Elephantus culicem non curat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



1162. Elephantus culicem non curat.

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

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Mutare non potest pardus varietates suas

In English: A leopard cannot change his spots.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The King James version follows the Hebrew closely:

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

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

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

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

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

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

2158. Mutare non potest pardus varietates suas.

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

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Greek and Latin Proverb of the Day

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

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

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

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Ne capra contra leonem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

897. Ne capra contra leonem.

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

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

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