These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):
Εἰς ὕδωρ γράφεις.
Ἥλιξ ἥλικα τέρπει.
Ὄνου πόκους ζητεῖς.
Ουδεὶς πεινῶν καλὰ ᾄδει.
Ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί.
And now, some commentary:
Εἰς ὕδωρ γράφεις.
You're writing on water.
In other words, you are doing something foolish; the water will simply carry your words away. The phrase appears with various prepositions: ἐν ὕδατι γράψει in Plato, καθ᾿ ὕδατος in Lucian, etc., but the idea is always the same: only a fool would write on water! Similarly, only a fool would trust something written on water, as in this saying in Menander: Ἀνδρῶν δὲ φαύλων ὅρκον εἰς ὕδωρ γράφε, "Write the oath of bad men in water," i.e. their words cannot be trusted. From Greek γραφ- we get all the graph words in English, including the word "graph" itself.
Ἥλιξ ἥλικα τέρπει.
People of the same age enjoy (each other's company).
Literally, "same-age delights in same-age." This saying appears in Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics in a discussion of friendship, and he marks the expression as proverbial with the word λέγεται, "it is said that" — λέγεται ἥλιξ ἥλικα τέρπει. You can see the root τερπ in the names Εὐτέρπη, the muse of music, and Τερψιχόρη, the muse of dancing. And note, Greek ἥλιξ is not the origin of English "helix," which instead comes from Greek ἕλιξ, meaning "something twisted, a spiral."
Ὄνου πόκους ζητεῖς.
You're looking for wool from a donkey.
This is another proverbial fool's errand: you get wool from a sheep, not from a donkey. Compare the proverbial English "hen's teeth." The saying appears in Aristophanes' The Frogs, where Charon, the boatman, asks: τίς εἰς τοῦ Λήθης πεδίον, τίς εἰς ὄνου πόκας; "Who's for the plain of Lethe? Who's for the donkey's wool?" In this context, the "donkey's wool" is not just a fool's errand, but instead is an ultimate "nowhere," the annihilation that awaits all Charon's passengers.
Ουδεὶς πεινῶν καλὰ ᾆδει.
No one who is hungry sings beautiful songs.
There is a rhyming Latin equivalent from the Middle Ages: Ieiunus venter non vult cantare libenter, "A hungry stomach will not gladly sing." The verb ᾄδω also appears in the form ἀείδω. As with so many important Greek words, the etymology is unknown.
Ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί.
When I die, let the earth be mixed with fire.
The opening words, ἐμοῦ θανόντος, are a genitive absolute, the idea being that once I'm dead, it doesn't matter to me what happens; the earth might as well burn to ashes for all I care. The words are the first line of an iambic couplet from the Greek Anthology; the second line is: οὐδὲν μέλει μοι· τἀμὰ γὰρ καλῶς ἔχει, "It doesn't matter at all to me, for my situation (τὰ ἐμά, "my stuff") is just fine." The saying was quoted by the Emperor Tiberius, and this callous and self-centered sentiment certainly suits him.
And here's a random proverb too:
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