Monday, August 5, 2013

Latin Proverbs and Fables Round-Up: August 5

Here is a round-up of today's proverbs and fables - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. If you have not downloaded a free PDF copy of Brevissima: 1001 Tiny Latin Poems, it's ready and waiting, as is Mille Fabulae et Una: 1001 Aesop's Fables in Latin. If you prefer the heft of a book in your hand, you can get the books in printed form from Lulu.com.

HODIE (Roman Calendar): Nonae Augustae, the Nones of August.

MYTHS and LEGENDS: The art image for today's legend shows Aeneas and Turnus; you can also see the legends for the current week listed together here.


TODAY'S MOTTOES and PROVERBS:

TINY PROVERBS: Today's tiny proverb is: Beati pacifici (English: Blessed are the peace-makers).

3-WORD MOTTOES: Today's 3-word verb-less motto is Lente, sed attente (English: Slowly, but carefully).

ANIMAL PROVERBS: Today's animal proverb is Irritare canem noli dormire volentem (English: Do not irritate a dog who wants to sleep).

POLYDORUS: Today's proverb from Polydorus is: Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit (English: The Lord has given; the Lord has taken away).

PROPER NAME PROVERBS: Today's proper name proverb from Erasmus is Bocchyris iudicium (English: The judgment of Bocchyris; from Adagia 2.7.65 - a man had a sexual dream about a prostitute, and the prostitute demanded he pay her for dream services; King Bocchyris of Egypt ruled that the money be put into a basin and shaken around so that the prostitute could enjoy the look of the coin and thus be satisfied appropriately).

GREEK PROVERBS: Today's proverb is Ἅπαντα σοφοῖς ῥᾷστα (English: For the wise, all things are easy).

BREVISSIMA: The distich poster for today is Quod Paucis Orandus Deus. Click here for a full-sized view; the poem has a vocabulary list and an English translation, too.


And here are today's proverbial LOLcats:





TODAY'S FABLES:

FABULAE FACILES: The fable from the Fabulae Faciles widget is Feles, Mus, et Caseus, a funny little fable about how just how voracious a cat can be (this fable has a vocabulary list).

MILLE FABULAE: The fable from the Mille Fabulae et Una widget is Serpens et Filius Rustici, a story about about how hard it is to forgive a grievous wrong.

Rusticus et Serpens

Greek Bible Art - and Latin and English, too. Below is one of my Greek Bible Art graphics; for the individual Greek, Latin and English versions of the graphic, see the blog post: λαβὼν ποτήριον καὶ εὐχαριστήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς. Accipiens calicem, gratias egit, et dedit illis. He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them.


Myth and Folklore Books. I'm accumulating some book recommendations for the classes I teach and wanted to share them here. Today's book is Hitopadesha by Edwin Arnold, a wonderful collection of animal fables and proverbs; you can see the table of contents here. This is a free Amazon Kindle eBook, and you don't need a Kindle to read it - you can read Kindle books on any computer or mobile device, or you can use the Amazon Cloud Reader in your browser.