ἄνεμος ~ ἀνέμου (noun m.): wind, gale
αὐτός ~ αὐτοῦ (adj./pron. m.): he, himself
νόμος ~ νόμου (noun m.): custom, law
κύριος ~ κυρίου (noun m.): lord, master
These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):
Μυὸς ὄλεθρος.
Ἀνέμους γεωργεῖν.
Αὐτοὶ χελώνας ἐσθίετε.
Βασιλεῖ νόμος ἄγραφος.
Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου.
Μυὸς ὄλεθρος.
The death of the mouse.
The mouse was proverbial for having an easy death, provided it dies of natural causes (and not in the claws of a cat or the talons of a bird). The proverbial saying is reported by Aelian in On the Nature of Animals, and the phrase also appears in the comic poet Menander. The Greek noun ὄλεθρος is related to the verb ὄλλυμι, and in Homer, the noun appears in the formulaic expression αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος, usually translated as "sheer destruction." For more about the origin and meaning of the Homeric phrase see the discussion in Simon Pulleyn's essay, A Linguistic Approach to Classics.
Ἀνέμους γεωργεῖν.
To farm the winds.
This is another proverbial fool's errand. You are supposed to farm the earth, which is literally what the word means: the γεωργός, "farmer," is someone does work ἔργον on the earth γεω-. Nothing will come of farming the winds. Of course, now in the 21st century we do have wind-farms! From the Greek word ἄνεμος we get English "anemometer" which measures the speed of the wind. And from Greek farming, we get the name George in English.
Αὐτοὶ χελώνας ἐσθίετε.
Eat the turtles yourselves!
A fuller form of the saying is Αὐτοὶ χελώνας ἐσθίεθ᾿ οἵπερ εἵλετε, "Eat the turtles yourselves, you who caught them." This is from a story about Hermes and some fishermen, as Erasmus explains: the fishermen had caught more turtles than they could eat, so when Hermes came by, they offered him some turtles to eat, but he realized their hospitality was not sincere, just convenient, so he told them to eat the turtles themselves.
Βασιλεῖ νόμος ἄγραφος.
For the king, the law (is) not written.
In other words, the law does not apply to the king. There is a fuller form of this proverb also: Μωρῷ καὶ βασιλεῖ νόμος ἄγραφος, in which the fool, μωρός, like the king, is outside the rule of the written law. The Greek word νόμος gives us the English words with -mony as a suffix, like economy, astronomy, etc. And, yes, the plant "basil" does get its name from Greek βασιλεύς; it is βασιλικόν φυτόν, the royal plant.
Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου.
You will not tempt the LORD your god.
The words come from the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus rebuked the devil who tempted him during his 40 days in the desert. Both Gospel writers are quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy. The use in Greek of κύριος without a definite article is a signal that the word is being ritually substituted for the sacred name of God, the tetragrammaton; that's why I have followed the convention of printing LORD in all-caps. In this, Greek Christians (and presumably Greek Jews before them) were following the Hebrew convention of substituting "Adonai" for the tetragrammaton in their reading of the scriptures; more about Adonai. (And yes, the Greek name Adonis, Ἄδωνις, comes from the same Semitic root.)
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And here's a random proverb too:
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