Non curat numerum lupus

In English: The wolf doesn't worry about the number.

Since I had written about dogs in yesterday's post (and also the day before), I thought I would do a proverb about the wolf today. There are many Latin proverbs about wolves, and in particular about wolves, sheep and shepherds, which is the clue you need to understand the meaning of today's proverb. Just what number is it that the wolf ignores? It is the number of the sheep!

In other words, the shepherd can keep track of his sheep, counting them and recounting them, but that is not going to stop the wolf from taking what he can. Are there supposed to be fifty sheep in your flock? The wolf doesn't care. He takes one... and all of a sudden you have just forty-nine.

Metaphorically speaking, this refers to any disaster that upsets your best laid plans. The weather doesn't care if you have invited five hundred guests to an outdoor wedding; it's going to rain anyway. The traffic light doesn't care if you are running late, desperately late, to an important job interview. Although it's not quite the same idea, it's something like the English saying: "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry" (from a poem by Robert Burns).

The Latin proverb was clearly in common usage, as it is an implied text in one of Vergil's Eclogues, where a shepherd is singing the praises of bright light and a warm fire on a cold night:

Hic focus et taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis
semper, et adsidua postes fuligine nigri.
hic tantum Boreae curamus frigora quantum
aut numerum lupus aut torrentia flumina ripas.

Here is the hearth and the well-fueled torches, here there's always an abundant fire, and the doorposts are black with constant soot. Here we heed the North Wind's blasts just as much as the wolf heeds the number or the raging rivers heed their banks.

In other words, we heed the North Wind not at all, just as the wolf does not heed the number of the sheep!

As often with proverbs, this one circulates in a fuller form which is less enigmatic: Lupus non curat numerum ovium, "The wolf does not care about the number of the sheep." In the Latin Via Proverbs book, I included both versions, purely for grammatical reasons. Latin students can do the simpler version of the proverb as soon as they know the first conjugation verbs (curat) and the second declension nouns (numerum lupus). They can then attempt the more complex version as soon as they have learned the third declension (ovium, which a nice i-stem noun students need to learn early on so that they can keep their eggs and their sheep separate - a pair of nouns easily confused in Latin!).

Here, then, are both proverbs read out loud:

1058. Non curat numerum lupus.

1171. Lupus non curat numerum ovium.

The numbers here are the numbers for these proverbs in Latin Via Proverbs: 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin.

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Etiam me meae latrant canes

In English: Even my own dogs are barking at me.

I thought I would follow up on yesterday's proverb with another saying about dogs. Today's saying (taken from Plautus's Poenulus) is about someone who is in such a desperate situation that even his own dogs are hostile to him! A dog is supposed to be man's best friend, so you know you are in serious trouble if even your own dogs are barking at you. Metaphorically, this saying can apply to any situation in which you are being attacked by your own friends or allies (I wonder if Bush feels a bit like this with Gates telling the Senate that he doesn't think America is winning the war in Iraq...).

In order to illustrate this saying I thought I would choose two great storytelling moments. The first moment is the homecoming of Odysseus. This is not so much an illustration of today's saying as a counter-illustration. The great hero Odysseus has come home, but things are not good in Ithaca, so he has to infiltrate his own home disguised as a beggar. The faithful servant Euryclea recognizes Odysseus, even in disguise, because as she washes his feet, she recognizes the scar on his thigh (this scene is famously the subject of an essay by Erich Auerbach, "Odysseus' Scar," the first chapter in his wonderful book Mimesis). But even before he is recognized by Euryclea, there is someone else who recognizes Odyssues: his faithful dog, Argos. Remember that Odysseus has been gone nigh on twenty years, so Argos is a very old dog indeed at this time. As soon as he recognizes his master, he lowers his ears and tries to wag his tail in greeting. As he does so, he give out one last whimper and passes away. This is the perfect opposite of today's saying: even while Odysseus has to disguise himself from his family and his neighbors, his dog is utterly loyal and faithful, recognizing Odysseus even when others fails to do so.

For a completely different homecoming, which perfectly illustrates today's saying, consider the story of the Emperor Jovinianus from the ever-delightful Gesta Romanorum. Jovinianus was proud and boastful, and he was punished by God to have his place occupied by a body double, a guardian angel who takes Jovinianus's place in every way: the heaven-sent impostor takes Jovinianus's clothes, his horse, and his home, leaving Jovinianus naked and desperate, unrecognized by any of his friends or servants. And, in a moment of desperation like the one expressed in today's saying, Jovinianus is attacked even by one of his own dogs:

Qui cum taliter nudus introductus fuisset, canis quidam, qui antea multum eum dilexerat, ad guttur suum saltabat, ut eum occideret, sed per familiam impeditus est, sic quod nullum ab eo accepit malum.

When Jovinianus was thus brought into the court wearing no clothes, a certain dog, one who had previously loved Jovinianus greatly, leaped at Jovinianus's throat, seeking to kill him, but he was prevented by the household servants so that Jovinianus was not hurt.

Interested in reading more of this absolutely delightful medieval tale? You can find the Latin text online at The Latin Library.

Meanwhile, here is today's proverb read out loud (no barking, I promise!):

1312. Etiam me meae latrant canes.

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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Perit panis quo peregrinum canem alis

In English: The bread is lost by which you feed a stray dog.

Yesterday's proverb was a very lofty and moral proverb that started with the word perit. I thought I would choose another proverb today starting with perit, but one which takes a much more utilitarian, even ruthless, point of view, rather than the high-minded idealism of yesterday's saying. The world of Latin proverbs is rich in both types of wisdom, as taught in the school of virtue, but also in the school of hard knocks.

The message of today's saying is that it is a waste of bread if you feed it to a stray dog who is likely to wander off without the least notice. You can take that literally, if you want - if there's not much bread to go around and you squander it on a dog who is going to wander off, then you have indeed wasted your bread. You either need to not feed that stray dog, or else you need to put a collar on him and keep him. (For a brilliant Aesop's fable about whether it's worth it or not for the dog to wear that collar, see the story of The Dog and The Wolf.)

As often with proverbs, there is also a message here that goes beyond the simple question or whether or not to feed a stray dog. In business terms, it means not to lay out money if you are not going to get a return on your investment. In the world of romance, it suggests that you do not to treat someone to dinner unless you think there's something serious about to develop. And so on... the metaphorical applications are endless, all very Realpolitik, very Machiavellian.

The word peregrinus here had a very practical meaning in Latin. It was someone foreign, someone who came from abroad, literally from across (per) the field (ager), an outsider, a stranger. Over time, however, the word came to take on a much more specific meaning in later Christian Latin culture. The peregrinus was the person who had left their home to go elsewhere on a pilgrimage, and the English word "pilgrim" ultimately derives from the Latin peregrinus, via the late Latin form pelegrinus, which yielded an Anglo-Norman word "pilegrine," and finally "pilgrim".

Today's proverb, of course, advocates a decidedly un-Christian answer to the question of whether or not to feed that pilgrim dog!

Here is today's proverb read out loud (I didn't say anything about alliteration in my comments today but, just like yesterday's proverb, you will hear some great alliteration in this one):

2241. Perit panis quo peregrinum canem alis.

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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Perit voluptas, virtus immortalis est.

In English: Pleasure perishes; personal worth is immortal.

In yesterday's post, I cited a passage from Saint Augustine, where he posed the contrast between how life passes by (transit), while the word of God remains (manet). Today's saying poses a similar contrast between fleeting pleasure, voluptas, and undying virtus.

The translation of the Latin word virtus poses a basically insurmountable problem in English, for which I do not have a good solution. In this proverb, there is clearly a sound play between the "v" in voluptas and the "v" in virtus. It's almost as if the proverb is saying: don't be fooled - these two words might start with the same letter, but they lead to completely different ends! Notice also the sound play with perit and voluptas, where there are echoes of "perishing" in "pleasure" itself.

Luckily the sound play between "perish" and "pleasure" works very nicely in English. But how to translate virtus to keep the sound play with "pleasure" in English? There are so many possible translations of Latin virtus: virtue (which is a very moralizing word in English, much more limited than the Latin), physical prowess, resourcefulness, bravery. So, in order to pick up on that sound play between voluptas and virtus, I chose "pleasure" and "personal worth" as the English translation here, although it's not an entirely satisfactory solution. Translation is never entirely satisfactory - as anyone knows who has worked seriously at it.

Luckily, the Latin grammar of this saying is so entirely simple that you don't really need to rely on the English translation at all! The saying itself comes from Publilius Syrus, one of my very favorite sources for Latin proverbs and adages. You can find Publilius "The Syrian" at The Latin Library online, and in book form Publilius is included in the fascinating Loeb volume, Minor Latin Poets I. I suspect it is simply to torment us that when they broke it up into two volumes, they put Publilius in volume I, while the Dicta Catonis are in Minor Latin Poets II.

If you are wondering why Publilius is included in the "poets," this is because his maxims do scan! Although most American Latin students get short-changed when it comes to learning iambic meters in Latin, the iambic meter is actually an easy one for English speakers, if you want to read this maxim metrically: Perit ~ volup~tas, vir~tus im~morta~lis est."

And here is today's proverb read out loud (but not with any emphasis on the meter):

2245. Perit voluptas, virtus immortalis est.

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

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

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Horae volant

In English: The hours are flying by.

I was prompted to choose this saying for today because the last week of our school semester begins tomorrow, although it seems as if it only just started. The months have flown by, hence the Latin: horae volant.

This is a commonly used phrase in Latin, although I wanted to cite here by way of example a lovely passage from Saint Augustine (Sermon 124) where he meditates on how time flies:

Hesternum diem nemo revocat: hodiernus crastino urgetur, ut transeat. Ipso parvo spatio bene vivamus, ut illo eamus unde non transeamus. Et modo cum loquimur, utique transimus. Verba currunt, et horae volant; sic aetas nostra, sic actus nostri, sic honores nostri, sic miseria nostra, sic ista felicitas nostra. Totum transit, sed non expavescamus: Verbum Domini manet in aeternum.

Nobody can summon yesterday to return; today is being pressed by tomorrow to pass away. This is the very brief space of time in which we must live well, in order to go to that place from which there is no more passing away. And even as we are speaking, we are indeed passing away. Our words run onwards, the hours are flying by; so too our life, our deeds, our achievements, so too our suffering, and our very happiness. Everything passes away, but let us not be afraid: the word of the Lord abides forever.

Here and in his other writings, Augustine was a keen observer of the paradoxes of time, how the future flows into the present, which is always passing away. Time does not just pass, but passes away, transit, a mortality that is stamped upon the very fabric of time in the world in which we live. Horae volant, indeed. Quite a profound thought to squeeze into two little words!

And here is today's proverb read out loud:

1034. Horae volant.

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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Sto in extrema tegula

In English: I'm standing on the last roof tile.

I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, about standing on the ancient ways. Today's proverb is about a much more precarious situation, when someone finds themselves, as you might say in English, "at the end of their rope." The image is of being up on a roof, Latin tectum, which is covered with roof tiles, tegulae. You are backing up, step by step, until you have reached the last tile, and there is no more room to maneuver. The next step you take will plunge you over the edge of the roof.

The words tectum, "roof," and tegula, "roof-tile," are from the same root, teg-, as in the verb, tegere, "to cover." Although Isidore of Seville is sometimes rather fanciful in his Etymologies, this is one that he did get right: Tegulae vocatae quod tegant aedes, "They are called roof-tiles, tegulae, because they cover, tegant, the house."

You can see the Latin word tegula in the famous passage from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 5:

et ecce viri portantes in lecto hominem qui erat paralyticus et quaerebant eum inferre et ponere ante eum et non invenientes qua parte illum inferrent prae turba ascenderunt supra tectum per tegulas submiserunt illum cum lecto in medium ante Iesum, quorum fidem ut vidit dixit homo remittuntur tibi peccata tua,

"And behold, men brought in a bed a man who had the palsy: and they sought means to bring him in and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in, because of the multitude, they went up upon the roof and let him down through the tiles with his bed into the midst before Jesus. Whose faith when he saw, he said: Man, thy sins are forgiven thee."

That's a good example of someone with no room to maneuver who manages to turn the roof to good use, making it a kind of unexpected door to salvation!

So, hoping that you are not standing on the last tile, here is today's proverb read out loud:



1031. Sto in extrema tegula.

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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Sto super vias antiquas

In English: I stand upon the old ways.

I thought this proverb would be a good follow-up to the via antiqua of yesterday's post. Depending on context, this proverb can take slightly different forms: sto, "I stand," stare, "to stand," or the imperative state, "stand!" (second person plural).

This saying ultimately derives from the Hebrew Bible, but the actual Biblical quotation is a bit different in form. Jeremiah 6:16 reads: State super vias et videte et interrogate de semitis antiquis, quae sit via bona, et ambulate in ea, "Stand upon the ways and look and inquire about the old paths, as to which is the good way, and walk in that way."

You can find the vias antiquas form of the proverb in The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon. In this fascinating passage, Bacon warns against the twin dangers of too much antiquity on the one hand, and too much novelty on the other:

The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities; the one antiquity, the other novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the other; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and novelty cannot be content to add but it must deface. Surely the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, STATE SUPER VIAS ANTIQUAS, ET VIDETE QUAENAM FIT VIA RECTA ET BONA ET AMBULATE IN EA. Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression.

Francis Bacon admirably represents this need to stay in touch with the old while pursuing the new. His familiarity with traditional culture and myths is clear from this passage (time devouring his children being the foundation myth for the succession of the Greek gods), while Bacon was also one of the leaders of the scientific revolution in the 17th century. If only the current debates about religion and scientism had the the good sense we see here expressed by Francis Bacon!

So, looking both backwards and forwards, here is today's proverb read out loud:

1032. Sto super vias antiquas.

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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