Sunday, November 3, 2013

Latin Proverbs and Fables Round-Up: November 3

Here is a round-up of today's proverbs and fables - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. If you have not downloaded a free PDF copy of Brevissima: 1001 Tiny Latin Poems, it's ready and waiting (my project from summer of 2012); this is the source for the Brevissima poster item below.

HODIE (Roman Calendar): ante diem tertium Nonas Novembres.

MYTHS and LEGENDS: The art image for today's legend shows Andromache, Hector and Astyanax; you can also see the legends for the current week listed together here.


TODAY'S MOTTOES and PROVERBS:

TINY PROVERBS: Today's tiny proverb is: Fuga tutior (English: Safer by fleeing - definitely the motto of my week last week!).

3-WORD MOTTOES: Today's 3-word verb-less motto is Honesta quam magna (English: Honorable things, rather than big).

ANIMAL PROVERBS: Today's animal proverb is Disparibus bubus numquam trahitur bene currus (English: The cart is never pulled well when the oxen do not match).

POLYDORUS: Today's proverb from Polydorus is: Dei facientes adiuvant (English: The gods help those who are doers).

PROPER NAME PROVERBS: Today's proper name proverb from Erasmus is Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (English: Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold - the gods here standing for bread, wine, and love; from Adagia 2.3.97).

GREEK PROVERBS: Today's proverb is Βοῦν ἐπὶ γλώττης φέρει (English: He's carrying an ox on his tongue - with the "ox" referring to Greek coins that were stamped with the picture of an ox; the phrase means that someone has been bribed to keep silent).

BREVISSIMA: The distich poster for today is Temporibus Duris. Click here for a full-sized view.


And here are today's proverbial LOLcats:




TODAY'S FABLES:

FABULAE FACILES: The fable from the Fabulae Faciles widget is Canis Villaticus, a story about a dog who stands his ground (this fable has a vocabulary list).

MILLE FABULAE: The fable from the Mille Fabulae et Una widget is Serpens Calcata et Apollo, a fable about deterrence.

Serpens Calcatus et Iuppiter

GreekLOLz - and Latin and English, too. Below is one of my GreekLOLz; for the individual Greek, Latin and English versions of the graphic, see the blog post: Ἀετὸν κορώνη ἐρεσχελεῖ. Aquilam cornix lacessit. The crow is taunting the eagle.


Myth and Folklore Books. I'm accumulating some book recommendations for the classes I teach and wanted to share them here. Today's book is British Goblins: Welsh Folklore and Fairy Mythology by Wirt Sikes; you can see the table of contents here. This is a free Amazon Kindle eBook, and you don't need a Kindle to read it - you can read Kindle books on any computer or mobile device, or you can use the Amazon Cloud Reader in your browser.