12: rock, sickness, day, action, wisdom

Here are today's vocabulary words; they are all feminine nouns with the nominative and genitive, along with a brief definition; notice that you have 1st and 2nd and 3rd declension nouns here. Click on the word to learn more at Logeion, and there's also a study tips post.

1. πέτρα ~ πέτρας (f.): rock 

2. νόσος ~ νόσου (f.): sickness, disease 

3. ἡμέρα ~ ἡμέρας (f.): day 

4. πρᾶξις ~ πράξεως (f.): action, business 

5. σοφία ~ σοφίας (f.): wisdom 

Here are the proverbs and sayings:

Πέτρας ἕψεις.

Ἰατρὸς νόσου ὁ ὕπνος.

Ἀντὶ ἡμέρας νὺξ ἐγένετο.

Οὐ γνῶσις, ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις.

Σοφία γάρ ἐστι καὶ μαθεῖν ὃ μὴ νοεῖς.  

Listen at SoundCloud:

Laura Gibbs · Greek Proverbs: 012

Plus some commentary:

Πέτρας ἕψεις.

You're boiling rocks.

In other words: you're wasting your time. No matter how long you boil a stone, it stays a stone. From the Greek πέτρα, we get English words like petrify, along with the name Peter. See this earlier blog post for a similar saying: Λίθον ἕψεις.

Ἰατρὸς νόσου ὁ ὕπνος.

Sleep is the doctor of sickness.

In other words: get some sleep — you'll feel better! The words are adapted from a fragment of Sophocles. From root of the Greek word ἰατρός, we get a variety of English compound words formed with -iatric: pediatric, geriatric, etc. Compare a similar saying you saw earlier at this blog: Ὕπνος δὲ πάσης ἐστὶν ὑγιεία νόσου.

Ἀντὶ ἡμέρας νὺξ ἐγένετο.

Before day, there was night.

The cycles of night and day, day and night, provides a proverbial way to express the ups and downs of life, its bright moments and its dark moments. The Greek νύξ is cognate with English night, from proto-Indo-European nókʷts. You can see the Greek ἡμέρα in the English ephemeral, i.e. lasting for just a day.

Οὐ γνῶσις, ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις.

Not knowledge, but action.

For example, it's not enough to read a book about swimming; if you want to learn to swim, you need to get in the water and swim. The saying is adapted from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: τὸ τέλος ἐστὶν οὐ γνῶσις ἀλλὰ πρᾶξις, "the goal is not knowledge, but action." The Greek word πρᾶξις has been adopted into English as praxis, and γνῶσις as gnosis.

Σοφία γάρ ἐστι καὶ μαθεῖν ὃ μὴ νοεῖς.

Wisdom is also to learn what you don't know.

This is another one of the monostichs of Menander. Note the adverbial use of καὶ: wisdom consists of what you know (the saying implies), but it also — καὶ — consists of learning what you don't know. For more about the personification of wisdom, see Wikipedia: Sophia.

Statue of Sophia at Ephesus:

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