Greek Animal Vocabulary: July 6

When I originally started looking for proverbs to use at this blog, I focused on proverbs that had at least one "common" vocabulary term, a word in the 2000 most frequently used words in ancient Greek. Unfortunately, that meant most animal names were not included, as there are only a few animals who are in the top 2000. So, for the next few weeks, I'll be doing proverbs that use Greek animal vocabulary! Admittedly, these animal names are not among the most common words but, as a fan of Aesop's fables, I think they are very useful to know, and there are lots of proverbs about animals.

So, today is the first of those groups with animal vocabulary; this is group 179 overall. Click on the word to learn more at Logeion:

αἴξ ~ αἰγός (noun c.): goat 

βάτραχος ~ βατράχου (noun m.): frog 

κάνθαρος ~ κανθάρου (noun m.): beetle 

ὗς ~ ὑός (noun c.): pig 

γαλέη ~ γαλέης (noun f.): weasel 

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

Αἲξ Σκυρία.

Βατράχοις οἰνοχοεῖς.

Ἀετὸν κάνθαρος μαιεύεται.

Ἀντὶ κακῆς κυνὸς ὓν ἀπαιτεῖς.

Μῦς γαλῆν ἐλέγξει τὴν τέως νύμφην.

And now, some commentary:

Αἲξ Σκυρία.

A Scyrian goat.

The she-goats from the island of Skyros in Greece were proverbial for kicking over the milk bucket after they had been milked. As such, they came to stand for someone who was contrary and troublesome, squandering their own riches and resources for no good reason.

Βατράχοις οἰνοχοεῖς.

You're pouring wine for frogs.

This is one of those proverbial "fool's errands." Because frogs don't drink wine, only water, you are wasting the wine that you pour for them.

Ἀετὸν κάνθαρος μαιεύεται.

The beetle is midwife to the eagle.

This alludes to an Aesop's fable in which the eagle kills a rabbit who had taken refuge with the beetle and, in revenge, the beetle rolls the eagle's eggs out of the nest again and again. So, the beetle is a deadly midwife who prevents the eagle from having children; the proverb warns the eagle to beware. Here is the Aesop's fable: The Eagle and the Beetle.

Ἀντὶ κακῆς κυνὸς ὓν ἀπαιτεῖς.

In exchange for a bad dog, you're demanding a pig.

The Greek proverb-collectors (Diogenianus, Zenobius, Apostolius) all explain that this proverb means asking for a bad thing in exchange for another bad thing. Erasmus, however, concludes that it means to ask for something good in exchange for something bad (because, he says, pigs are good to eat, and dogs are not). In Scaliger's elegant verse experiment editing the Greek proverb corpus into metrical forms, there is an iambic variation: Σύ μ' ὗνἀπαιτεῖς ἀντὶ τῆς κακῆς κuvóς, "You're demanding a pig from me in exchange for a bad dog." Here's the meter marked:

Σύ μ' ὗν | ἀπαι||τεῖς ἀν|τὶ τῆς || κακῆς | κuvóς.

Μῦς γαλῆν ἐλέγξει τὴν τέως νύμφην.

The mouse put the just-married weasel to shame.

This proverb also alludes to an Aesop's fable: Aphrodite changed a weasel into a woman, and the woman then got married to a man, but when Aphrodite decided to test the newlywed woman by letting loose a mouse, the bride jumped down on all fours and chased the mouse, so Aphrodite changed the woman back into a weasel. In later versions of the fable, the weasel was replaced by a cat: Venus and the Cat. Here's an illustration by Tenniel.

And here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too:

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