Daily Greek Vocabulary Challenge: Sept. 9

It's Phase 2 of the Greek proverb/vocabulary project: Phase 1 featured 350 proverbs, and I'll do the same again in Phase 2, 5 proverbs at a time. This is Group 71. :-)

So, here are today's vocabulary words! Click on the word to learn more at Logeion:

1. δίκη ~ δίκης (noun f.): justice 
2. νόσος ~ νόσου (noun f.): sickness, disease 
3. φιλία ~ φιλίας (noun f.): friendship 
4. κεφαλή ~ κεφαλῆς (noun f.): head 
5. ἀλήθεια ~ ἀληθείας (noun f.): truth 

These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):

Δίκης ὀφθαλμός.

Ἡράκλειος νόσος.

Ζεῖ χύτρα, ζῇ φιλία.

Ἐς πόδας ἐκ κεφαλῆς.

Εἰ ἀεὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἡμῖν ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἀθάνατος ἂν ἡ ψυχὴ εἴη.

Laura Gibbs · Greek Proverbs: 071

And now, some commentary:

Δίκης ὀφθαλμός.

The eye of justice.

There is a fuller form of this saying found in Plutarch, quoting an iambic line from an unidentified tragic poet: Ἔστι Δίκης ὀφθαλμός, ὅς τὰ πάνθ' ὁρᾷ, "There is an eye of justice that sees all things" (πάνθ' ὁρᾷ = πάντα ὁρᾷ). For more about Δίκη, the goddess of justice, see Wikipedia: Dike.

Here's the meter of the iambic line for those of you who like verse:

Ἔστι Δίκης | ὀφθαλ-μός, ὅς | τὰ πάν-θ' ὁρᾷ.

Ἡράκλειος νόσος.

The sickness of Heracles.

In the mythological accounts of Heracles, we learn that he was subject to violent seizures and also psychotic episodes, as when he murdered his music teacher Linus with a lyre (see below), or when he killed his own wife and children (for details, see Wikipedia). This was called Ἡράκλειος νόσος, and also ἱερὰ νόσος, "the sacred sickness." The Greek medical writers associated the Ἡράκλειος νόσος with epilepsy, and for more about Heracles, epileptic seizures and psychotic episodes, see this article: Afflicted by the Gods: The Shared History and Neurobiology of Psychosis and Epilepsy.

Ζεῖ χύτρα, ζῇ φιλία.

(While) the pot is boiling, friendship lives.

The idea is that when there is good food to share, it's easy to find and keep friends. Note the sound-play between the verbs ζεῖ and ζῇ. There is also a related but rather different saying cited by Erasmus: χύτρης φιλία, "a friendship of the pot," which means a friendship that exists only because of good food, convenience, opportunity, etc., as opposed to true friendship which persists even in adversity. From the Greek φιλία, we get all the -phile words in English, such as... bibliophile!

Ἐς πόδας ἐκ κεφαλῆς.

To the feet from the head.

Or, as we might say in English: "from head to foot" or "from head to toe" — although the Greek makes more sense than the English, referring to feet in the plural. The phrase is found already in Homer's Iliad, referring to Patroclus' body being prepared for his funeral. From the Greek κεφαλ- we get all the -cephal- words in English like encephalitis and cephalopod.

Εἰ ἀεὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἡμῖν ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἀθάνατος ἂν ἡ ψυχὴ εἴη.

If the truth is forever in our soul, the soul is immortal.

The words are spoken by Socrates in Plato's Meno. For the etymology of ἀλήθεια as "un-oblivion" (the opposite for the river Lethe), see Wikipedia: Aletheia.

Heracles strikes Linus with lyre

And here's a random proverb too:

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