Greek Stories and Proverbs: 30: laughter, light, road, mouth, pleasure

Here are today's vocabulary words; they are nouns with the nominative and genitive plus gender, along with a brief definition. Click on the word to learn more at Logeion, and there's also a study tips post.

1. γέλως ~ γέλωτος (m.): laughter

2. φῶς ~ φωτός (n.): light, daylight

3. ὁδός ~ ὁδοῦ (f.): road, way

4. στόμα ~ στόματος (n.): mouth
5. ἡδονή ~ ἡδονῆς (f.): pleasure

Here are the proverbs and sayings:

Σαρδώνιος γέλως.

Τὸ φῶς ἡλίῳ δανείζεις.

Τὴν ὀρθὴν βαδίζειν ὁδόν.

Μέγα στόμα τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ.

Ἐξ ἡδονῆς γὰρ φύεται τὸ δυστυχεῖν.

Listen at SoundCloud: 30.

Laura Gibbs · Greek Proverbs: 030

Plus some commentary:

Σαρδώνιος γέλως.

Sardonic laughter.

The Greek word Σαρδώνιος is a variant of Σαρδάνιος, referring to the island of Sardinia, called Σαρδώ in Greek; see Wikipedia: Sardinia. This phrase has survived in English, meaning laughter that is scornful or mocking. Different ancient authors offer different explanations for this saying. I like the one about a plant that grows in Sardinia which was so bitter that it twisted people's faces into a sneering grin. It might have been a poisonous form of hemlock, so that the people who ate the plant smiled themselves to death; details here: The Chilling Origins Of The Sardonic Laugh.

Τὸ φῶς ἡλίῳ δανείζεις.

You're loaning light to the sun.

This is another proverb about acting both foolishly and presumptuously: the sun doesn't need any light from you! From Greek φωτο- we get a huge number of English photo- words, and from ἥλιος we get English helium and also heliotrope. For more about the sun god Ἥλιος, see Wikipedia: Helios.

Τὴν ὀρθὴν βαδίζειν ὁδόν.

To walk the straight path.

Compare the English saying, "to walk the straight and narrow." Metaphorically, this means to proceed honestly, to do the right thing. Although ὁδός is a second-declension noun, it is feminine in gender: τὴν ὀρθὴν ὁδόν. From Greek ὁδός we get the word odometer.

Μέγα στόμα τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ.

The year's mouth is big.

This saying might not make much sense at first sight, but the word ἐνιαυτός can refer not just to a year but specifically to the culmination of the seasonal cycle. The idea, then, is that farmers, looking at the year's harvest, feel encouraged by their prosperity and talk "big," full of confidence and even boastful, as if the next year will surely come to a similar conclusion. There are many English words formed from Greek μεγα.

Ἐξ ἡδονῆς γὰρ φύεται τὸ δυστυχεῖν.

From pleasure misfortune is born.

From Greek ἡδονή we get the word hedonism. The word δυστυχεῖν is an infinitive, which means it is a noun, and here it is in the nominative case, the subject of the verb φύεται. I translated it as mis-fortune to imitate the Greek word: δυσ-τυχεῖν. The prefix δυσ means "bad" or "hard," as you can see in many English words starting with dys. As for Greek τύχη, meaning "luck" or "fortune," you've seen that in an earlier post: Τύχη δ' ἀρετῆς ἀναίτιος.

Here you can see Helios in his chariot: