Daily Greek Vocabulary Challenge: Sept. 27

Here are today's vocabulary words; it's Group 85, and they are all common nouns, i.e. they can be gendered as feminine or masculine based on the context. Click on the word to learn more at Logeion:

ὄρνις ~ ὄρνιθος (noun c.): bird

βοῦς ~ βοός (noun c.): ox, cow

κύων ~ κυνός (noun c.): dog

παῖς ~ παιδός (noun c.): child (boy or girl)

θεός ~ θεοῦ (noun c.): god, goddess

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

Γάλα ὀρνίθων.

Λοκρικὸς βοῦς.

Προμέρου κύνες.

Μῦς δακὼν παῖδ᾿ ἀπέφυγε.

Ὁ θεὸς τῇ σοφίᾳ ἐθεμελίωσεν τὴν γῆν.

Laura Gibbs · Greek Proverbs: 085

And now, some commentary:

 

Γάλα ὀρνίθων.

The milk of birds.

This is something that only a fool would seek: you can't get milk from a bird. Compare donkey's wool in a proverb you saw in an earlier blog post: Ὄνου πόκους ζητεῖς. From Greek ὄρνις we get ornithology, and from γάλα we get galaxy, as in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Λοκρικὸς βοῦς.

A Locrian bull.

This refers to a cheap imitation. As Erasmus explains, when the people of Locria (located in central Greece) sacrificed cattle to the gods, they didn't sacrifice actual cattle; they carved tiny cattle out of wood and sacrificed the wooden figurines instead. Greek βοῦς can mean a bull or cow (common gender), but it is marked here as masculine: Λοκρικὸς. 

Προμέρου κύνες.

The dogs of Promerus.

This saying alludes to the legendary death of the playwright Euripdes: as Erasmus explains, Euripides was supposedly torn to pieces by the dogs of Promerus, a royal official who had conceived an enormous hatred for him. Promerus ordered the dogs to attack Euripides, and they did so. Aulus Gellius also reports that Euripides was killed by dogs, although he does not mention the name Promerus.

Μῦς δακὼν παῖδ᾿ ἀπέφυγε.

A mouse, having bit a child, ran away.

A child is small, but a mouse is even smaller, so the saying is used when someone, small though he may be, attacks an enemy greater than himself and gets away with it. The accusative form is παῖδα, but the final vowel is elided before the following vowel: παῖδ' ἀπέφυγε. From the root of Greek παῖς (παῖδ-), we get English words like pedagogy and pediatric.

Ὁ θεὸς τῇ σοφίᾳ ἐθεμελίωσεν τὴν γῆν.

God established the earth by means of wisdom.

The words come from the Biblical Book of Proverbs. The full verse is ὁ θεὸς τῇ σοφίᾳ ἐθεμελίωσεν τὴν γῆν, ἡτοίμασεν δὲ οὐρανοὺς ἐν φρονήσει, "... and he arranged the heavens with his thinking." The noun θεὸς is common gender, but here it is gendered masculine, ὁ θεὸς. In some traditions, Sophia (ἡ σοφία) is a feminine divine principle, partnered with the masculine god; find out more at Wikipedia: Sophia.

bust of Euripides

And here's a random proverb too:

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