πᾶς ~ παντός (adj. masc.): all, every
κακός ~ κακοῦ (adj. masc.): bad, evil
ἐγκρατής ~ ἐγκρατοῦς (adj. masc.): having mastery, self-controlled
γλυκὺς ~ γλυκέος (adj. masc.): sweet, pleasant
μέσος ~ μέσου (adj. masc.): middle, middle age
These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):
Κοινὰ πάθη πάντων.
Κακὸς ἀνὴρ μακρόβιος.
Ζήνωνος ἐγκρατέστερος.
Γλυκὺς ὕπνος τοῦ δούλου.
Ἔργα νέων, βουλαὶ δὲ μέσων, εὐχαὶ δὲ γερόντων.
And now, some commentary:
Κοινὰ πάθη πάντων.
Suffering is common to all.
These words come from the "gnomai" supposedly composed by Phocylides, the 6th-century B.C.E. poet, although the work is now usually attributed to a pseudo-Phocylides, and perhaps composed as late as the 1st century C.E. by a Jewish writer. Here are the complete "gnomai" of pseudo-Phocylides if you are curious.
Κακὸς ἀνὴρ μακρόβιος.
The wicked man lives a long time.
Compare the English saying, "Only the good die young." (Or the less well-known English saying, "A creaking door hangs long on its hinges.") You can see the Greek root κακ- in the English word "cacophony," and English "macrobiotic" is from μακρό-βιος.
Ζήνωνος ἐγκρατέστερος.
More self-controlled than Zeno.
The Zeno in this saying is not the Zeno famous for his paradoxes (that's Zeno of Elea), but instead Zeno the Stoic philosopher, called Zeno of Citium. This proverbial saying about the Stoic Zeno is reported by Diogenes Laertius. The word ἐγκρατέστερος is the comparative form of ἐγκρατής, hence the genitive complement: Ζήνωνος. From Greek ἐγκρατής comes the English word Encratites, which referred to early ascetic Christians who practiced sexual abstinence and did not eat meat.
Γλυκὺς ὕπνος τοῦ δούλου.
Sweet is the sleep of the slave.
The words come from the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. Here is the full verse in the King James version: The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. From the Greek root γλυκ- we get all the scientific terms formed with glyc- in English like hypoglycemia or nitroglycerin.
Ἔργα νέων, βουλαὶ δὲ μέσων, εὐχαὶ δὲ γερόντων.
Deeds (are) for the young, plans for the middle-aged, and prayers for the old.
This is one of the fragments of Hesiod, and there is a hilarious story in Strabo about Athenodorus Cananites which features a parody of this saying: ἔργα νέων, βουλαὶ δὲ μέσων, πορδαὶ δὲ γερόντων — the word πορδή means "fart" (and, yes, the Greek and English words are both from the same Indo-European root!). You can read the whole story in Strabo here; just click on "load" to see the English translation side by side with Strabo in Greek.
.jpg)
And here's a random proverb too:
.jpg){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment