Δὶς κράμβη _____.
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Δὶς κράμβη θάνατος.Δός τι καὶ _____ τι.
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Δός τι καὶ λάβε τι.Παρ᾿ _____ λυρίζεις.
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Παρ᾿ ὄνῳ λυρίζεις.Εἰς _____ φάτνας.
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Εἰς ἀρχαίας φάτνας.Δωδωναῖον _____.
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Δωδωναῖον χαλκεῖον.Δὶς κράμβη θάνατος.
Cabbage two days in a row (is) death.
Cabbage was proverbially the food of poor people, and having to eat cabbage day after day is proverbial hyperbole for desperate poverty. The saying appears in the letters of Basil of Caesarea. You can find out about the Greek personification of death at Wikipedia: Thanatos.
Δός τι καὶ λάβε τι.
Give something and receive something.
Compare the English saying, "Give and take." The Greek phrase appears in a dialogue formerly attributed to Plato but now considered spurious; you can find out more at Wikipedia: Axiochus. In that dialogue, it is paired with a similar saying you saw in this blog post: Ἁ δὲ χεὶρ τὰν χεῖρα νίζει, "One hand washes another."
Παρ᾿ ὄνῳ λυρίζεις.
You're making music for a donkey.
This is yet another Greek proverb about the mismatch between donkeys and the music of the lyre. To have a donkey for your audience means, metaphorically, that you are wasting your time; the person you are speaking to cannot appreciate what you are saying. See this earlier post: Ὄνος λύρας ἀκούων κινεῖ τὰ ὦτα — and also this one: Τί γὰρ κοινὸν λύρᾳ καὶ ὄνῳ;
Εἰς ἀρχαίας φάτνας.
To their former mangers.
As Erasmus explains, this proverb is based on the way that animals return to their familiar feeding-troughs. Metaphorically, it applies to people who have suffered a reversal of fortune, causing them to return to their old lifestyle. The root of the adjective ἀρχαῖος is ἀρχή, "beginning, first, former," which you can see in the English noun archetype and in the adjective archaic.
Δωδωναῖον χαλκεῖον.
A bronze (bell) of Dodona.
This saying referred to a noisy person, as if they were as loud as the famous bronze bell or cymbal of Dodona (an oracle site in northern Greece) that rang out whenever the wind blew; another source tells us that the oracle spoke through a series of interconnected kettle drums made of bronze, such that when any one of them was struck, they all resounded. In any case, something noisy was going on at the oracle of Dodona, and that's what this saying refers to: a whole lot of noise-making! Find out more at Wikipedia: Dodona.
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Δὶς κράμβη θάνατος.Δός τι καὶ _____ τι.
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Δός τι καὶ λάβε τι.Παρ᾿ _____ λυρίζεις.
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Παρ᾿ ὄνῳ λυρίζεις.Εἰς _____ φάτνας.
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Εἰς ἀρχαίας φάτνας.Δωδωναῖον _____.
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Δωδωναῖον χαλκεῖον.
And to finish up, here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too:
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