverbs about friendship, I wanted to post this very simple but wise proverb. By simple, I mean just that it is very simple grammatically, consisting of nothing more than a second declension noun (amicus) and two adjectives (rarus, fidus), all in the nominative singular case. It's the kind of thing that can be introduced on the very first day of a Latin class, while giving much food for thought.
Basically, the saying warns us that while friendship is great in theory, in practice things may turn out to be less than ideal. You have a friend, but are you sure that this friend will remain true to you? The proverb warns you that your expectations may be overly hopeful.
For Thomas à Kempis, in his thoughtful treatise, The Imitation of Christ, the problems with human friendship are countered only by the perfection of divine friendship: Rarus fidus amicus, in cunctis amici perseverans pressuris. Tu Domine, tu solus es fidelissimus in omnibus, et praeter te non est alter talis, "The faithful friend is rare, rare is the friend who remains steadfast in all the difficulties oppressing his friend. You, Lord, you alone are completely faithful in all things, and beside you there is no other who does so."
On a more humorous note, there is also a great Aesop's fable about two friends who meet a bear along the road, which provokes a crisis in their friendship. You can find this fable in many versions; here is a little iambic poem by the Renaissance poet, Caspar Barth:
So, hoping you are able to avoid the bears on any journeys you might make today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
41. Rarus fidus amicus.
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.
Carrying on with the topic of proverbs about friendship, I wanted to post this very simple but wise proverb. By simple, I mean just that it is very simple grammatically, consisting of nothing more than a second declension noun (amicus) and two adjectives (rarus, fidus), all in the nominative singular case. It's the kind of thing that can be introduced on the very first day of a Latin class, while giving much food for thought.
Basically, the saying warns us that while friendship is great in theory, in practice things may turn out to be less than ideal. You have a friend, but are you sure that this friend will remain true to you? The proverb warns you that your expectations may be overly hopeful.
For Thomas à Kempis, in his thoughtful treatise, The Imitation of Christ, the problems with human friendship are countered only by the perfection of divine friendship: Rarus fidus amicus, in cunctis amici perseverans pressuris. Tu Domine, tu solus es fidelissimus in omnibus, et praeter te non est alter talis, "The faithful friend is rare, rare is the friend who remains steadfast in all the difficulties oppressing his friend. You, Lord, you alone are completely faithful in all things, and beside you there is no other who does so."
On a more humorous note, there is also a great Aesop's fable about two friends who meet a bear along the road, which provokes a crisis in their friendship. You can find this fable in many versions; here is a little iambic poem by the Renaissance poet, Caspar Barth:
Sodalitate mutuaA very witty riposte in a decidedly unfunny situation!
Viam duo unam iniverant,
Fide data ut periculis
Iuvaret alter alterum.
Parum viae cum itum foret
Fit obvia ursa: quae, prius
Inire quam fugam pote,
Prope ingruit. Tum in arborem
Levatus ille subfugit,
Supinus iste corruit,
Timore mortuum exprimens.
At ursa cum putaret hunc
Neci, olim obisse, traditum,
Anhelitum ore sublegens
Nec invenire eum potens,
Metu premente frigido.
Nec alterum altam in arborem
Pote esset usque consequi,
Utrumque liquit innocem.
Ibi ille qui alta in arbore
Periculum insuper sui
Amici habebat: "Optime,
Quid," inquit, "atra belua
Profundam in aurem, obambulans,
Tibi locuta sit, cedo."
At alter: "A sodalibus
Cavere deinde ad hunc modum
Monebat infidelibus."
Pericla ni probant, fidem
Dare hanc sodalibus cave.
In mutual alliance, two men embarked on a single road, having pledged that they would help one another in danger. When they had gone a little ways, they ran into a bear and the bear attacked before they could get away. One friend escaped by climbing up into a tree, while the other fell to the ground, face-down, in his fear seeming to be dead. The bear, when she thought the man was a corpse, supposedly walked around him once and then checked to see if he was breathing, but found that he was not, oppressed as he was by cold terror. And since the bear was not able to get to the other friend up in the tall tree, she left each of them unharmed. Then the one up in the tall tree who had regarded his danger above friend, said: "Excellent! What did that dire beast say to you, whispering into your ear as she walked around you - tell me!" And the other replied: "She warned me to henceforth beware of friends who are so faithless." Unless dangers have tested your friends, be careful of putting your trust in them.
So, hoping you are able to avoid the bears on any journeys you might make today, here is today's proverb read out loud:
41. Rarus fidus amicus.
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.
July 17, 2007
Amicus omnibus, amicus nemini
In English: A friend to all, a friend to none.
Yesterday's proverb warned us about moderation in friendship (Amici nec multi nec nulli, "Friends: not many, not none"), and I thought today's proverb would make a good follow-up, since it explains just why it is that the person who has many friends has failed in friendship. By trying to be a friend to too many, he ends up being a friend to none at all!
The Latin word nemo is one of my favorites. When I was a child, I loved the movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, with the famous Captain Nemo, although at the time I did not understand that it means "nobody." Or, more literally, it means "no-person," since the Latin nemo, is simply a contraction of the words ne and homo - a contraction that is all the easier to understand when we realize that many Romans did indeed drop their h's! You can see the pattern very clearly in the declension: genitive hominis-neminis, accusative hominem-neminem, ablative homine-nemine, and dative homini-nemini - as in today's proverb.
The Latin word omnibus has the special distinction of having become an English word in its own right. The word omnibus, dative plural of the Latin omnis, is now used in English to mean "something that contains a large number of diverse items." You most often see the word used in reference to legislation ("an omnibus bill") or for literary anthologies ("The Dashiell Hammett Omnibus").
Thanks to the French, who introduced the voiture omnibus, the public carriage ("carriage for all") in 1820, the English started using the word "omnibus" in 1829 to refer to a public vehicle that took on passengers. In the same way, we also get the "bus-boy," the poor person in the restaurant whose job it is to attend to all the diners, omnibus.
Over time, this English "omnibus" was shorted to "bus" - a word we now use all the time, but hardly think of as Latin! Various Latin wits have normalized the "omnibus" or "bus" to be a Latin second declension noun, creating the alleged plurals "omnibi" or "bi" (ha!).
So, for your amusement, here is a little poem called The Motor Bus which was written by A.D. Godley (you can even listen to the audio recording at wikipedia). It is a poem that gave me great pleasure as a Latin student in Oxford, where you will find the "Corn and High" intersection, filled, indeed, with motor buses!
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo —
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Wither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
So, in honor of the "omnibus," here is today's proverb read out loud:
518. Amicus omnibus, amicus nemini.
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.
Yesterday's proverb warned us about moderation in friendship (Amici nec multi nec nulli, "Friends: not many, not none"), and I thought today's proverb would make a good follow-up, since it explains just why it is that the person who has many friends has failed in friendship. By trying to be a friend to too many, he ends up being a friend to none at all!
The Latin word nemo is one of my favorites. When I was a child, I loved the movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, with the famous Captain Nemo, although at the time I did not understand that it means "nobody." Or, more literally, it means "no-person," since the Latin nemo, is simply a contraction of the words ne and homo - a contraction that is all the easier to understand when we realize that many Romans did indeed drop their h's! You can see the pattern very clearly in the declension: genitive hominis-neminis, accusative hominem-neminem, ablative homine-nemine, and dative homini-nemini - as in today's proverb.
The Latin word omnibus has the special distinction of having become an English word in its own right. The word omnibus, dative plural of the Latin omnis, is now used in English to mean "something that contains a large number of diverse items." You most often see the word used in reference to legislation ("an omnibus bill") or for literary anthologies ("The Dashiell Hammett Omnibus").
Thanks to the French, who introduced the voiture omnibus, the public carriage ("carriage for all") in 1820, the English started using the word "omnibus" in 1829 to refer to a public vehicle that took on passengers. In the same way, we also get the "bus-boy," the poor person in the restaurant whose job it is to attend to all the diners, omnibus.
Over time, this English "omnibus" was shorted to "bus" - a word we now use all the time, but hardly think of as Latin! Various Latin wits have normalized the "omnibus" or "bus" to be a Latin second declension noun, creating the alleged plurals "omnibi" or "bi" (ha!).
So, for your amusement, here is a little poem called The Motor Bus which was written by A.D. Godley (you can even listen to the audio recording at wikipedia). It is a poem that gave me great pleasure as a Latin student in Oxford, where you will find the "Corn and High" intersection, filled, indeed, with motor buses!
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo —
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Wither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
So, in honor of the "omnibus," here is today's proverb read out loud:
518. Amicus omnibus, amicus nemini.
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.
July 16, 2007
Amici nec multi nec nulli
In English: Friends: not many, not none.
Last week, I began posting some proverbs on the topic of friendship. All of the proverbs I cited last week were laudatory, praising the positive dimensions of friendship. This week, I will post some proverbs that highlight some cautions as well. Today's proverb, for example, cautions that while everybody needs to have at least some friends (non nulli), there is a danger in having too many friends (non multi).
Notice that, as so often with Latin proverbs, there is no actual verb! So you can supply the verb that sounds best to you in English: you should have not many friends, but at least some; you don't want to have many friends, but you also don't want to have no friends at all, etc. You can also find variants of the Latin proverb which do contain a verb, such as Nec nulli sis amicus, nec omnibus, "You should not be a friend to no one, nor to all," etc.
I really had to laugh when I thought about this saying in contemporary terms, with "friends" that one makes on shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifocial networks. I'm a member of various social networks, such as the eClassics ning community and the Classroom2.0 group, and I also like to use Twitter. Especially on Twitter, there are some people who want to "friend" everybody (note the new techno-English verb that has been created for this purpose!).
When I first created my Twitter account earlier this summer, before I had even shared my address with anybody at all, I got requests from some total strangers to be my friends, and when I looked them up, I discovered they had thousands and thousands of "friends." So apparently they just watch the public feed of Twitter and try to "friend" every single person who's twittering. I wonder if there is a good word that has emerged for people on social networks who clearly have multi amici, to the point of absurdity!
So, hoping that you are not suffering from having too many friends or from having none at all, here is today's proverb read out loud:
50. Amici nec multi nec nulli.
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.
Last week, I began posting some proverbs on the topic of friendship. All of the proverbs I cited last week were laudatory, praising the positive dimensions of friendship. This week, I will post some proverbs that highlight some cautions as well. Today's proverb, for example, cautions that while everybody needs to have at least some friends (non nulli), there is a danger in having too many friends (non multi).
Notice that, as so often with Latin proverbs, there is no actual verb! So you can supply the verb that sounds best to you in English: you should have not many friends, but at least some; you don't want to have many friends, but you also don't want to have no friends at all, etc. You can also find variants of the Latin proverb which do contain a verb, such as Nec nulli sis amicus, nec omnibus, "You should not be a friend to no one, nor to all," etc.
I really had to laugh when I thought about this saying in contemporary terms, with "friends" that one makes on shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifocial networks. I'm a member of various social networks, such as the eClassics ning community and the Classroom2.0 group, and I also like to use Twitter. Especially on Twitter, there are some people who want to "friend" everybody (note the new techno-English verb that has been created for this purpose!).
When I first created my Twitter account earlier this summer, before I had even shared my address with anybody at all, I got requests from some total strangers to be my friends, and when I looked them up, I discovered they had thousands and thousands of "friends." So apparently they just watch the public feed of Twitter and try to "friend" every single person who's twittering. I wonder if there is a good word that has emerged for people on social networks who clearly have multi amici, to the point of absurdity!
So, hoping that you are not suffering from having too many friends or from having none at all, here is today's proverb read out loud:
50. Amici nec multi nec nulli.
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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July 13, 2007
Nummis potior amicus in periculis
In English: A friend is preferable to cash in times of trouble.
As in yesterday's proverb, I'm carrying on with sayings in praise of friendship. One important theme of friendship is mutual self-help, which we also saw in yesterday's proverb about friends having everything in common. Today's proverb makes a different kind of comparison along this same line: when you are in trouble, a friend can be more helpful to you than cash in hand. You might be able to use cash or a credit card to solve a problem, but a friend can help you in more than just material ways, comforting you, advising you, giving you a shoulder to cry on, etc.
The Latin word potior is a comparative form, so it can take the ablative case for comparison, nummis potior, "more preferable than coins."
You are more likely to encounter potior in the neuter form, potius, where it is commonly used as an adverb meaning "rather."
Unfortunately, the word potior is also the first person singular form of the deponent verb potiri, "to acquire, get possession of." This verb takes a genitive object, though, not the ablative. So as you are reading along in this proverb, nummis potior, the ablative nummis clues you in that the following word, potior is probably a comparative adjective (which wants an ablative!), as opposed to the verb (which would want to have a genitive noun instead).
But enough grammar! In addition to the short form of today's proverb, I wanted to share a little rhyming verse that expresses the same idea more fully. (As regular readers of this blog know, I am an inveterate fan of rhyme in Latin... and hence I find medieval Latin to be potior than the classical variety!) Anyway, here it is:
So, hoping you are not facing any periculum that would allow you to test the truth of today's proverb, here it is read out loud:
693. Nummis potior amicus in periculis.
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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As in yesterday's proverb, I'm carrying on with sayings in praise of friendship. One important theme of friendship is mutual self-help, which we also saw in yesterday's proverb about friends having everything in common. Today's proverb makes a different kind of comparison along this same line: when you are in trouble, a friend can be more helpful to you than cash in hand. You might be able to use cash or a credit card to solve a problem, but a friend can help you in more than just material ways, comforting you, advising you, giving you a shoulder to cry on, etc.
The Latin word potior is a comparative form, so it can take the ablative case for comparison, nummis potior, "more preferable than coins."
You are more likely to encounter potior in the neuter form, potius, where it is commonly used as an adverb meaning "rather."
Unfortunately, the word potior is also the first person singular form of the deponent verb potiri, "to acquire, get possession of." This verb takes a genitive object, though, not the ablative. So as you are reading along in this proverb, nummis potior, the ablative nummis clues you in that the following word, potior is probably a comparative adjective (which wants an ablative!), as opposed to the verb (which would want to have a genitive noun instead).
But enough grammar! In addition to the short form of today's proverb, I wanted to share a little rhyming verse that expresses the same idea more fully. (As regular readers of this blog know, I am an inveterate fan of rhyme in Latin... and hence I find medieval Latin to be potior than the classical variety!) Anyway, here it is:
Plus valet in vico bene fidus amicus amico,Although some odd details have crept in here in order to create the nice rhyme, you can still see the same proverbial theme at work: a friend is better than cash in a pinch.
Quam nummis plena de quolibet aere crumena.
A truly faithful friend is more valuable on the spot to his friend
Than a purse full of cash from somewhere or other in the sky.
So, hoping you are not facing any periculum that would allow you to test the truth of today's proverb, here it is read out loud:
693. Nummis potior amicus in periculis.
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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July 12, 2007
Amicorum sunt communia omnia
In English: Friends have all things in common.
Continuing on with the theme of friendship in proverbs, today's proverb gives some specific advice about how friendship works. For friends, all things are shared, communia omnia. I guess that makes Roman friendship a kind of classical communism! :-)
You can find this sentiment expressed in Cicero's De Officiis, where he notes that this is a saying among the Greeks. Cicero also cites these wonderful lines from Ennius about how things are to be shared:
The saying amicorum communia omnia became a popular Latin saying through the ages and has a place of prominent in Erasmus's Adagia, where it is the first saying of the entire collection!
Not surprisingly, it also shows up in the early modern emblem tradition. You can take a look at this French emblem book online (first published in print in 1593) to see a depiction of the saying in visual form. On the pedestal you can find an inscription which expands on the theme of the emblem: amicitiam tueri non possumus, nisi aeque amicos ac nosmet ipsos diligamus, "we cannot protect friendship, unless we love our friends equally as we love ourselves."
So, hoping you are enjoying all the equanimity of true friendship with your own friends, here is today's proverb read out loud:
500. Amicorum sunt communia omnia.
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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Continuing on with the theme of friendship in proverbs, today's proverb gives some specific advice about how friendship works. For friends, all things are shared, communia omnia. I guess that makes Roman friendship a kind of classical communism! :-)
You can find this sentiment expressed in Cicero's De Officiis, where he notes that this is a saying among the Greeks. Cicero also cites these wonderful lines from Ennius about how things are to be shared:
Homo, qui erranti comiter monstrat viam,That is a lovely way to express how there is nothing lost when things are truly shared!
Quasi lumen de suo lumine accendat, facit.
Nihilo minus ipsi lucet, cum illi accenderit.
When a man in a friendly fashion shows the way to someone who is lost, it is as if he lit that man's lamp with his own: his light shines no less brightly for having lit the other man's lamp.
The saying amicorum communia omnia became a popular Latin saying through the ages and has a place of prominent in Erasmus's Adagia, where it is the first saying of the entire collection!
Not surprisingly, it also shows up in the early modern emblem tradition. You can take a look at this French emblem book online (first published in print in 1593) to see a depiction of the saying in visual form. On the pedestal you can find an inscription which expands on the theme of the emblem: amicitiam tueri non possumus, nisi aeque amicos ac nosmet ipsos diligamus, "we cannot protect friendship, unless we love our friends equally as we love ourselves."
So, hoping you are enjoying all the equanimity of true friendship with your own friends, here is today's proverb read out loud:
500. Amicorum sunt communia omnia.
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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July 11, 2007
Vitae sal amicitia
In English: Friendship is the salt of life.
The proverb from yesterday opened the discussion of "friendship," and there are indeed many different perspectives on friendship which you can find in Latin sayings, so I thought that I would explore this topic for the next few days. Today's saying also emphasizes the absolute vitality of friendship in human life. If friendship is the "salt" of human life, this means you absolutely cannot do without it - life would have no savor without friendship!
Of course, in our culture we tend to take salt for granted, so we might translate this saying instead as "friendship is the spice of life," since spices are something a bit more rare and expensive than salt, so that they still seem a bit special and precious to us.
In the past, though, salt was itself a rare and valuable commody! Just look at the etymology of the English word "salary," for example. It is derived from the Latin word salarium, which was the soldier's allowance for the purchase of salt. Compare also the English idiom, "to be worth one's salt."
And yes, even "salad" comes from salt! It was originally herba salata, "salted greens." You can actually read about the Roman use of brine () and salads in this history of salad dressing online!
So, hoping your life is spiced with friends and your salad is nicely salted, here is today's proverb read out loud:
290. Vitae sal amicitia.
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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The proverb from yesterday opened the discussion of "friendship," and there are indeed many different perspectives on friendship which you can find in Latin sayings, so I thought that I would explore this topic for the next few days. Today's saying also emphasizes the absolute vitality of friendship in human life. If friendship is the "salt" of human life, this means you absolutely cannot do without it - life would have no savor without friendship!
Of course, in our culture we tend to take salt for granted, so we might translate this saying instead as "friendship is the spice of life," since spices are something a bit more rare and expensive than salt, so that they still seem a bit special and precious to us.
In the past, though, salt was itself a rare and valuable commody! Just look at the etymology of the English word "salary," for example. It is derived from the Latin word salarium, which was the soldier's allowance for the purchase of salt. Compare also the English idiom, "to be worth one's salt."
And yes, even "salad" comes from salt! It was originally herba salata, "salted greens." You can actually read about the Roman use of brine () and salads in this history of salad dressing online!
So, hoping your life is spiced with friends and your salad is nicely salted, here is today's proverb read out loud:
290. Vitae sal amicitia.
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.
July 10, 2007
Tanti homo est sine amico, quanti corpus absque spiritu est
In English: A person without a friend is worth as much as a body without breath.
After the previous proverbs involving tantus, I thought I would do just one more, this time involving the correlative use of quantus and tantus.
This time instead of an "ablative of degree of difference" (tanto), we are dealing with tanti in the genitive case, which is sometimes referred to as "genitive of price," genitivus pretii as it is called in Latin grammar.
The idea is that a body without a breath (a corpse) is worth pretty much nothing, which is what a person is worth without a friend. I really like the further implication of the proverb, which is not just the comparison of value tanti...quanti, but also the metaphorical parallel between the two phrases: a person's friend is like the breath of the body, without which life cannot exist.
The Latin word spiritus is a fourth declension noun, which emphasizes its verbal qualities, as seen in the verbal form spirare, "to breathe." You can translate spiritus as "breath" or "breathing," or even as "life," since it is the "breath of life."
Of course, spiritus can also be translated as "soul" or "spirit," and as such forms the third person of the Trinity, the Spiritus Sanctus, the "Holy Spirit." Yet we would have a better understanding of the range of meaning of the word spiritus if we called it instead the "Holy Breath." The Hindu practice of yoga, for example, has always taken breathing very seriously, in a way that Christianity has not...
So, take a deep, friendly breath, and listen to today's proverb read out loud:
962. Tanti homo est sine amico, quanti corpus absque spiritu 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.
After the previous proverbs involving tantus, I thought I would do just one more, this time involving the correlative use of quantus and tantus.
This time instead of an "ablative of degree of difference" (tanto), we are dealing with tanti in the genitive case, which is sometimes referred to as "genitive of price," genitivus pretii as it is called in Latin grammar.
The idea is that a body without a breath (a corpse) is worth pretty much nothing, which is what a person is worth without a friend. I really like the further implication of the proverb, which is not just the comparison of value tanti...quanti, but also the metaphorical parallel between the two phrases: a person's friend is like the breath of the body, without which life cannot exist.
The Latin word spiritus is a fourth declension noun, which emphasizes its verbal qualities, as seen in the verbal form spirare, "to breathe." You can translate spiritus as "breath" or "breathing," or even as "life," since it is the "breath of life."
Of course, spiritus can also be translated as "soul" or "spirit," and as such forms the third person of the Trinity, the Spiritus Sanctus, the "Holy Spirit." Yet we would have a better understanding of the range of meaning of the word spiritus if we called it instead the "Holy Breath." The Hindu practice of yoga, for example, has always taken breathing very seriously, in a way that Christianity has not...
So, take a deep, friendly breath, and listen to today's proverb read out loud:
962. Tanti homo est sine amico, quanti corpus absque spiritu 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.
July 09, 2007
Quo altior gradus, tanto profundior casus
In English: The higher the step, the deeper the fall.
I thought this would be a good follow-up to the previous proverb, Quo altior mons, tanto profundior vallis, "The higher the mountain, the lower the valley." You can see that the two proverbs have a very similar grammatical structure, although today's saying is far more ominous!
The closest English parallel would be the well-known saying, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." That saying, however, is built on the metaphor of weight, with the corresponding qualities of "big" and "hard."
The Latin saying, however, is built on the metaphor of height, with the corresponding qualities of "higher" and "deeper."
What I really like about the Latin in today's saying, however, is the nicely coordinated use of the verbal nouns, gradus, "step" (compare with gredi, "to step") and casus, "fall" (compare with cadere, "to fall"). Even though there is not a verb to be found in this saying, the use of these verbal nouns makes it feel very "verbal" indeed, an action you can see in motion: up, up, up (gradus) and down, down, down (casus).
Latin students may also recognize that it is the word casus that gives us the word "case" in English, which we use for the Latin cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative and vocative (nominativus, genitivus, accusativus, ablativus and vocativus in Latin).
But just how is it that nouns and adjectives "fall" into their cases? To explain the use of Latin casus as a grammatical term, we have to give the Greeks the credit, rather than the Romans, since the Latin casus is a translation of Greek πτῶσις (ptosis).
This Greek root for "falling" has not given us very many English words directly, but I thought I would mention the three I was able to find. The first is "symptom" (Greek syn and pto), which means in Greek "a befalling, happening, accident, disease." (The English "accident" is from the Latin cad/cid, which is equivalent to Greek pto.)
Closely related is the word "asymptote," which you may remember from math class as the straight line that a curve approaches but never touches - hence a-sym-pto, "NOT-together-falling."
Finally, the other Greek pto word in English is ptomaine! This is from the Greek word ptoma, "a corpse," which is definitely something that falls down (compare English "cadaver" from Latin cad again). In Englsh, "ptomaine" refers to poisonous substances produced by the natural decay of protein in dead animal tissue. Ugh.
So, hoping you manage to stay on your feet today, avoiding all ptomaines, here is today's proverb read out loud:
685. Quo altior gradus, tanto profundior casus.
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 would be a good follow-up to the previous proverb, Quo altior mons, tanto profundior vallis, "The higher the mountain, the lower the valley." You can see that the two proverbs have a very similar grammatical structure, although today's saying is far more ominous!
The closest English parallel would be the well-known saying, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." That saying, however, is built on the metaphor of weight, with the corresponding qualities of "big" and "hard."
The Latin saying, however, is built on the metaphor of height, with the corresponding qualities of "higher" and "deeper."
What I really like about the Latin in today's saying, however, is the nicely coordinated use of the verbal nouns, gradus, "step" (compare with gredi, "to step") and casus, "fall" (compare with cadere, "to fall"). Even though there is not a verb to be found in this saying, the use of these verbal nouns makes it feel very "verbal" indeed, an action you can see in motion: up, up, up (gradus) and down, down, down (casus).
Latin students may also recognize that it is the word casus that gives us the word "case" in English, which we use for the Latin cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative and vocative (nominativus, genitivus, accusativus, ablativus and vocativus in Latin).
But just how is it that nouns and adjectives "fall" into their cases? To explain the use of Latin casus as a grammatical term, we have to give the Greeks the credit, rather than the Romans, since the Latin casus is a translation of Greek πτῶσις (ptosis).
This Greek root for "falling" has not given us very many English words directly, but I thought I would mention the three I was able to find. The first is "symptom" (Greek syn and pto), which means in Greek "a befalling, happening, accident, disease." (The English "accident" is from the Latin cad/cid, which is equivalent to Greek pto.)
Closely related is the word "asymptote," which you may remember from math class as the straight line that a curve approaches but never touches - hence a-sym-pto, "NOT-together-falling."
Finally, the other Greek pto word in English is ptomaine! This is from the Greek word ptoma, "a corpse," which is definitely something that falls down (compare English "cadaver" from Latin cad again). In Englsh, "ptomaine" refers to poisonous substances produced by the natural decay of protein in dead animal tissue. Ugh.
So, hoping you manage to stay on your feet today, avoiding all ptomaines, here is today's proverb read out loud:
685. Quo altior gradus, tanto profundior casus.
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.
July 06, 2007
Quo altior mons, tanto profundior vallis
In English: The higher the mountain, the lower the valley.
I thought this would make a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about the full and empty pots. What the two sayings have in common is their use of the altus, a quite tricky Latin word which can mean EITHER deep OR tall. In yesterday's saying the word referred to the "deeply" resonating pots, but in today's saying, it is a matter of height, the "altitude" of the mountain.
The quo...tanto construction in Latin is a very nice use of what is called, technically, the "ablative of the degree of difference." In other words, you could say that quo, "by which amount" the mountain is taller, tanto, "by such an amount" is the valley lower.
There are actually all kinds of great sayings in Latin that rely on the quo...tanto construction to express their meaning. For example, stercus quo plus moveatur, tanto plus foetet, "the more shit is stirred, the more it smells." Indeed!
Meanwhile, back to the mountain and the valley. There are variants on this saying which use a slightly different way to express the same idea. For example, si mons sublimis, profundior est tibi vallis, "if the mountain is lifted up, your valley is lower." There's also this one about the valley and the hill: Vallis optime collem monstrat, "The valley best shows the hill."
Of course, this is another one of those sayings that is not about geography; instead, the geographical features are just a metaphorical suggestion for how you could apply this to your own life circumstances. "The higher the highs, the lower the lows." I guess you could call it a proverbial formulation of manic-depression.
So, hoping that you are finding yourself on top of the mountain instead of down in the valley, here is today's proverb read out loud:
684. Quo altior mons, tanto profundior vallis.
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 make a good follow-up to yesterday's saying about the full and empty pots. What the two sayings have in common is their use of the altus, a quite tricky Latin word which can mean EITHER deep OR tall. In yesterday's saying the word referred to the "deeply" resonating pots, but in today's saying, it is a matter of height, the "altitude" of the mountain.
The quo...tanto construction in Latin is a very nice use of what is called, technically, the "ablative of the degree of difference." In other words, you could say that quo, "by which amount" the mountain is taller, tanto, "by such an amount" is the valley lower.
There are actually all kinds of great sayings in Latin that rely on the quo...tanto construction to express their meaning. For example, stercus quo plus moveatur, tanto plus foetet, "the more shit is stirred, the more it smells." Indeed!
Meanwhile, back to the mountain and the valley. There are variants on this saying which use a slightly different way to express the same idea. For example, si mons sublimis, profundior est tibi vallis, "if the mountain is lifted up, your valley is lower." There's also this one about the valley and the hill: Vallis optime collem monstrat, "The valley best shows the hill."
Of course, this is another one of those sayings that is not about geography; instead, the geographical features are just a metaphorical suggestion for how you could apply this to your own life circumstances. "The higher the highs, the lower the lows." I guess you could call it a proverbial formulation of manic-depression.
So, hoping that you are finding yourself on top of the mountain instead of down in the valley, here is today's proverb read out loud:
684. Quo altior mons, tanto profundior vallis.
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.
July 05, 2007
Vacuum vas altius pleno vaso resonat
In English: An empty pot makes a deeper noise than a pot that is full.
After yesterday's saying about the scientific "vacuum," I thought I would do another Latin proverb built on the word vacuum, "empty." Hence the choice for today! You can also find the saying in this variant form: Vasa vacua multum sonant, "Empty pots make a lot of noise!"
In addition, you can find this as an English saying also: "Empty vessels make the most noise" - and to see how commonly used this saying is in English even today, just check out these Google search results.
This is one of my favorite kinds of proverbs - it takes a simple, obvious event in the natural world and then suggests that you take that notion and apply it metaphorically to human life.
So yes, if you bang on an empty pot, it makes a lot of noise, while a full pot is silent. Agreed!
How then to apply that to human life? Well, empty-headed people often are great talkers, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." A person who is full of wisdom, however, knows better than to blather and prefers to keep silent.
The "truth" of the physical phenomenon (an empty pot really does make a lot of noise!) is thus meant to be a kind of proof of the metaphorical application, too. It's not scientific proof by any means, and it's not even necessarily logical - but that's the way that the world of proverbs works! Similarity is as good as a proof.
Meanwhile, hoping you have not been banging into too many pots lately, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1183. Vacuum vas altius pleno vaso resonat.
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 saying about the scientific "vacuum," I thought I would do another Latin proverb built on the word vacuum, "empty." Hence the choice for today! You can also find the saying in this variant form: Vasa vacua multum sonant, "Empty pots make a lot of noise!"
In addition, you can find this as an English saying also: "Empty vessels make the most noise" - and to see how commonly used this saying is in English even today, just check out these Google search results.
This is one of my favorite kinds of proverbs - it takes a simple, obvious event in the natural world and then suggests that you take that notion and apply it metaphorically to human life.
So yes, if you bang on an empty pot, it makes a lot of noise, while a full pot is silent. Agreed!
How then to apply that to human life? Well, empty-headed people often are great talkers, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." A person who is full of wisdom, however, knows better than to blather and prefers to keep silent.
The "truth" of the physical phenomenon (an empty pot really does make a lot of noise!) is thus meant to be a kind of proof of the metaphorical application, too. It's not scientific proof by any means, and it's not even necessarily logical - but that's the way that the world of proverbs works! Similarity is as good as a proof.
Meanwhile, hoping you have not been banging into too many pots lately, here is today's proverb read out loud:
1183. Vacuum vas altius pleno vaso resonat.
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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July 04, 2007
Natura abhorret a vacuo
In English: Natures abhors a vacuum.
This saying is the last in a series of -ura nouns from the previous few days. So far, we've seen pictura, mixtura, iactura, sepultura and cultura. Today's word is probably most famous of the -ura nouns: natura, from the verb nasci, "to be born," with the participle natus. So natura is that whole being-born business!
This particular saying, Natura abhorret a vacuo, "Nature abhors (shrinks back from) a vacuum," is also know as the doctrine of horror vacui, "the horror of the vacuum." In the same way that ancient Greek scientists and philosophers found the notion of zero extremely uncomfortable (see Charles Seife's book for a wonderful "history of zero"), they were also disturbed by the notion of a vacuum, rejecting it as a theoretical possibility.
For Christians, the doctrine was not just inconceivable, but heretical. A vacuum would be a place without God: something abhorrent, indeed! There was a counterargument, however, based on the notion of God's omnipotence. Who is to say what God could not create if he had a mind to do so - including a vacuum.
Protests against the vacuum continued, though, and as late as 1649 the Jesuit scholar Paolo Casati published a treatise, Vacuum proscriptum, "The Vacuum Outlawed." Even though he was opposed to the existence of the vacuum, Casati did get to have a crater on the moon named after him!
Casati felt the need to present this argument against the vacuum because of the major experiment conducted by the scientist Evangelista Torricelli in 1644. Torricelli took a glass test-tube and filled it with mercury. He then used his finger to cover the opening and turned the tube upside down and lowered it into a bowl of mercury. After Torricelli removed his finger, an "empty" space appeared at the top of the tube as the mercury descended into the bowl, although the mercury stopped at a height of 76 centimeters. Torricelli had created a vacuum in the tube, and he was also able to measure the air pressure on the mercury in the bowl, against which the mercury in the tube was pressing. Hence the barometer! Then, in 1648 Blaise Pascal demonstrated that the barometric pressure was less the higher the altitude at which you conducted the experiment.
You can see a picture of the Torricelli experiment, along with lots of other historical information, at the wonderful Horror Vacui website of the Institute and Museum of History of Science in Florence, an Italian site but with English versions of all the pages.
Meanwhile, hoping your day has not been too "vacuous," here is today's proverb read out loud:
1328. Natura abhorret a vacuo.
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 saying is the last in a series of -ura nouns from the previous few days. So far, we've seen pictura, mixtura, iactura, sepultura and cultura. Today's word is probably most famous of the -ura nouns: natura, from the verb nasci, "to be born," with the participle natus. So natura is that whole being-born business!
This particular saying, Natura abhorret a vacuo, "Nature abhors (shrinks back from) a vacuum," is also know as the doctrine of horror vacui, "the horror of the vacuum." In the same way that ancient Greek scientists and philosophers found the notion of zero extremely uncomfortable (see Charles Seife's book for a wonderful "history of zero"), they were also disturbed by the notion of a vacuum, rejecting it as a theoretical possibility.
For Christians, the doctrine was not just inconceivable, but heretical. A vacuum would be a place without God: something abhorrent, indeed! There was a counterargument, however, based on the notion of God's omnipotence. Who is to say what God could not create if he had a mind to do so - including a vacuum.
Protests against the vacuum continued, though, and as late as 1649 the Jesuit scholar Paolo Casati published a treatise, Vacuum proscriptum, "The Vacuum Outlawed." Even though he was opposed to the existence of the vacuum, Casati did get to have a crater on the moon named after him!
Casati felt the need to present this argument against the vacuum because of the major experiment conducted by the scientist Evangelista Torricelli in 1644. Torricelli took a glass test-tube and filled it with mercury. He then used his finger to cover the opening and turned the tube upside down and lowered it into a bowl of mercury. After Torricelli removed his finger, an "empty" space appeared at the top of the tube as the mercury descended into the bowl, although the mercury stopped at a height of 76 centimeters. Torricelli had created a vacuum in the tube, and he was also able to measure the air pressure on the mercury in the bowl, against which the mercury in the tube was pressing. Hence the barometer! Then, in 1648 Blaise Pascal demonstrated that the barometric pressure was less the higher the altitude at which you conducted the experiment.
You can see a picture of the Torricelli experiment, along with lots of other historical information, at the wonderful Horror Vacui website of the Institute and Museum of History of Science in Florence, an Italian site but with English versions of all the pages.
Meanwhile, hoping your day has not been too "vacuous," here is today's proverb read out loud:
1328. Natura abhorret a vacuo.
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.
July 03, 2007
Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici
In English: The cultivation of a powerful friend is enjoyable, for those who do not know any better!
The saying comes from one of the epistles of Horace. The full form is: Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici: expertus metuit, "The cultivation of a powerful friend is sweet to those who have not tried it before; the one who has tried it knows to be afraid." The contrast is between the experti and the inexperti, the people who have experience and know better than to endanger themselves with powerful friends, and those naive folks with no experience in such matters who do not realize what dangers lurk ahead if they do, indeed, attempt to be friends with the high and mighty.
In other words: too bad, Scooter Libby, fall-guy for the Vice President! Play with fire and you will get burned.
Meanwhile, I'm still carrying on, as in the previous few days, with Latin words formed with the -ura suffix. So far we have had pictura, "painting" from the verb pingere (participle pictus), mixtura, "mixture" from the verb miscere (participle mixtus), iactura, "throwing away, loss" from the verb iacere (participle iactus), and sepultura, "burial" from the verb sepelire (participle sepultus).
Today's saying features cultura, "cultivation," from the verb colere (participle cultus). So, as you can see, the familiar Latin word cultura and the even more familiar English word "culture" belong to this large group of words formed with the nominal suffix -ura (which comes out -ure in English).
Today's saying is also a good warning about the perils of word endings in Latin. Just look at all the words ending in -is! There is dulcis, feminine nominative singular (agreeing with cultura), inexpertis, masculine dative plural (adjective used substantively), and potentis, masculine genitive singular (agreeing with amici). Whew!
So, watching out for those word endings, here is today's proverb read out loud:
423. Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici.
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.
The saying comes from one of the epistles of Horace. The full form is: Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici: expertus metuit, "The cultivation of a powerful friend is sweet to those who have not tried it before; the one who has tried it knows to be afraid." The contrast is between the experti and the inexperti, the people who have experience and know better than to endanger themselves with powerful friends, and those naive folks with no experience in such matters who do not realize what dangers lurk ahead if they do, indeed, attempt to be friends with the high and mighty.
In other words: too bad, Scooter Libby, fall-guy for the Vice President! Play with fire and you will get burned.
Meanwhile, I'm still carrying on, as in the previous few days, with Latin words formed with the -ura suffix. So far we have had pictura, "painting" from the verb pingere (participle pictus), mixtura, "mixture" from the verb miscere (participle mixtus), iactura, "throwing away, loss" from the verb iacere (participle iactus), and sepultura, "burial" from the verb sepelire (participle sepultus).
Today's saying features cultura, "cultivation," from the verb colere (participle cultus). So, as you can see, the familiar Latin word cultura and the even more familiar English word "culture" belong to this large group of words formed with the nominal suffix -ura (which comes out -ure in English).
Today's saying is also a good warning about the perils of word endings in Latin. Just look at all the words ending in -is! There is dulcis, feminine nominative singular (agreeing with cultura), inexpertis, masculine dative plural (adjective used substantively), and potentis, masculine genitive singular (agreeing with amici). Whew!
So, watching out for those word endings, here is today's proverb read out loud:
423. Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici.
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.
July 02, 2007
Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura
In English: Leisure without literature is death and burial for a living man.
I'm carrying on, as in the previous few days, with Latin words formed with the -ura suffix. So far we have had pictura, "painting" from the verb pingere (participle pictus), mixtura, "mixture" from the verb miscere (participle mixtus) and iactura, "throwing away, loss" from the verb iacere (participle iactus).
Today's saying features sepultura, "burial" from the verb sepelire (participle sepultus).
The saying comes from the philosopher and writer, Seneca, in one of his letters to Lucilius. You can also find it occasionally cited in this form: vita sine litteris mors est, "Life without literature is death," with the word vita, "life," in place of otium, "leisure." This version, with vita, turns up as the motto of the Derby School. It is also part of the school seal of Adelphi University.
Although the version with vita has a nice ring to it, Seneca's own statement about otium is much more relevant to the cultural context of this dilemma. For the Romans, there was something awkward and even shameful about otium. The goal was always negotium, literally nec-otium, "not-leisure," keeping busy and doing business.
Seneca, however, was a writer in the Silver Age of Latin literature living under the capricious emperor Nero. By this time the claims of public life had changed from the days of the old Roman Republic. So, in Seneca's way of thinking, after a man had earned enough money to retire and secured his public reputation, it was appropriate to retire into private life and enjoy his otium - but it was not appropriate to fritter the time away with foolishness.
What then was a man to do with his leisure time in order to redeem it? For Seneca, the answer was study and writing, litterae. I agree: I am always delighted when summertime arrives, when I can read lots of books and try to write one myself!
So, hoping you are enjoying some literary leisure time this summer, here is today's proverb read out loud:
360. Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura.
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'm carrying on, as in the previous few days, with Latin words formed with the -ura suffix. So far we have had pictura, "painting" from the verb pingere (participle pictus), mixtura, "mixture" from the verb miscere (participle mixtus) and iactura, "throwing away, loss" from the verb iacere (participle iactus).
Today's saying features sepultura, "burial" from the verb sepelire (participle sepultus).
The saying comes from the philosopher and writer, Seneca, in one of his letters to Lucilius. You can also find it occasionally cited in this form: vita sine litteris mors est, "Life without literature is death," with the word vita, "life," in place of otium, "leisure." This version, with vita, turns up as the motto of the Derby School. It is also part of the school seal of Adelphi University.
Although the version with vita has a nice ring to it, Seneca's own statement about otium is much more relevant to the cultural context of this dilemma. For the Romans, there was something awkward and even shameful about otium. The goal was always negotium, literally nec-otium, "not-leisure," keeping busy and doing business.
Seneca, however, was a writer in the Silver Age of Latin literature living under the capricious emperor Nero. By this time the claims of public life had changed from the days of the old Roman Republic. So, in Seneca's way of thinking, after a man had earned enough money to retire and secured his public reputation, it was appropriate to retire into private life and enjoy his otium - but it was not appropriate to fritter the time away with foolishness.
What then was a man to do with his leisure time in order to redeem it? For Seneca, the answer was study and writing, litterae. I agree: I am always delighted when summertime arrives, when I can read lots of books and try to write one myself!
So, hoping you are enjoying some literary leisure time this summer, here is today's proverb read out loud:
360. Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura.
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.
July 01, 2007
Ut pictura poesis
In English: Poetry is like a painting.
I've included today's saying because, like yesterday's proverb, it provides a good example of a Latin noun in -ura: pictura, from the verb pingere (participle: pictus), meaning "to paint, draw," etc.
The saying ut pictura poesis is very well-known, made famous by Horace's Ars poetica:
There's something very interesting here about the argument, too, and shows what a shift there has been between Horace's time and our own. Horace could take for granted that people took the visual arts seriously, and that there were examples of visual art that were truly outstanding and merited the audience's attention and regard. He wants to make the same claim for poetry, too.
Now, in our world, with a superabundance of verbal art and printed material, it is written works of literature that have captured our attention, with painting far behind. There are bookstores in every city, filled with books, and you probably bought several books this year yourself, right? And how many paintings did you buy, eh?
In Horace's world, however, books were a rare commodity, rarer even than paintings. Books, moreover, had to be copied from other books. Paintings, however, could be done from life itself - all you needed to do was to be able to paint. So, if you got a craving for a painting to keep in your ancient Roman villa, you could actually satisfy that craving more easily than you could satisfy a craving for a book.
With digital art, however, the image is starting to gain on the written work. People can now make images using a camera, and then make endless copies of their photographs digitally, sharing them via the Internet with anyone who wants a copy. Plus, it is far easier to take pictures with a camera than it is to write proper English (the spellchecker can only do so much!).
So perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to Horace's visual world, where painting took precedence over poetry, allowing Horace to assert, ut pictura poesis. Although in the modern age, we will perhaps need to assert, ut Photoshoptura poesis.
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
157. Ut pictura poesis.
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've included today's saying because, like yesterday's proverb, it provides a good example of a Latin noun in -ura: pictura, from the verb pingere (participle: pictus), meaning "to paint, draw," etc.
The saying ut pictura poesis is very well-known, made famous by Horace's Ars poetica:
Ut pictura poesis; erit quae, si propius stes,Given that we possess so little evidence for the paintings of ancient Rome, it is good to be alerte here by Horace to the great variety of paintings he could have in mind.
te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes;
haec amat obscurum, uolet haec sub luce videri,
iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen;
haec placuit semel, haec deciens repetita placebit.
Poetry is like painting. There might be a painting which, if you stand close to it, will hold your attention more, and another painting holds your attention more if you stand away at a distance; this painting loves a dark corner, while this one wants to be seen in the light, since it does not fear the penetrating judgment of the critic; this painting was nice to look at one time, while another painting will bring pleasure looked repeatedly dozens of times.
There's something very interesting here about the argument, too, and shows what a shift there has been between Horace's time and our own. Horace could take for granted that people took the visual arts seriously, and that there were examples of visual art that were truly outstanding and merited the audience's attention and regard. He wants to make the same claim for poetry, too.
Now, in our world, with a superabundance of verbal art and printed material, it is written works of literature that have captured our attention, with painting far behind. There are bookstores in every city, filled with books, and you probably bought several books this year yourself, right? And how many paintings did you buy, eh?
In Horace's world, however, books were a rare commodity, rarer even than paintings. Books, moreover, had to be copied from other books. Paintings, however, could be done from life itself - all you needed to do was to be able to paint. So, if you got a craving for a painting to keep in your ancient Roman villa, you could actually satisfy that craving more easily than you could satisfy a craving for a book.
With digital art, however, the image is starting to gain on the written work. People can now make images using a camera, and then make endless copies of their photographs digitally, sharing them via the Internet with anyone who wants a copy. Plus, it is far easier to take pictures with a camera than it is to write proper English (the spellchecker can only do so much!).
So perhaps the pendulum is swinging back to Horace's visual world, where painting took precedence over poetry, allowing Horace to assert, ut pictura poesis. Although in the modern age, we will perhaps need to assert, ut Photoshoptura poesis.
Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud:
157. Ut pictura poesis.
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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