I hope these notes will help you tackle this group of proverbs in Latin Via Proverbs. This is another group of proverbs with first conjugation verbs, along with first, second, and third declension nouns.
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 93
1212. Dogs dream of bread. (I cannot think of a way to get the nice canes-panes rhyme into English. This is the same idea as the English "a dog's life." Instead of being pampered, this proverbial dog was starved - but he could dream of bread!)
1213. Woods are welcome to all. (In a play on words, this is a motto of the Underwood family. The phrase is adapted from Vergil, where it has a quite different meaning: non omnis arbusta iuvant humilesque myricae, "woods and humble tamarisks are not welcome to all.")
1214. His rays illuminate everything. (This is a motto of the Brownhill family.)
1215. Waters wear away stones. (You can find this saying in the Book of Job.)
1216. Achievements change character. (A fuller form of this saying is Honores mutant mores, sed raro in meliores, "Achievements change character, rarely for the better.")
1217. Lovers love flowers. (There is no way I can think of to get the rhyme of amatores-flores into the English version, alas.)
1218. The bigger fish eat the littler ones. (A variant of this same idea appears in Varro: piscis saepe minutas magna comest, "often a big fish eats the little ones.")
1219. Letters don't give bread. (In other words: writing and literature don't put food on the table. )
1220. Poems don't give bread. (In other words: writing poetry doesn't put food on the table.)
1221. Poems too can lighten cares. (You can find this in one of the eclogues of Nemesianus.)
1222. They all wound; the last one kills. (This one is a bit of a riddle: the answer is "hora," hour. This is an inscription found on clocks and sundials. I first saw it on the clock in the town of Conegliano in northern Italy.)
1223. Fires tests gold; misfortunes test the strong man. (This is a saying you can find in Publilius Syrus.)
This blog post is part of an evolving online guide for users of the book Latin Via Proverbs.
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