Latin Via Proverbs
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LATIN VIA PROVERBS 4000 Proverbs, Mottoes and Sayings for Students of Latin by Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. Published by Lulu Publishers 860 Aviation Parkway Morrisville, NC 27560 (919) 459-5858 www.lulu.com © 2006 Laura Gibbs. All rights reserved. This book is part of Bestiaria Latina, a collection of online and printed Latin language teaching materials. For more information, visit the website: www.bestlatin.net Non scholae sed vitae discimus. LATIN VIA PROVERBS This book and its companion website, latinviaproverbs.com, are designed to help you study Latin by means of proverbs. There are already many collections of Latin proverbs in print, but they are not very useful for the study of Latin. Proverb collections are usually organized alphabetically or by source or by topic, but in this book the proverbs are organized by Latin grammatical categories. This allows you to find easy-to-read proverbs exactly suited to your level of Latin, whether you are a beginning or an intermediate student. Beginning Latin students. If you are a beginning Latin student, you can work through this book based on the order that the grammar is presented in your textbook. Do not try to do this book in order; instead, follow the order in which the nouns and verbs are presented in your textbook. You can use the Table of Contents in this book (pages xv-xix) to find proverbs that match the nouns and verbs you are studying. Intermediate Latin students. If you are an intermediate Latin student who already has completed a course in Latin, you can use this book as a systematic review of Latin grammar. You either can work through this book from start to finish, or you can focus on the specific categories of Latin nouns and verbs that you most want to practice. What Are Proverbs? English, like Latin, is a language of many proverbs. You might find it fun to sit down for a half hour or so and make a list of the first English proverbs that come to mind: All that glitters is not gold, You can’t judge a book by its cover, A stitch in time saves nine, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, It takes one to know one, A rolling stone gathers no moss and so on. In the pages of this book, you will find many Latin proverbs that are equivalent to the English proverbs you already know. In fact, there are quite a few English proverbs i Preface that English writers borrowed from Latin sources. Proverbs provide a practical “philosophy of life,” and in the same way that we have borrowed many ideas from ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, we also have borrowed many proverbial expressions from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The English word “proverb” itself is derived from the Latin word proverbium. Another Latin word, adagium, gives rise to “adage.” From Greek, we get the English words “aphorism” and “apothegm.” There is a late Latin word, muttum, which gives us “motto” in English, and bon mot in French. There are no hard-and-fast definitions for any of these terms, although there is one feature that they all share: proverbs, mottoes, adages, aphorisms, and apothegms are all sayings that have been said somewhere before, and said often. A saying, by implication, should be an “old saying,” something that is “tried and true,” something that “people” say. It is a “truism,” and the more often it is repeated, the more true it becomes. Since the Romantic era, however, authorial originality and individuality steadily have eroded what was “tried and true.” We want to know who said what and, even more importantly, who said it first. These are not the sorts of questions you ask about proverbs: proverbs are anonymous, and they thrive on repetition, not originality. There is a Roman proverb that says, Via trita via tuta, “The well-worn way is the safe way.” You can take that literally, of course: a road that many have used before no doubt is safe to travel. Taken metaphorically, the traditional “way” is a safe way, even the best way, to do anything. In this sense, the Romans always were looking backwards, embracing their traditions and venerating their past. The via trita, the well-worn way, was a path they were glad to follow. Our value system, however, is skewed in a different direction. From the Latin word trita we get the English word “trite,” meaning “worn-out, empty of meaning.” As Romantics, we want to “boldly go where no man has gone before.” Not so the Romans. They were suspicious of going off the beaten path. It’s dangerous out there, after all: Hic sunt leones, “there be lions here,” as the old maps warned. ii Preface Learning Latin Through Proverbs There are many reasons why reading Latin proverbs is an ideal way to learn the Latin language. First and foremost: proverbs are short! Here is the first proverb in the book, for example: Scientia potentia, “Knowledge is power.” Two words! There are hundreds of proverbs in this book that are just two or three words long. So even if you have to look up every word in the proverb, that is not very many words to look up. Another great advantage of proverbs is that they mean something, unlike the typical practice sentences you might find in your Latin textbook. You can agree or disagree with the meaning of the proverb, but in either case it should give you something to think about. You might even find a proverb that can serve as your own personal motto. There is a long tradition of family mottoes in Latin, along with state mottoes, school mottoes, and so on. Every Latin student needs a motto! A motto is easy to memorize because it is short, and you can keep it with you always, kind of like a verbal good luck charm. Or as a tattoo - I have received countless queries over the years from people looking for Latin to use in tattoos (the shorter, the better: ouch!). Because proverbs pack so much meaning into very few words, you may find it difficult to translate them into English. Latin proverbs tend to rely heavily on word play and sound play, precisely the kind of thing that is hard to render in a translation. So, don't stop with a word-for-word English translation. You need to do more than just translate into English if you want to understand what the proverb actually means. Can you think of some situation in which the proverb could be used? Who do you think would say something like this, and why, and to whom would they say it? What tone of voice would they use? You also can make your own personal connection to the proverb. Can it be applied to your life or to the life of someone you know? These are the sorts of questions you can ask in order to explore the proverb's meaning. The dictionary can give you an English definition iii Preface for each word, but you will need to use your imagination to grasp the full range of meaning conveyed by the proverb in Latin. If you find a proverb that has you stumped, visit the website at latinviaproverbs.com where you can learn more about each proverb and ask a question if you would like some extra help. The Poetry of Proverbs As you work through the proverbs, you will find that there are some proverbs which are worthy of long reflection, even though the proverbs themselves are short in length. Many proverbs are miniature poems, using the poetic resources that are inherent in language, such as rhyme and metaphor, to convey many meanings in just a few words. Consider this proverb, for example: Amore more ore re firmantur amicitiae. Literally, this means, “By means of love, habit, speech and deed, friendships are strengthened.” This English translation cannot capture the magic of the Latin: amore more ore re... The proverb casts a kind of verbal spell at the same time that it makes a direct statement. The Latin words unwind, revealing a secret message encoded in the language itself. You can grasp what the Latin proverb means but you will find it impossible to translate this into English. Here is another Latin proverb based on elaborate word play: Homo humus, fama fumus, finis cinis. Literally, it means: “Man (is) earth, rumor/reputation (is) smoke, end (is) ash.” All the charm is lost in translation, since the English words cannot reproduce the Latin rhymes and sound play. Adding to the poetry, there also are many metaphors at work in this proverb. Take the phrase fama fumus, for example: fama, rumor or reputation, is fumus, smoke. This is a profound and suggestive metaphor you can explore in many different ways. Perhaps rumor is like smoke because it is insubstantial and blows away in the slightest breeze. Or you could say reputation is like smoke because it is the byproduct of something real, the fire, something blazing, iv Preface bright, and metaphorically brilliant. The smoke can linger on after the fire has gone out, as can someone’s reputation. And so on. If you aim only for a translation, you will be frustrated, because there is no easy way to translate Latin fama with a single English word, much less an English word that sounds like “smoke.” But if you ponder the poetic qualities of the proverb in Latin, you will find that you have much to say, quite aside from any English translation.