φιλία ~ φιλίας (noun f.): friendship
πενία ~ πενίας (noun f.): poverty
κύκλος ~ κύκλου (noun m.): circle, ring
ἑσπέρα ~ ἑσπέρας (noun f.): evening, west
φύλαξ ~ φύλακος (noun m.): guard, keeper
These are the proverbs (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):
Φιλίαν φύλαττε.
Πενίῃ σοφίη ἔλαχεν.
Κύκλος τῶν ἀνθρωπηΐων πρηγμάτων.
Ἠδη γὰρ ὁ βίος οὑμὸς ἑσπέραν ἄγει.
Μὴ φύλαξ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μού εἰμι ἐγώ.
And now, some commentary:
Φιλίαν φύλαττε.
Preserve friendship.
The nice word-play in the Greek doesn't come through in the English, alas. This is another one of the sayings recorded in the Delphic Maxims of Stobaeus. You see the Attic form of the verb φυλάσσ-. You can see the root of this Greek verb in English "prophylactic." For the related noun φύλαξ, see below.
Πενίῃ σοφίη ἔλαχεν.
Wisdom is the lot of poverty.
The idea is that someone who has to work for the basics of food and shelter has to be ingenious; it's a matter of life or death, not philosophical speculation. The verb ἔλαχεν can be intransitive as here, and it can also be used transitively ("obtain by lot"), which means you can also see the saying in this form: Πενία τὴν σοφίαν ἔλαχε (as found in a fragment of Euripides).
Κύκλος τῶν ἀνθρωπηΐων πρηγμάτων.
The circle of human affairs.
The idea is that things go around and around, up and down, in the cycle of human existence; compare the idea of the wheel of Fortune, which is both round and also goes up and down. From Greek κύκλος we get English "cycle." Sanskrit chakra is also from the same Indo-European root.
Μὴ φύλαξ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μού εἰμι ἐγώ.
I could not possibly be my brother's keeper.
This famous line is from the story of Cain and Abel in the Biblical Book of Genesis. Note the emphatic pronoun ἐγώ in the emphatic final position, along with the use of μὴ for the negative: this is not a matter of simple fact (οὐκ...εἰμι) but of utter impossibility: μὴ...εἰμι. Here is the complete verse with the King James translation: καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Καιν ποῦ ἐστιν Αβελ ὁ ἀδελφός σου ὁ δὲ εἶπεν οὐ γινώσκω μὴ φύλαξ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μού εἰμι ἐγώ, "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?"
Ἤδη γὰρ ὁ βίος οὑμὸς ἑσπέραν ἄγει.
My life now is bringing its evening.
The idea is that human life is like a day, and as life reaches its end, that's like the evening of the day. This is a fragment from the comic playwright Alexis; more about Alexis at Wikipedia. Coincidentally, Alexis supposedly lived to the ripe old age of 106 and died on stage while he was being crowned as the winner of yet another prize; he supposedly wrote 245 comedies, although only a few fragments survive. The word οὑμὸς is a contraction of ὁ ἐμός. You can see ἑσπέρα in the Greek Hesperides, the nymphs of sunset who reside in the farthest west. Hesperus, meanwhile, is the name of the evening star.
And here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too :
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