Thursday, May 23, 2024

48: in, last, for, beside, once

Here are today's vocabulary words! Click on the word to learn more at Logeion, and there's also a study tips post.

1. ἐν (prep.+dat.): in, at
2. ἔσχατον (adv.): finally, last of all 
3. γάρ (conj.): for, as 
4. παρά (prep.+dat.): beside, with 
5. ἅπαξ (adv.): once 
 
Here are the proverbs and sayings:

Ἡ κύων ἐν φάτνῃ.

Θυμὸς ἔσχατον γηράσκει.

Πάντα γὰρ καιρῷ καλά.

Πάντα γὰρ δυνατὰ παρὰ τῷ θεῷ.

Δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλόν, τὸ δὲ κακὸν οὐδ' ἅπαξ. 



Plus some commentary:

Ἡ κύων ἐν φάτνῃ.
The dog in the manger.
This alludes to the fable of the dog in the manger: he cannot eat the hay that is there, but he will not let the other animals eat it either. So, the dog in the manger is a proverbial miser, not enjoying his wealth in any way while also not sharing it with others. You can see some English versions of the fable here: The Dog in the Manger.

Θυμὸς ἔσχατον γηράσκει.
Anger grows old last.
The word ἔσχατον is used here adverbially: grows old last (of all). In other words, as someone gets older they might lose the pleasures of youth, but they will still be capable of getting angry, perhaps even of getting more angry in their old age. There's a related idea in Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus: θυμοῦ γὰρ οὐδὲν γῆράς ἐστιν ἄλλο πλὴν θανεῖν, "anger has no old age other than death." From the same root as Greek ἔσχατον we get English eschatology.

Πάντα γὰρ καιρῷ καλά.
All things (are) good at the right moment.
These words come from Sophocles's Oedipus the King, in a dialogue between Oedipus and Creon near the end of the play. Here and elsewhere I have not tried to translate the Greek particle γὰρ, although it shows up often in proverbs and sayings, providing a link between the saying and the context to which it is to be applied.

Πάντα γὰρ δυνατὰ παρὰ τῷ θεῷ.
All things (are) possible with God.
The statement appears in the Gospel of Mark. Compare the Gospel of Luke: τὰ ἀδύνατα παρὰ ἀνθρώποις δυνατὰ παρὰ τῶ θεῶ ἐστιν, "things that are impossible with people are possible with God." The preposition παρά has a wide range of meanings in English, as you can see in the Logeion entry.

Δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλόν, τὸ δὲ κακὸν οὐδ' ἅπαξ.
Twice or thrice (repeat) what is good, but what is bad, not even once.
The word οὐδέ becomes οὐδ' before the following vowel. The first part of this saying also circulated on its own, as you saw in an earlier post: Δὶς καὶ τρὶς τὸ καλόν. The Greek adverb ἅπαξ shows up in the phrase ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, "said one time" (only). You can find out more about that phrase at Wikipedia: Hapax legomenon.


Here is an illustration of "The Dog in the Manger" from a children's book published in 1880:







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