Thursday, August 23, 2007

Latin Via Proverbs 136

I hope these notes will help you tackle this group of proverbs in Latin Via Proverbs. This group includes more third declension nouns with third conjugation verbs.

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. You can find more help at the LatinViaProverbs.com wiki website.

Group 136

1764. Grief shatters strong hearts. (You will find this saying in Tibullus.) Frangit fortia corda dolor.

1765. Sweet speech subdues anger. (Compare this rhyming variant: frangitur ira gravis, cum sit responsio suavis, "weighty anger is broken when the reply is sweet.")

1766. A gentle reply subdues anger. (You will find this in the Biblical Book of Proverbs.)

1767. Decorum abandons all people who are angry. (This sentiment is expressed in Seneca's treatise on anger.)

1768. A living voice can do much. (You can read about the viva vox in Erasmus's Adagia, 1.2.17, and you can find this specific quote in Seneca.)

1769. Virtue is found in the middle ground. (Compare the English saying, "The truth lies somewhere in the middle." In other words: virtue consists of not going to extremes! You can find this sentiment expressed in Thomas Aquinas.)

1770. Virtue grows under pressure. (This is recorded in Crozier's General Armory as a motto of the Chapman family.)

1771. Virtue grows in adversity. (A fuller form of this phrase is mansura virtus crescit in adversis, "virtue, which is sure to remain, grows in adversity.")

1772. Virtues rises up to the heavens. (This is a motto of the Balfour family.)

1773. Virtue lives on after the funeral rites. (This is the motto of the city of Nottingham.)

1774. No one can snatch away true wealth. (This phrase has been adopted as a moral appended to Phaedrus's story of Simonides and the shipwreck.)

1775. Nature creates all people free. (This is from an addendum to Plautus's Aularia: omnes natura parit liberos, et omnes libertati natura student, "nature creates all people free, and all people by nature strive for freedom.")


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