Sunday, April 08, 2007

Latin Via Proverbs 59

I hope these notes will help you tackle this group of proverbs in Latin Via Proverbs.
This group features sayings with pronouns, specifically with forms of the reflexive pronoun.

Please note: to read the proverbs in Latin, you need to acquire a copy of the book from lulu.com! What I am providing here in the blog are notes to help people who are making their way through the book either in a Latin class or on their own.

Group 59

784. Blind love of oneself. (You can find this saying in one of Horace's odes.)

785. Not for oneself but for one's own. (In other words, for one's own family, friends, etc. This is the motto of Tulane University.)

786. Not for oneself but for one's fatherland. (This saying is inscribed over the chapel doors at the United States Naval Academy. Although it is not officially the motto of the U.S. Navy, it is widely regarded as such.)

787. Not for oneself, but for others. (This is the motto of The Governor's Academy in Byfield Massachusetts, established in 1763.)

788. Not for oneself, but for all. (This is the motto of the Liverpool Blue Coat School, founded in 1708.)

789. A moderate amount of food is a doctor for oneself. (I cannot think of a good way to capture the Latin word play, modicus...medicus.)

790. The gods on high have their own laws. (You will find this saying in Ovid's Metamorphoses.) Sunt superis sua iura.

791. Everyone is king in his own house. (Compare the English saying, "A man's home is his castle.")

792. The swan is the singer of his own funeral dirge. (This is a line in one of Martial's epigrams.)

793. Both the ant and the flea have their biles. (Compare a similar saying: Formicis sua bilis inest, et muribus ira, "Ants have their own bile, and mice their own anger.")

794. To the owl, its chick is the most beautiful. (The theme of the beloved ugly offspring is a theme commonly found in Aesop's fables, as in the story of the monkey and her baby, or the toad and his son.)

795. The quarrels of brothers with one another are the most bitter. (This saying made its way into Erasmus's Adagia, 1.2.50.)


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