In English: It is a sweeter thing for you to become wise from others' mistakes than for others to become wise from your mistakes.
I'm working on the final draft of the manuscript of my new Aesop's fables book for Bolchazy-Carducci (based on Barlow's Aesop of 1687), so of course I've got Aesop's fables even more on the brain than usual. That is what prompted me to choose this saying for today, which expresses the basic principle of the negative exemplum, learning from the mistakes made by others. The idea is that if you can look at the mistakes the foolish characters make the in the fables, you might be able to avoid making the same mistakes in your own life.
The alternative, of course, is that you could make mistakes which could prove to be instructive for others! That is the less desirable option: far better that others make mistakes which you can learn from, rather than vice versa.
Today's saying manages to express that very nicely, with the elegance of a Latin parallel construction and some implied words: Te de aliis (fieri doctum/doctam) quam alios de te suavius est fieri doctos. The Latin does not actually contain the word "mistakes" but simply says de te, "from you," and de aliis, "from others." That seemed so very strange in English that I added in the word "mistakes," although that does detract from the elegance of the Latin, with its beautifully paralleled pronouns, te de aliis quam alios de te....
The saying itself is a very old one, and can be found in the Persa, that delightful comedy by Plautus, where it is none other than the doomed pimp, Dordalus, who utters the words: sed te de aliis, quam alios de te suaviust fieri doctos. The pimp is speaking with the tricky slave Toxilus, the one who will, in fact, lead Dordalus to commit a series of terrible mistakes by the end of the play, so that he is eventually tricked out of his own money by Toxilus, who then uses the money to buy the freedom of his own girlfriend from the pimp.
So, hoping you find yourself in the role of Toxilus rather than Dordalus in the theater of life, here is today's proverb read out loud:
2200. Te de aliis quam alios de te suavius est fieri doctos.
The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.
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March 06, 2008
March 03, 2008
Tranquillo quilibet gubernator est
In English: When it's calm, anybody can be the helmsman.
I thought I would post this proverb à propos of what might be the last big primary elections on Tuesday. In particular, I was thinking about a campaign ad being run by the Clinton campaign, and being made directly rebutted by the Obama campaign, about just who is most qualified to pick up that emergency phone when it rings in the White House at 3 a.m. to announce some urgent crisis. As the Latin saying tells us here, when you are sailing on a calm sea, tranquillo, anybody can steer the ship - and what the proverb thus implies, of course, is that when the sea is not calm, not just anybody is going to be qualified to pilot the ship.
The reason I was prompted to choose this proverb in particular is because it features the Latin word gubernator, the helmsman or pilot of the ship. Of course, there is where we get our words for governance; the English word "governor" and all the related words (govern, government, and so on) are direct descendants of the Latin gubernator - so of course, I had to laugh when they were calling Schwarzenegger the "governator" of California - that sounded very Latin indeed!
The Latin itself comes from a Greek word, κυβερνήτης (kubernetes), which morphed into Latin, the unvoiced K being replaced by a voiced G (perhaps through Etruscan), and the Greek -etes suffix replaced by Latin -ator. The English derivatives have gov- instead of the Latin gub-, except for the later addition to the English language, "gubernatorial," which comes more directly from the Latin.
Through another route, the Greek word κυβερνήτης reaches English in the word "cybernetics," where the Greek KUB remains intact, as English cyb-. Cybernetics is an abstract field of control and system theory, meaning the "study of the structure of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles" (wikipedia). The term "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, who studied communication and control processes in both animals and machines, although the word in Greek was already used by Plato; κυβερνητικός (kubernetikos = cybernetic) meant someone good at steering, guiding, governing - steering that proverbial ship of state!
So, happy voting to those of you who live in this Tuesday's primary states! And here is today's proverb read out loud:
951. Tranquillo quilibet gubernator est.
The number here is the number for this proverb in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.
If you are reading this via RSS: The Flash audio content is not syndicated via RSS; please visit the Latin Audio Proverbs blog to listen to the audio.
Keep up with the latest posts... Subscribe by Email. I also post a daily round-up of all the Bestiaria Latina blogs: fables, proverbs, crosswords, and audio.
I thought I would post this proverb à propos of what might be the last big primary elections on Tuesday. In particular, I was thinking about a campaign ad being run by the Clinton campaign, and being made directly rebutted by the Obama campaign, about just who is most qualified to pick up that emergency phone when it rings in the White House at 3 a.m. to announce some urgent crisis. As the Latin saying tells us here, when you are sailing on a calm sea, tranquillo, anybody can steer the ship - and what the proverb thus implies, of course, is that when the sea is not calm, not just anybody is going to be qualified to pilot the ship.
The reason I was prompted to choose this proverb in particular is because it features the Latin word gubernator, the helmsman or pilot of the ship. Of course, there is where we get our words for governance; the English word "governor" and all the related words (govern, government, and so on) are direct descendants of the Latin gubernator - so of course, I had to laugh when they were calling Schwarzenegger the "governator" of California - that sounded very Latin indeed!
The Latin itself comes from a Greek word, κυβερνήτης (kubernetes), which morphed into Latin, the unvoiced K being replaced by a voiced G (perhaps through Etruscan), and the Greek -etes suffix replaced by Latin -ator. The English derivatives have gov- instead of the Latin gub-, except for the later addition to the English language, "gubernatorial," which comes more directly from the Latin.
Through another route, the Greek word κυβερνήτης reaches English in the word "cybernetics," where the Greek KUB remains intact, as English cyb-. Cybernetics is an abstract field of control and system theory, meaning the "study of the structure of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles" (wikipedia). The term "cybernetics" was coined by Norbert Wiener, who studied communication and control processes in both animals and machines, although the word in Greek was already used by Plato; κυβερνητικός (kubernetikos = cybernetic) meant someone good at steering, guiding, governing - steering that proverbial ship of state!
So, happy voting to those of you who live in this Tuesday's primary states! And here is today's proverb read out loud:
951. Tranquillo quilibet gubernator 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.
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