Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Round-Up: October 28

Here is a round-up of today's blog posts - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. You can keep up with the latest posts by using the RSS feed, or you might prefer to subscribe by email.

HODIE: ante diem quintum Kalendas Novembres. You can add a Roman calendar as a widget in your blog or webpage, or display it as a Google Calendar: here's how.

TODAY'S POEM: Here is today's little poem, from the Poetry Widget. This is another one of Owen's elegant little epigrams, with a word list at NoDictionaries.com, as usual:
Vivere vix quid sit novi: mirum nil ergo,
Si quid sit nasci || nescio, quidve mori.
English: "I've scarcely learned what it is to live: no wonder then, if I don't know what it is to be born, or what it is to die." They are, of course, the two great mysteries, the bookends of life, being born and dying - with appropriately mysterious deponent verbs for both of them in Latin, nasci and mori.

TODAY'S TWITTER:

Vita Caesaris: You can see my IVLIVS CAESAR feed with a sentence from Plutarch's Life of Caesar each day in Greek, Latin and English. Today's Latin portion continues the story of Caesar's rise to power in opposition to the Senate: In senatu autem optimatibus repugnantibus, arrepta quam dudum quaerebat occasione, magna uoce obtestatus inuitum se & ui coactum ad populum confugere eique se committere iniuriis & uiolentia senatus compulsum, ex Curia se in forum proripuit.

Proverbiis Pipilo: You can see my Proverbia feed of Latin proverbs which I "tweet" while I am online each day (in English, too). Here's one from today: Omnia quae nitent aurea non sunt (which is a Latin version of a proverb well-known in English: "all that glitters is not gold").

TODAY'S PROVERBS:

You can get access to all the proverb of the day scripts (also available as random proverb scripts) at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website.

Audio Latin Proverb of the Day: Today's audio Latin proverb is Tempus est vitae magister (English: Time is the teacher of life). To read a brief essay about this proverb and to listen to the audio, visit the Latin Via Proverbs blog.

Maxims of Publilius Syrus: Today's proverb from Publilius Syrus is: Patiens et fortis se ipsum felicem facit (English: The man who is patient and courageous makes himself a happy man - an unusual combination, patiens et fortis, definitely worth pondering!).

Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb in Leonine verse form is: Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina (English: The mind of a wolf may often hide beneath the skin of a lamb).

Proverbs of Polydorus: Today's proverb from Polydorus is: Lusciniae non deest cantio (English: The nightingale has no lack of song).

Proverbium Perbreve of the Day: Today's two-word proverb is: Spe expecto (English: I wait in hope; there is a word-play in the Latin between spe and ex-spe-cto, even though there is no linguistic relationship between the words).

Proverbium Breve of the Day: Today's three-word proverb is: Qui tacet, consentit (English: A Latin equivalent of the familiar English saying, "silence is consent").

Vulgate Verse of the Day: Today's verse is Melior est sapientia quam vires. (Wisdom 6:1). For a translation, check out the polyglot Bible, in English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, at the Sacred Texts Archive online.

Latin Animal Proverb of the Day: Today's animal proverb is Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra. (English: This is the Latin equivalent of "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" - although there are four birds in the Latin, and it rhymes, too!).

Latin Animal Proverb of the Day from Erasmus: Today's animal proverb is Nisi si qua vidit avis (English: Not unless a little bird saw it; from Adagia 2.2.28 - this refers to some event that had no witnesses at all, unless, perhaps some tiny bird happened to be there, unnoticed; compare the English saying "a little bird told me," when you want to claim knowledge of an event to which you yourself could not have been a witness).

Proper Name Proverb of the Day from Erasmus: Today's proper name proverb is Phryx plagis emendatur (English: A Phrygian has to be corrected with blows; from Adagia 1.8.36, in which a person from Phrygian is considered something like a donkey in human form, a slow-witted dolt who cannot respond to reason - a sentiment you can find in Cicero, for example, in references to witnesses from Phrygia, in ancient Anatolia = modern-day Turkey).

Greek Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is Ἀνδρὸς ὑπ' ἐσθλοῦ καὶ τυραννεῖσθαι καλόν (English: If a man is good, then it is a fine thing even to be ruled over by him... which I guess is a saying I can endorse, although such good men are few and far between!).

TODAY'S FABLES:

Ictibus Felicibus: Today's fable with macrons and accent marks is Formicae et Cicada, the story of the grasshopper who went to the ants, begging for food - round about this time of the year, in fact!

Fable of the Day: Today's fable of the day from Barlow is DE VITULA ET BOVE, about the heifer and the ox.

For an image today, I wanted to include one of the wolf in sheep's clothing: Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina, as in the rhyming proverb for today. There are so many images online to choose from, but I though this one was one of the best! What a great use of Photoshop - wow!



Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.