Daily Greek Vocabulary Challenge: Sept. 30

Here are today's vocabulary words; it's Group 86. Click on the word to learn more at Logeion:

λύπη ~ λύπης (noun f.): pain, grief 

γαῖα ~ γαίας (noun f.): earth, land 

βουλή ~ βουλῆς (noun f.): counsel, advice 

γαστήρ ~ γαστρός (noun f.): stomach, belly 

γλῶσσα ~ γλώσσης (noun f.): tongue 

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

Λῦπαι νόσους τίκτουσιν.

Τὸ τεχνίον πᾶσα γαῖα τρέφει.

Βουλὴ πονηρὰ χρηστὸν οὐκ ἔχει τέλος.

Κακὸν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ πείθεσθαι γαστρί.

Ἡ γλῶσσα πολλοὺς εἰς ὄλεθρον ἤγαγεν.

And now, some commentary:

Λῦπαι γὰρ ἀνθρώποισι τίκτουσιν νόσους. 

Grieving leads to people getting sick.

Literally: griefs (plural) give birth to sicknesses (plural) for people. The words are from a fragment of Euripides, and the saying also appears in the monostichs (one-liners) of Menander; here is the iambic meter marked:

Λῦπαι | γὰρ ἀν||θρώποι|σι τίκ||τουσιν | νόσους. 

Τὸ τεχνίον πᾶσα γαῖα τρέφει.

Everywhere in the world fosters art.

Suetonius says that the Emperor Nero quoted this saying when boasting that he would thrive anywhere in the world because he was a talented musician, even if he were to be driven from Rome as astrologers had predicted. The word τεχνίον is a diminutive of the more commonly used word τέχνη, meaning art, skill, craft; the Greek root of these words gives us all the tech- English words like technology.

Βουλὴ πονηρὰ χρηστὸν οὐκ ἔχει τέλος.

A wicked plan does not lead to a useful outcome.

This is another one of the iambic monostichs of Menander:

Βουλὴ | πονη||ρὰ χρη|στὸν οὐκ || ἔχει τέλος.

The root of the noun βουλή is also found in the verb βούλομαι.

Κακὸν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ πείθεσθαι γαστρί.

To obey the stomach is a cruel constraint.

Here the stomach stands for life's most basic physical needs, like having to eat in order to stay alive. Note that the infinitive is a neuter noun; hence the neuter article, τό. The noun ἀναγκαῖον means a prison, a place to which you are confined or constrained by necessity, ἀνάγκη. From the Greek root in γαστήρ we get all the gastr- words in English like gastronomy and gastritis.

Ἡ γλῶσσα πολλοὺς εἰς ὄλεθρον ἤγαγεν.

The tongue has led many people to their destruction.

This is yet another one of Menander's monostichs:

Ἡ γλῶσ|σα πολ||λοὺς εἰς | ὄλεθ||ρον ἤ|γαγεν.

Smyth's Greek grammar cites this as an example of what he calls an empiric aorist, which is essentially the same as a gnomic aorist, i.e. aorists used to express a general experience or accepted fact. Such aorists are often rendered in English with a present or perfect verb, rather than the usual past tense translation.

Nero in "I, Claudius"

And here's a random proverb too:

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