Adagia 1801–1900

[greek], You're as big a fool as Morychus. A Sicilian proverb, used of people who did something ridiculous or foolish. The natural targets of this adage seem to me to be those who neglect their own affairs and are full of outside activities, minding other people's business. A character of this kind is Ollus in Martial, and the lamias in Plutarch are in the same class. Zenodotus tells us that in Sicily Morychus was a nickname for Bacchus, and that it was given him because at vintage-time it was the custom to smear the god's face with grape-juice and green figs; the reason being that the credit of discovering both vine and fig-tree was given to Bacchus by the Ancients, as Athenaeus bears witness in the second book of his Doctors at Dinner: 'molynesthai [stain] is related to moryxai,' whence Homer's memorygmenos, defiled, for memolysmenos. Bacchus is presented by poets everywhere as a figure of fun and none too intelligent, being a tipsy god (in the Frogs of Aristophanes, for example); and therefore at his festivals a certain amount of comic business took place as though designed to make him look absurd. He was also given by way of ridicule the nickname Chickpea. In Sicily his image was not set up in a temple, but outside the shrine in the open air near the entrance or portico; and it was made of a marble called psella by an artist whose name was Simmias the son of Eupalamus. Hence he became the subject of a common jest: 'You are as big a fool as Morychus, who abandoned what he had to do indoors and sits idle outside his house.' Zenodotus cites the adage from a letter of Polemon addressed to Diophilus. Although it is very far indeed from my temperament and character to waste any effort in hunting out and attacking other men's mistakes, I cannot refrain in this context from displaying, in a spirit of mockery rather than invective, the ignorance (or should I call it idleness?) of a man who enjoys a considerable reputation in Italy, especially since, having donned the lion's skin, he assumes such authority in the world of letters that, snatching up some sort of censor's rod, he not merely pontificates about all other authors but chastizes and corrects like any schoolmaster a man on every count both incomparable and inimitable, Angelo Poliziano. Some virtues our fairminded critic does allow to Poliziano; but his delicate ear, attuned solely to the purest wit of Attica, finds him deficient none the less in a feeling for the elegance that comes from overseas, because he renders oud' archên by 'not even at the beginning.' Let us then give ear to the true overseas elegance, the authentic Greek scholarship of our modern Aristarchus. To begin with, though the proverb he expounded comes from Zenodotus, the commonest of all compilations, he quotes Polemon for all the world as though he has himself read the original, in an attempt to seem at home in abstruse and most uncommon authors. And then the Greek I have just rendered from the same source, 'who has abandoned what he had to do indoors and sits idle outside his house,' he translates as follows: 'who leaving his inner habitation was looking for an outer.' Again that passage in the same Greek collection: 'Morychus was a nickname for Bacchus, because at vintage-time it was the custom to smear the god's face with grape-juice and green figs,' he turns like this: 'Morychus of course is an epithet of Bacchus, derived from 'dirtying,' his own face, that is; for he has a habit of dirtying it with grape-clusters and green figs.' And then, where the same compiler, giving the origin of the name, wrote 'moryxai is related to molynai,' the Attic wit of our generation offers the following interpretation: 'moryxai is just the same as molynai, to be silly, that is, to play the fool.' And what does he make of the phrase 'As big a fool as any Morychus,' which is applied to a statue of Bacchus? The Greek says: 'inasmuch as his statue stands outside the temple near the entrance in the open air'; and this our true overseas elegance explains: 'Besides, this comes from the simplicity of Bacchus, whose image is set up in the open air in Hesiod.' Observe how many elegancies this elegant author puts forward in a single chapter, and that a very short one. First, Bacchus spurns the privacy of his own home and seeks a foreign dwelling; then, marble though he is (for a statue is actually mentioned), he smears his own face with grape-clusters and figs to amuse the harvesters. Besides which, though moruxai and molunai mean the same thing, to defile, he explains both 'to be silly,' 'to play the fool,' but only for those who have attained this high level of overseas elegance. And then, the most elegant touch of all, out of a vestibule (for Pollux assures us that the eisodos [vestibule] of a temple is a name for what is also called its propylaeum) he makes Hesiod, turning dumb stones into a most eloquent poet. And yet an artist of this quality has his admirers (every thistle finds its donkey), though in his collections there are innumerable Greek phrases rendered with the same brilliance, touching neither heaven nor earth, as the saying goes, which could make Morychus laugh himself, though made of marble. A charming man indeed, and Folly's favourite son, who finds others lacking in a sense for overseas elegance while lacking common sense himself, and better known, it would seem, to sea-born Venus than to overseas. But it is time, I think, to be serious, and to recall my pen to the business in hand. There is another jibe at Morychus in the Wasps of Aristophanes: 'To live a noble life like Morychus.' But Suidas suggests that there was a tragic poet so called, whose life was not free from imputations of luxurious and dissolute living; and he cites a reference to him in Aristophanes, which is found in the Acharnians:
And art thou come, whom I have loved long since,
Dearest of nymphs? Dearest to these our choirs
With raddled faces, Morychus' true love?

[greek], Think it worth four obols. Like those I have recorded elsewhere: I don't think you worth a penny,' 'Not worth twopence, in my view,' and 'Not worth a farthing.' Suidas records these too, but suppresses the name of his authority, as his custom often is: 'As for your malice, consider it worth four obols, as the saying is.' And in Latin a thing is called 'two obols' worth' when they wish to make it sound quite worthless.

[greek], You weave a small web. Said of poor people, whose work as a rule is confined to small tasks. Greek also speaks of 'small hope,' when there is very little, and 'small cares' for minute and painstaking concern, and 'you shred into small pieces' of mean people and those who bother about the very minutest details. The image is taken from weavers.

[greek], Subterranean baths, or Baths of the nether world. Used apparently (for we are reduced to guesswork) when some measure is taken too late in the day, when it can be of no benefit to the man it was meant to help; if, for example, support is given to an accused person at a stage when the judges have already passed sentence from which there is no appeal. It was the custom in old days to carry some kind of bath to a tomb for the benefit of those who have died, and corpses on their way to burial were first washed. Hence Ennius: 'A good woman washed and anointed Tarquin's corpse.' It happens in our own day too, perhaps as a relic of ancient custom, that they sprinkle holy water on the monuments of the dead, especially among the Germans who are more inclined toward this practice than other people.

There is another practice which has something of the proverb about it - the way in which Greek adds emphasis to something by the use of a numeral, especially the number three, perhaps because in Antiquity this was thought to be the most perfect numeral and also a sacred number, so that anything said or done thrice was thought to be confirmed and effective. Hence its customary use in magic rites. Virgil in The Sorceress: First these three threads with threefold varied hues Round thee I bind, and round this altar thrice Thy image bear. Odd numbers please the god. And Theocritus in a poem with the same title: 'And thrice I pour, thrice speak these magic words.' It was the same at solemn funerals: "Thrice we raise our last cry.' And the herald in Euripides' Hecuba thrice repeats a word to proclaim silence: 'Silence, Achaeans! Silence, all the folk! Silence and stillness!' Aristophanes in the Frogs: "Them I forbid, forbid again, and once again forbid.' And in many passages, in orators as much as poets, we read Triply a rascal, thrice accursed, thrice blest, thrice greatest, thrice wretched.' And this Latin writers have imitated, at least in verse. Virgil: 'O thrice and four times blest!' Ovid: 'You will say all my words were true twice over.' There is another practice now in common use among the uneducated: when they wish to give something strong emphasis, they repeat it three times, so that this seems another possible origin for the adage. Strabo in the first book of his Geography discusses the statement in Homer that Charybdis gives up again what it has swallowed three times in the day, and swallows it again three times, whereas it is a known fact that this happens only twice in the day; and this he defends as a rhetorical exaggeration, as though tris, thrice in this passage was not a numeral but conveys emphasis. To this form of expression belongs a phrase in Plato in the tenth book of the Republic: 'And when they see their productions do not perceive that they are three degrees removed from reality.' He treats of those who draw the theory of the good life from the poets, although the poets offer fancies instead of the truth. A trace of this form of expression survives even in our own day in French, where by the addition of this syllable they turn a comparative into a superlative, except that the letters are reversed, for they say tre instead of ter.

[greek], Theagenes' wealth and Aeschines' likewise. A proverbial jest, directed against those who, though badly off, wished to be thought rich. This was a complaint from which the two men, both Theagenes and Aeschines, were notorious sufferers. Hence they acquired the nickname Selli, from a man called Sellus who had foolish ambitions and, though he had in fact very modest means, yet aspired to be thought wealthy; and hence those afflicted with this complaint were said to sellizein. It is close to one which will be treated of in another place, Phanias' door. The proverb is mentioned by Aristophanes in the Birds: 'Where is Theagenes' abundant wealth / And Aeschines' whole fortune.'

[greek], The rock of Tantalus, is a name given to any peril that hangs over a man's head. Suidas provides the following reference: 'Since we have shaken off the rock of Tantalus that hung over our heads.' Plato, cited by Stobaeus: 'Not even if someone had that fabled rock of Tantalus hanging over him.' Derived from the myth of Tantalus, who is imagined by some authors to suffer a penalty of this kind among others in the lower world: an immense rock hangs over his head in such a way that it seems likely to fall at any moment. Athenaeus in book six of the Doctors at Dinner records the origin of the myth as follows: Tantalus, who was a passionate lover of pleasure, had been admitted to the society of the gods, and had secured permission to ask for whatever he wished; so he besought Jupiter that he might go on living in the same way forever between one feast and the next, for he could think of nothing more blessed than that. Jupiter however was angry; he kept his promise to the man and granted his prayer; but, to prevent him from enjoying what was set before him, he hung a huge rock over his head that looked as if it would fall at any moment, so that in fear of this he would never dare touch anything. Virgil in the sixth book of his Aeneid transfers this invention to the Lapiths, Ixion and Pirithous: 'Why need I tell of the Lapiths, of Ixion and Pirithous, over whose heads looms a dark flinty rock as though at any moment it would fall? The golden festal couches with their deep pillows gleam, rich feasts are spread before their eyes fit for a king; but there beside them sits the eldest of the Furies and will not let them lay a finger on the banquet, but rises with a voice like thunder brandishing her torch.' Pindar too uses it in the seventh hymn of his Isthmians: 'Since the rock of Tantalus that hung over our heads has now been turned aside from us by some god.' He is thinking of the fear of approaching war. The scholiast cites from Euripides: 'Fearing the stone threatening his head, he flies through the air.' Gregory of Nazianzus in one of his letters addressed to his brother Basil calls a life full of anxieties and exposed to dangers 'a life worthy of Tantalus.'

[greek], As deaf as the harbour at Torone. They say there was a harbour at Torone, a city in Thrace, formed by two long and narrow promontories running out into the sea, in such a way that in the depths of the harbour itself no sound of breaking waves could be heard. Hence the proverb, of those who hear nothing. Though others place Torone in Macedonia. Stephanus also mentions a gulf called the Gulf of Torone, from which the proverb might be thought to be derived; except that they speak of a 'deaf sea' or a 'deaf shore' where there is such a roaring sound that on account of the noise of the breaking waves nothing else can be heard.

[greek], As deaf as a starling. Cited by Zenodotus from the Dionysius of Eubulus. He ascribes a special deafness to this bird, although it is very talkative, as the proverb by itself would show. Hence it will be used appropriately of those who are chattering themselves all the time, and never listen to what other people in their turn are saying - a fault one may discern in many men.

[greek], Sluggish language is in sluggards found. Each man talks like the man he is. Recorded by Zenodotus. Close to one I have recorded elsewhere: Fools in their folly speak, and also to As the man is, so is his talk. Though Virgil made a very different creature of his Drances, a valiant warrior in words and in the field a craven.

'[greek], As big a fool as Praxilla's Adonis. Used of exceptionally stupid people. Polemon, cited by Zenodotus, tells us that Praxilla was a poetess from Sicyon, who introduces Adonis in her poems as being asked by the inhabitants of the nether regions what were the most beautiful things he had left behind him in the world above; and he replied The sun, gourds, and apples.' And it seemed so utterly absurd to class gourds and apples with the sun, that he began to be used as a proverbial example of men of no judgment.

[greek], Songs of Simonides, was applied to crafty and deceitful people, for according to tradition Simonides was the first man to bring cunning and an eye for profit into the realm of art. He kept two boxes, one for thanks and one for fees; and when he opened them some time later, he used to find the box of thanks always empty and the box of fees always full. He made this up as a means of conveying that he was not willing to give his poems away free. This is mentioned by Plutarch in his essay 'On Being a Busybody.' Hence Aristophanes, cited by Suidas, speaks of singing the songs of Simonides. Aristophanes mentions it in the Birds: 'First I told him to take his lyre and sing the songs of Simonides.' Theocritus alludes to the two boxes in The Graces: 'Once again, timidly, in the bottom of the empty box.'

Plautus in the Bacchides: 'You may have a sword, but I too have a spit of my own.' When threats are met with threats, for both sword and spit are offensive weapons. The words are spoken in Plautus by Chrysalus, who is rejecting menaces and countering the soldier's ferocity in words equally fierce. Planciades Fulgentius reads vervina for urbina, and says it means a long thin instrument of some kind. Very close to Like for like, and to A hard wedge must be sought for a hard knot.

'[greek], Farmers are always rich next year. A saying of those who are rich in hopes of future profits, buoyed up by the expectation of good times to come. Taken from husbandmen, who always promise themselves heavier yields next harvest-time, and in this hope find courage to lay out money now.

'[greek], The Furies, ever virgins, is a somewhat obscure proverb which deters us from doing wrong; for the Erinnyes who punish malefactors cannot be corrupted nor induced not to exact penalties from those who have deserved them, and for this reason they are called virgins. Suidas cites this from Sophocles.

[greek], No mourning in the household for an aged ox. In other words, an old man's death, because it seems timely, is not mourned by his friends. It is the same today: when the news comes that an old man has died, they say 'Nothing sad about that; he has not died in his cradle,' and when young people die, they are mourned even by those who are no relation. This is the kind of death which Solon, in Cicero's book On Old Age, prays he may be spared. The lines of Solon mentioned by Cicero run as follows: 'Let not death come to me without a tear; / May my friends grieve and groan when I am dead.' Ennius takes the opposite view: 'Let no man honour me with tears, nor weep at my funeral.' They are both right. Solon wants to know that on his deathbed he will be loved and regretted by his friends, Ennius thinks there should be no mourning for one whose death is followed by immortality. And there is another line recorded from Menander: 'An old man housebound is a sorry sight.'

[greek], You arrive late; but off you go to Colonus. A proverbial jest used against those who came out of time or who did something for hire. Colonus in fact means rising ground, such as a mound or hill. There were two places of the kind in Athens, one near the temple of Neptune, where the cavalry used to meet; the other near the temple of Vulcan, who was called agoraios, of the Market, from the proximity of a market-place or exchange. Hence colônetês was a name for wage-labourers, because that Colonus was the place where men stood who wanted someone to hire them. Such, more or less, is the account in Suidas.

[greek], To match the foot. Anything handy and exceptionally convenient was said 'to fit the foot.' The metaphor derives from shoes which really match the measure of the foot. Hence that well known apophthegm of Paulus Aemilius, who said as he displayed a new pair of shoes, 'You can see that my shoes are handsome and brand-new, but where they hurt my feet no one knows except me.' He was referring to his wife Papyria; he meant to convey that she did not suit his temperament. Suidas cites Plato (the poet, I presume): 'How well this course of things doth fit my foot!'

'[greek], Sarpedon shore, could be rightly applied to some stormy piece of business, or to exceptionally noisy and contentious people. There is a beach of this sort in Thrace sacred to Neptune and pounded by continuous breakers; another of the same name in Cilicia; and yet a third close to the ocean, said to be the dwelling of the Gorgons.

[greek], As harshly enslaved as Messene, was applied to those who enjoyed absolutely no freedom and lived under other men's orders. The Messenians were reduced by Sparta to slavery because they were constantly in revolt, and were treated by them more harshly even than their other slaves, to prevent any fresh attempts at rebellion. The story is told by Pausanias in his book on Messene and by Justin in book three of his Epitomes.

[greek], You wear your hair long, though you're a slave. Of a man who did something regardless of propriety, if, for instance, someone of low degree were to imitate the costume of a nobleman; for in Sparta it was only the well-born who let their hair grow. The adage is recorded by Suidas, but occurs in Aristophanes, in the Birds: Then do you wear long hair, though you're a slave?'

[greek], A city of slaves, can be used of a company or community of rascals, thieves or ruffians living together. There is a city of this name in Libya, as we learn from the fifth book of Ephorus, cited by Suidas, and Hecataeus, cited by Stephanus; and any slave who had carried a stone into that city at once became a free man, although he had been an alien hitherto. There is another, called Hierodoulôn as being consecrated to slaves, in which they say only one free man lived, and yet another in Crete, Doulopolis chiliandros, which means it had a thousand inhabitants, as we learn from Sosicrates in the first book of his Cretan History. Besides these there is Poneropolis, Rogueborough, in Thrace, in which Philip is said to have collected, as a sort of sink of iniquity, all the disreputables and the known bad characters, informers, perjured witnesses, blackmailers, and others of the kind to the number of two thousand; for this the authority is Theopompus in book 13 of his Life and Times of Philip. Plutarch is evidence for it too in his essay 'On Curiosity.' Egypt also has a region called Doulopolis, Slave City, according to Olympianicus. Plutarch in his 'Collected Proverbs' points out that the name is used of things very rarely found, and quotes it in the form 'Slave City there is none.' This is not unlike the account given in Pliny of the tribe of Essenes in Syria, with whom criminals from every part find refuge. 'This is' he says 'the only city in the whole world which exists without women, sexual intercourse having been entirely abandoned; like the palm-trees it grows afresh day by day from the crowd of new arrivals, for people flock thither from great distances who are tired of life and are driven by the storms of fortune to adopt their way of living.'

[greek], The Flowers of Samos, of a place where a man could take his pick of pleasure in its most extreme form. For the name was applied to a place where women feasted on equal terms with men and could indulge to their heart's content in every kind of dissipation. Unmanned by this dissolute life, the Samians were later subdued by the Persians and reduced to slavery. Stephanus points out that the island of Samos was once called Anthemoussa, Isle of Blossom, from its flowers, and also Parthenia, Virgin Island, from its girls. The adage is recorded in the collection that goes by the name of Plutarch. It is also mentioned by Athenaeus in book 12, following Clearchus, who makes it clear that the place was so called from the range of beauty in the girls, who like radiant blossoms invited men to fulfil their lusts. This will be a neat fit for a city, a household or a man hopelessly abandoned to dissipation.

'[greek], A grab bag, of objects which, though of no value, have been bought at a high price, as happens sometimes at auction-sales, when the worth of each item is not considered separately but many things are lumped together and valued as a whole. For in Greek rhôpes is a word for brushwood, and they use rhôpos for a bundle or collection of different things tied together, or a mixture of different colours. It is a common experience to see an inattentive purchaser taken in by a purchase of this type. The adage is recorded by Diogenianus. It is also mentioned by Suidas.

[greek], A cow fit for a king, was a current expression for prodigious fertility, which took its rise from an astonishing event that actually happened. During the time of the younger Ptolemy, a cow gave birth to six calves at a time. The authority is Diogenianus. It recalls Juvenal's 'more prolific than a white sow.'

' [greek], Innocent of wedlock, was used ironically of an unchaste woman, because she exposed herself before reaching the stage of marriage. Horace: 'Untouched by wedlock, and still fresh and green / For some oncoming husband.'

'[greek], As frightened as the Rhegians. Zenodotus cites Xenarchus, son of Sophron, who wrote a book on the months, as having accused the people of Rhegium, to please Dionysius the tyrant, of inaction in war and a cowardly disposition, as the collections of Greek adages bear witness.

'[greek] A band of idlers, was used of a group of dissipated people, for idleness is a great encouragement to loose living, particularly among the young. Related to one of which I have spoken elsewhere: For sluggards it is always a holiday.

'[greek], Plundering Cinnarus' goods. Of the plundering of a man's possessions by violence; when, for instance, princes lay their hands unlawfully on other men's property. Timaeus has left it on record that there was a Cinnarus native of Selinus and by profession a brothel-keeper, who from this trade became very rich. During his lifetime he always promised that he would dedicate all his property to Venus, but at his death he left it all to be torn in pieces by the mob. This is not unlike one I have recorded elsewhere, Porsena's property.

'[greek], The verdict of Rhadamanthys, of those who pass judgment with complete integrity; for Rhadamanthys, the judge of the dead, is diverted by no bribes and no influence from passing strict judgment. It will be possible to adapt this to the inevitability of death, which comes on equal terms alike to the greatest and the least, as Aeschylus says in the Frogs of Aristophanes: 'Death is the only god who loves not gifts.' Horace likewise: Pale Death with undiscriminating foot The poor man's hovel and the rich man's towers kicks, and in another passage: Though with three hundred cattle each successive day You seek, my friend, to soften Pluto's heart, Who knows no tears. And Pindar in the Nemeans: 'But Hades' breaking wave advances indiscriminate, and falls alike on the unthinking and the expectant,' that is, on both young and old; or 'alike on the noble and the obscure,' for the Greek words can be taken in two different senses. Again in the Olympians: 'In Rhadamanthys' upright counsels.' In another passage too, to make it clear that Rhadamanthys alone never complies in order to give pleasure nor does anyone a favour, he says 'Blessed Rhadamanthys, for to him was given the fruit of wisdom that is beyond all blame, and he takes no delight in falsehood in his inward heart.' This is used by Plato also in the twelfth book of the Laws.

'[greek], Rhadamanthys' oath, was used to describe one that was utterly reliable, but did not appeal to the name of any deity. Socrates used to swear by a dog and a goose to avoid using the name of one of the gods, either because he did not believe there were any or because he thought it wrong for a virtuous man to summon the gods to witness his private concerns. This kind of oath they attributed to Rhadamanthys. Aristides the rhetorician alludes to the adage in his Pericles when he writes: 'You might as well say that Rhadamanthys gets men into the habit of perjuring themselves, when his piety and justice were so outstanding that even after death he is believed to sit in judgment on new arrivals in the lower world.' The Pythagoreans have a custom of swearing by the number four, which they call the tetraktys: 'No, not in the name of him who established the tetraktys in our souls.' For they suppose such a close relation to subsist between this number and the perfection of the human soul that they worship it among their mysteries. The authority is Macrobius in the first book of his Commentary on Scipio's Dream. Pythagoras in his Golden Lines calls the number four 'the sacred fountain of the soul.' In Greece it was customary to swear 'by the head' of some other person. So Juvenal: 'Not yet were Greeks ready to swear by another man's head.' Virgil: 'By this head I swear.'

'[greek], As talkative as the seashore, was applied to a rough, noisy, obstreperous fellow, for rhachia is a Greek word for 'shore,' and especially a rugged rocky shore, pounded continually by the roaring waves. And this seems to be the source of the Greek word rhachia, which stands for trachia, a word applied to anything rough and thorny.

[greek], Take your present fortune in good part, and [greek] , Make the best of what you have. The lesson of the adage is that we should not torment ourselves by coveting what is not ours, but should embrace whatever luck may come our way as though it were the best. It is a great part of happiness that everyone should be content with his own lot. Plato in the Gorgias: 'It is necessary, it seems to me, to take my present fortune in good part, as the old saying runs, and to be content with what you give me.' Cratinus in his Pylaea: Wise men must do all they can to take their present fortune in good part.' Related to one which I have recorded elsewhere. Sparta is your portion; do your best for her. This line is cited by Stobaeus from a tragedy by Euripides called Telephus; a fact which I thought worth a mention in passing, for I have dealt with the adage in its place.

Aulus Gellius, when explaining the force of the privative particle un-, says that this very ancient iambic line was current as a proverb: 'But he who in everything and at every season receives no praise on every count is "unpraised," and he is of all men wickedest and worst.' The message of the proverb is that almost no one is of such desperate wickedness by nature that he does not from time to time say or do something praiseworthy. This is recorded in almost the same words by Macrobius in book 6 of the Saturnalia; and with the help of that passage I think I have detected that an undoubted verbal error has been made by some learned man in the text of Gellius. Not understanding that the words 'But he who in everything' etc are lines of verse, he supposed that the scribes had omitted a line of Greek, and substituted in its place 'Even a gardener oft speaks to the point,' whereas the line on which Gellius expresses an opinion was in Latin, the line in fact which immediately follows, 'but he who' etc. This is clear from Macrobius, who has pilfered this passage almost word for word for the benefit of his own collections. In fact the Greek line contributes nothing to our understanding of this word 'unpraised,' but is brought in in passing, as though it were necessary to support what he had said, that 'no man is so depraved in character that he does not occasionally do or say something that is to his credit.' In this passage again efflictis, depraved, has been corrupted into efferis, savage; for a man can be 'unpraised' without being of savage character, and the word he used was efflictus, of a dissolute and corrupt character. And there are three iambic lines, forming a complete sentence, except that in several places they have clearly been corrupted by the scribes. 'But he who in everything and at every season' makes a good first line. The second line will also stand, if we read qui omni vacat laude, is vir for omni laude vacat, is; for that small word vir seems to be demanded in this line by the reader's ear as well as the metre. The third line will also scan, if we read est deterrimusque ac pessimus for pessimus deterrimusque est. The passage, if anyone wishes to look it up, is in Gellius, book 2 chapter 6.

He who seeks some advantage must not shirk hard work; the seeker after happiness must first experience the toil without which true happiness is not to be had. This maxim was expressed by Plautus with the use of a highly proverbial metaphor; 'he who would eat the inside of a walnut' he says, 'breaks the shell.' He who seeks food for the mind in Holy Scripture should work out the mystery hidden in its allegorical wrappings; for that is how the phrase was used in some place by St Jerome. For the walnut outside is both hard and bitter, but its contents are delicious eating. To this we may refer Homer's famous invention of the plant called moly, which had, he says, a black root and a milk-white flower. This he describes as follows in the tenth book of the Odyssey: 'Black was its root beneath, milk-white its flower, / And the gods call it moly, hard to uproot / For mortals; all comes easy to the gods.' This can be adapted to all subjects, and specially to grammar which, though school-children find it bitter, gives pleasure to the old. It will also suit the pursuit of virtue, the start of which is bitter, the progress easy, and the end delightful.

[greek], Who would praise a father except offspring devoid of praise? A line in common circulation with reference to those who boast of the exploits of their ancestors, having of course no achievements of their own which they can honestly recount. The man Ponticus was like that, who is mocked by Juvenal in his eighth Satire: I should be sorry, Ponticus, to see you valued for the reputation of your ancestors, on the understanding that you yourself do nothing that may earn you future repute. It is a wretched thing to lean on the repute of other men.' It will be equally possible to turn it to another sense: bad sons bring credit to their parents, when the people feel nostalgia for the supposed virtues of the older generation because it cannot endure the much greater faults of the younger. This is a not uncommon experience with princes: one who was most unpopular when alive is admired and missed after his death, because in comparison with his son he seems a good prince. This adage is recorded and explained by Plutarch in his life of Aratus: 'Chrysippus the philosopher, my dear Polycrates, transforms an old adage, the critical tone of which frightens him, no doubt from its traditional form to one which he prefers, Who shall praise a father if not successful children? But Dionysodorus of Troezen disagrees with him and restores the proverb to its original form, Who shall praise a father except children who are failures? This is a refutation, he says, of those who are worth nothing themselves and take refuge in the virtues of their forebears, using other men's reputation to advertize themselves.' So Plutarch. It is used in the same sense by Cicero in his Letters to Atticus.

[greek], For they are no longer alive, and those who are alive are no good. Used normally when someone regrets the loss of things that were once available but have perished by lapse of time. If, for example, he were to look nowadays among princes for men like Codrus, Camillus, Fabricius or Epaminondas, and among monks for a Paul, and Antony or a Jerome, it would not be unreasonable to din this line into his ear. It comes from Aristophanes, from the Frogs, the play in which Bacchus is shown descending to the Nether Regions to find Euripides or some other good poet, for in the upper world only bad poets can be found.

[greek], First seek a livelihood, then virtue when your living is secure. Recorded by Diogenianus. This proverb is expressed by Horace in his Epistles in the words 'Dear fellow citizens, / Seek money first, let virtue wait on coin.' This was of course ironical; it is not really Horace's opinion that riches matter more than character, but he is mocking a view very commonly repeated and even in our own day seriously dinned by many parents into their children.

[greek], The triplets that exist among the dead. This adage was used to show scorn for those who with a sort of painstaking industry pursued the thread of things secret and mysterious. It will be far from absurd if turned against a man who with excessive devotion, superstition rather, rummages through the mysteries of Holy Scripture or who tries to interpret all Homer's stories with empty allegories or labours to explain the numerals in Plato and Pythagoras. The number three is said to be highly respected in the Nether Regions as sacred to Hecate, to whom for this same reason the fish called trigla is sacrificed, and it was customary to set up her statue where three roads meet, to which Virgil refers in the line 'And threefold Hecate and the three faces of Virgin Diana.'

[greek], They do not sleep as much as nightingales, is appropriate for those who can do with very little sleep. The nightingale is said to sleep very little, either from grief for Itys' death, or from timidity. I think the more likely reason for the saying is the fact that in the early summer months nightingales keep on singing practically the whole night long.

Οἵῳ μ᾽ ὁ δαίμων τέρατι συγκαθεῖρξεν, With what a monster fortune has involved me! (it is a catalectic trimeter). Will be appropriate when one has to do with a person who is difficult and never satisfied, and whom one can neither live with nor get free from. The line is taken from a tragedy by the poet Philoxenus, who puts into Ulysses' mouth, when he is imprisoned in the Cyclops' cave, the words 'With what a monster fortune has involved me!' Recorded by Zenodotus.

Ἀτενὲς ὁρᾶν, To gaze fixedly at, if used metaphorically, will become a proverbial formula to express concentrated and meticulous inspection, gazing at some object intently and examining it closely. Taken from lovers gazing with eyes bewitched and unmoving at the object of their delight. The adage is listed by Diogenianus. Plutarch in his essay 'On Listening': For any listener is tedious and ill-bred who listens to everything intently and fixedly, as the phrase goes.' Cicero in the Pro Lucio Flacco: 'So that you scrutinize the whole case with, as they say, the most unwinking eyes.'

A man is said to throw dust in someone's eyes who of set purpose makes a question difficult and deprives his adversary of the means of solving it. Drawn clearly from warfare, for it often happens that in war one side deliberately raises a dustcloud to the prejudice of the other. This trick was used by the Roman general Sertorius to defeat a people called the Cacitani (in the Greek text Characitani), as Plutarch tells us, a fact which I have mentioned in the adage about the North-easter gathering the clouds. This proverb is used by, among others, St Jerome in his letters. Cicero boasts of having in one of his speeches thrown dust in the eyes of the jury. There is something like it in Plautus in the Miles about a cataract growing over someone's eyes.

[greek], Drizzle or dew, was commonly used of those who sputtered when they spoke, for psekas, drizzle, is a word for that sprinkling with a sort of fine spray which we get when very fine drops are falling, a light rain much like dew. Originally this was used in jest of Antimachus the lyric poet, who besprinkled the person he was talking to with his continual sputtering. The same nickname was also applied to a certain Olympicus, who is thought by some to have introduced the law that prohibited poets from criticizing people by name, with the result that there were many fewer competitors than there had been, and those who did compete praised rather than criticized. Hence it seems that the word psekas was applied to blandishments of this type; for serving maids who sprayed scent on the hair of married women living in luxury were called psekades. The adage is recorded by Diogenianus. Cicero in his Letters to Atticus uses 'to besputter' of scattering the milder forms of abuse over one's opponents, presumably with this adage in mind.

'[greek], A singer in difficulties means a cough. Suidas tells us that this is a more recent adage. It seems to be used when we are short of something to say and try to conceal this by introducing something irrelevant, as Aristophanes in Plato to avoid having to speak at a party feigns the hiccups. Apparently derived from singers who, when they find the music difficult, pretend to cough, so that this and not incompetence may seem to be the reason why they broke off. This is close, I take it, to one I have mentioned elsewhere: A cough for a fart.

[greek], With wits worn out. The meaning of the adjective is exactly what 'played out' would mean if used of an old flute; the metaphor is taken from the tongues of reed pipes, for once they have fallen out, the pipe is unusable.

'[greek], Panagaean Diana, was applied in old days to anyone who had an unbridled passion for foreign travel and was always on the move and unreliable, never settling in one definite spot. For Diana is said in poetry to be a wanderer and to stray over forest and mountainside. In fact she even moves her residence from time to time, living now among the gods above and now in the nether world. In appearance too she is not always the same, but now appears full, now incomplete, now not at all.

There is a proverbial air about that line in Horace, in the Satires: 'Rufillus reeks of lozenges, Gorgonius of he-goat.' It can be applied either to any two men who suffer from opposite faults or to one man who is highly inconsistent, intolerably garrulous at one moment and then plunged in silence, sometimes silly and childish and sometimes grave as any Cato, extravagant one day and mean the next. It is a fault if someone smells of the he-goat, and no less blameworthy if he reeks of perfume (for these lozenges are a sort of pill made up with scent); one is a mark of the unwashed and one of the effeminate.

[greek], or, as others read [greek]. The lame man makes the best lecher. Customarily used when someone prefers his own lot, though it may be far from grand, to another man's, though it seems preferable. It derives, they say, from a saying of the Amazons. The story goes that the Amazons in old days had a custom of making their male offspring lame by damaging shin or hip. And so, when they were engaged in a war with the Scythians, and the Scythians were trying to induce them to come over to their side, saying that thus they would have fit men for their husbands and not lame and mutilated, Antianira the Amazon leader replied with the words 'The lame man makes the best lecher.' Athenaeus in book thirteen: 'For it is true that you, as a lame man, make the best lecher.' Theocritus calls a man fond of copulation philoiphes, Hesychius philoiphos. The same thing has been observed in our own day: those who have deformed legs or lack some other limb are often sexually more effective than the rest of men, presumably by way of some natural compensation. A reason why a lame man should be more lecherous than others is given by Aristotle in the Problems, section 10 problem 26: in his case 'less nutriment passes downwards owing to his defective lower limbs, and more makes for the parts above them and is turned into semen.'

' [greek], Ogygian disasters, is a suitable name for those which are either huge or ancient, for in Greek the word Ogygia carries both meanings. Some prefer to trace it back to Ogygius, the first prince of the city of Thebes, whose son Cadmus met with various calamities on account of his daughters. People have this in mind when they interpret 'Ogygian' as appalling. Such is very much the view of Suidas, except that he prefers to take Ogygian disasters as meaning very ancient. In any case, those who take 'Ogygian' to mean ancient are guided by the fact that in Antiquity Ogygia was a name for Boeotia and the city of Thebes; in fact, the whole of Attica was once so called, as we learn from Stephanus. There is also a very ancient island called Ogygia, on which Ulysses landed in Homer's tale after his shipwreck, and hence the word, when by now obsolete, came to have a more or less humorous proverbial use. Nor does the basis of this proverb rest on a metaphor; it is the novelty of the word, as I have pointed out at the beginning of my work. On the same principle, and with something of the form of a proverb, old-fashioned and very ancient people are called in Greek Ogenidae and Ogenioi, from some ancient god or other, who has now for many centuries been out of mind. Such, more or less, is the account of things 'Ogygian' in Suidas and Stephanus.

[greek], Every scrap, was used in old days when they wished to convey the whole of a piece of business; for chnaumata in Greek is a word for the broken remains of cakes and similar edibles. In Latin too they use a similar metaphor when speaking of 'relics of war' or 'relics of the Danaans.' The adage is recorded by Zenodotus.

Plato in the Gorgias: 'Why, Socrates, that is how they say one ought to share in fighting a battle.' A humorous comment, made proverbially when someone came on the scene only after the business was concluded, as idle soldiers have a way of doing, whose habit it is not to arrive until the conflict is over and there is nothing more to be frightened of, so as either to collect booty or to celebrate the triumph by sharing in the feast. For the Greek verb used to express sharing conveys a sense of being late, and slow to perform one's part. Socrates in reply fills out the sense of the proverb with another very like it: 'Have I come, as they say, after the feast? Am I too late?' The source seems to be the story of Rhesus, leader of the Thracians, who is rebuked by Hector in Euripides for arriving too late to take his part in the war, no doubt because it was already in its tenth year: 'No ally are you, but a guest in search of dinner.' To which Rhesus replies: Late I may be, but timely none the less, / You have been fighting now for ten long years, / And make no progress.' This was alluded to, if I am not mistaken, by Diogenes. When someone had put up on his house an inscription which ran 'Here dwells Hercules, victorious son of Jove. Here let no evil enter,' Diogenes added another sentence: 'Allies the day after the battle,' his point being that it was too late to invite Hercules as an averter of evil, when a very evil stranger was already installed in the house.

A proverbial iambic line from the Andria of Terence, which does not so much suggest what ought to happen as tell us what happens as a rule; for among common people friendship consists of civilities. To turn a blind eye mutually to the faults of your acquaintance - "tis this joins friend to friend and keeps them joined.' Among true friends, on the other hand, nothing gives greater pleasure than the truth, provided there is none of the boorish asperity which is ill-timed and may give offence. In fact, the man who is anxious as a rule to make as many friends as possible must fall in with other men's dispositions, and be careful, in Persius' words, not to 'grate on delicate ears with the harsh truth.' That the poet does not approve of this maxim is made clear enough by his saying 'For nowadays,' meaning By the corrupt standards of our generation. The same principle is expressed by him in another way in the Adelphoe, where he says 'As a man is, so must you humour him.' Donatus tells us this is a proverbial saying. Cicero in his dialogue On Friendship: 'But somehow there is truth in what my favourite Terence says, that "flattery wins friends and truth engenders hate.'" Truth can be tiresome, for it is a source of hatred, which in friendship is a deadly poison; but flattery is much more so, because by its indulgence to the faults of a friend it allows him to be swept away headlong. But the fault lies principally in the man who both rejects the truth and is driven into deception by flattery.' Pindar in the fifth hymn of his Nemeans: 'It is not every truth that is the better for showing its face without disguise, and silence is often the best thing for a man to have in mind.' His point is that the plain truth should not always be put forward as it really is, because it can do harm; but it is the part of a wise man to conceal his opinion sometimes, with the intention to put it forward later, when some hope appears that it may be fruitful. In Athenaeus, book 5, the following iambic line is cited from Agathon: 'If I speak the truth, I shall give you no pleasure; And if I am to please you, I shall not speak the truth.'

Obviis ulnis, With open arms, is found in Quintilian in the sense of eagerly or greedily. The image derives from people hastening with arms outstretched to embrace some person whom they longed for and whom they see with the greatest delight. We also find it in the form With outstretched hands, obviis manibus. St Jerome writing to Pammachius: 'My former fellow-student and companion and friend I welcome, as they say, with outstretched hands.' Basil in the preface to his Dialogue writes With both hands in the same sense. If these are adapted to the things of the mind, they will have a proverbial air, as for instance 'I shall receive your letter with open arms.'

[greek], The plain of Lethe, will be used of those who are very forgetful, or of imaginary and frivolous things which do not exist anywhere. Aristophanes: 'Who's for the Plain of Lethe?' For the common people regard what the poets tell us about the Nether Regions as mere fable, and, in Juvenal's words, 'that there are black frogs in the pools of Styx / Even a child refuses to believe.'

[greek], All things are easy to men who are wise. Nothing is so hard that care and prudence may not accomplish it easily; or, nothing so painful that a wise man cannot endure it easily and with resignation, for reason makes all things less hard. The addition of one word will make an iambic line: [greek]. Recorded by Zenodotus.

[greek], To those besieged all things may serve as food. A proverbial iambic line: when driven by necessity, we can do anything. To those who are really hungry, no food is uneatable. This took its rise from cities in a state of siege, where sometimes even dogs and cats, the roots of plants, and now and again human excrement, are devoured for want of food.

Απανθ᾽ ὁμοια καὶ ῥοδῶπις ἡ καλή, Lovely Rhodopis too, they're all the same. Our mortal condition is the same for all: lovely and unlovely alike, all grow old and die. Rhodopis is the name of a girl famous for her beauty, so called, it would appear, from her rosy complexion. Of a courtesan called Rhodope, Herodotus has much to say in his second book, and Pliny something in book 36 chapter 12. As the Greek line gives the name the second 0 long, it is surprising that Juvenal should shorten this: 'Rubs Rhodope's privates, dribbling down his beard.' Recorded by Suidas as a proverb.

[greek], A sea-urchin is rough all over, is suitable for men who are unpleasant and hard to please. The sea-urchin, and in the same way the hedgehog, is covered with spines all over, so that you cannot touch it anywhere without being hurt. There are men like that, with whom it is impossible to do business on any terms without a quarrel. Aristophanes in the Peace: 'Never will you make the rough sea-urchin smooth.'

[greek], Good men and true seem to do all things well. It is typical of a bad character that even if a man of ill repute does or says something good, somehow or other he gets no credit for it. True goodness, on the other hand, has some quality about it such that, whatever a good man does, seems to be admirable. Though one could also take the meaning to be that everything comes well from handsome men, because his good looks ensure a kind of reception for a handsome man when he speaks or plays music or does anything whatever. This will have more point if you turn it to mean that those who enjoy the favour of princes are sure of a favourable reception, whatever they may say or do, so much so that what would cost one man his life will actually win praise for another. Recorded by Diogenianus.

[greek], Leave the seer alone, will be suitable for use when we wish to convey that someone should be spared because he is a special person who should be protected from the common lot of men; for instance, if one were to say that a poet, a theologian, or a priest ought to have special consideration. It was the custom in Antiquity to send out an augur, wearing a garland, in front of an army advancing to battle, and it was unlawful to aim a weapon at him, because he was a holy man. The adage can also be used ironically.

'Let them hate, so long as they fear,' an utterance typical of any tyrant, comes from a tragedy, and every author quotes it. A special favourite with Cicero, it also passed into common use as a proverb, as is made clear enough by Seneca in his On Clemency, book 2, where he says that 'many powerful but detestable sayings touch human life, and become popular, such as that famous "Let them hate, so long as they fear." And there is a Greek line,' he says, 'similar to this, which calls for fire on the earth as soon as the speaker is dead.' Seneca again in the first book of his On Anger: 'For some sayings are uttered by angry men which are thought to be products of great courage, but only by those who do not know true greatness when they see it, such as those dire and dreadful words "Let them hate so long as they fear." You may be sure they were written in the days of Sulla.' It will also be possible to make a humorous use of the adage, for example, if a scholar of distinction were to say of the secret enemies who are too much frightened to utter a word against him 'Let them hate, so long as they fear.' And it will be appropriate for rich men who use language like Horace's "The public hiss me, but I enjoy my own applause, when I get home and contemplate the coin in my money-bags.' And those words of Juvenal: 'I'd rather keep my pea-pods to myself / Than have the praise of the whole countryside.'

There is a proverbial formula again in those words in Horace: 'One of the two will shun worse than dog and snake a cloak woven in Miletus.' He is thinking, I suppose, of a mad dog. If it is applied in a still more remote context, it will be more proverbial: for instance, 'This man is entirely devoted to making money; the studies which he loved at one time he now shuns worse, as they say, than dog and snake,' or 'He puts himself entirely in the hands of toadies, and friends, from whom he might learn the truth, he shuns worse than dog and snake.' Horace again in the Odes: Why does he shun the olive oil with greater care than viper's blood?' Plautus too in the Mercator. 'Your wife is in the country, whom you said long since you hate as much as any snake.'

'[greek], As foolish as Coroebus. A proverbial exaggeration for stupid people and blockheads. Coroebus' stupidity gave rise to a popular proverb; he tried to count the waves of the sea, though he could not count beyond five. He is mentioned by Eustathius in his commentary on the tenth Odyssey, and by Lucian in the Amoves. Though in other places I find Corybus written with an upsilon; and some add that this Corybus was the son of Mygdon the Phrygian, in the period of the Trojan war. Virgil also mentions a certain Coroebus: 'And young Coroebus had come, in thrall to a mad passion for Cassandra, and brought what help he could to Priam, his wife's father, and the Phrygians.' Servius on this passage indicates that this is taken from Euphorion. 'This Coroebus' he says 'is introduced as a fool by Euphorion, and Virgil too follows this, when he makes him say "By fraud or valour? In a foe who cares?" though a victory won by fraud is highly disgraceful.'

[greek], An old man is only chaff or straw. Of one whose years have taken all his strength. Very much like that proverb of which I have spoken in another place, Man is a bubble. Taken from wood which has already dried out and lost its sap, and become limp like straw. Stupa chaff, is the word for the dry and useless stuff that is beaten out of flax.

[greek], Phormio's camp beds, was used of mean and frugal bedding with nothing of comfort about it, like the way soldiers sleep, or like the bed Ulysses makes for himself in Homer by collecting the leaves of trees and making a pile of branches on the ground. This is recorded by Suidas. Phormio was a general who showed, I take it, notable endurance in sharing the hardships of his men. It can also be diverted further to any form of rather rough treatment. It comes in the Peace of Aristophanes: 'If ever I might live to see that day! Many are the troubles I have endured, the camp beds such as Phormio had.' These lines are sung by the chorus, and I have therefore translated them in prose.

[greek], What folly, at his age to believe that Jove exists! This can be adapted to anyone who, though quite grown up, says or thinks something absurd when, being of full age, he ought no longer to show ignorance of anything; for childish superstition does not sit well on mature years. Listed by Suidas. There is a line of Aristophanes in the Clouds: 'Look, look! Olympian Jove! What a piece of folly! / A man of his age to believe in Jove!'

[greek], I tell you your own dream - I tell you, that is, something you yourself know better than I do. In Suidas there is a quotation from some author or other: 'For if I try now to make you known to yourself, I shall be in the state of the man in the proverb, telling you your own dream.' Plato in book 8 of the Republic: 'You tell me, he said, one of my own dreams.' A metaphor, clearly, from people who consult a professional interpreter of dreams, for some of them expect to be told what they have dreamed, as though to have it interpreted was not enough. In the same way there are some invalids who unwisely expect the physicians, after merely inspecting their water, to infer their sex, their age, the whole nature of their disease and when and how they caught it and how they feel and almost, on top of that, their feverish dreams.

[greek], A wooer's life, for a life of fastidious luxury. Related to one I have recorded elsewhere, A life of pure music. Suidas cites this line, which comes from Aristophanes in the Birds: 'I take it, you must live a wooer's life,' because wooers commonly wear garlands of leaves and flowers and are smart and well turned out, or because they seem unmanly, being so passionately set on marriage. In Athenaeus, book 8, Stratonicus the harp-player used to call the Rhodians 'Cyrenaeans with white skins,' and 'a city of wooers.' Unless we would rather refer this to Penelope's famous suitors in Homer, who thought of nothing but feasting, harp-music, dancing, dice, throwing the discus, jesters and other such amusements, which led Horace to call men devoted to luxury 'suitors of Penelope.'

'[greek], Such you were called and such you were, is a proverbial half-line, for use when things answer our expectations. Suidas mentions it, and draws on some poet or other, for it is a fragment of a hexameter line.

'[greek], Unharmed I'll see another bearing my burdens -I shall learn, that is, from other men's misfortunes how to govern my own affairs. He uses the word exantês, unharmed, as the equivalent of exô tês atês, placed outside disaster, and so unhurt. It is very close to that line in Plautus 'Happy is he who learns wisdom at another's cost.'

[greek], No sooner said than done, when a man actually does without delay what he promises verbally. In Latin they say cum dicto, On the word, to mean immediately after the word has been uttered. Virgil has 'Swifter than speech he calmed the swelling waves,' which is clearly taken from Homer, who has the line 'At once the word was spoken and the deed was done.' Greek gives the same meaning in a single word autoboei, with the shout, which looks like a metaphor from the shouting of soldiers, by which the enemy is sometimes put to flight even before battle has been joined. It is so used by Thucydides. Theopompus has it in the sense of 'with all one's might,' and not from ambush. The man who lays an ambush for his enemy does so in silence; the man who trusts in his own strength charges down with shouts upon the foe. Some think it derived from boes, the word for oxen, so that it would look like a reference to ploughmen who, when they promise to finish a piece of work autêmar, on the same day, often use the word autoboei, with the same pair of oxen before they unyoke them. It can be adapted to the rapid performance of any action, so that it has the same value as parachrema or autothen, immediately.

[greek], To throw lambs to the dogs, was applied to anyone who exposed an unwarlike person with no experience of litigation to skilled masters in the art of false accusation, for no animal is more unsuited to such a contest. Recorded by Diogenianus. It is the half of a hexameter line, taken, I should guess, from some oracle or other.

'[greek], God is in need of nothing. The proverb reminds us that no mortal is so perfect as to lack nothing, and God alone is complete in every possible respect. It can also be used of rich people or those endowed with great advantages both of nature and of position, since they resemble some god in being equipped with everything that is supposed to contribute to perfect felicity.

Plautus in the Captivi: 'I've lost the kernel, and he's left the shell in pledge.' The words are spoken by Hegio, when he has discovered the trick played on him, and how he has lost the master instead of the servant and kept the servant, thinking he was the master. The character out of whom he expected to make a great profit has got away, leaving behind one of whom nothing can be made. The allegory is transparent in itself.

[greek], You post a naked man on sentry-duty. When a piece of business is entrusted to a man who lacks the ability to execute it, and is quite unfitted by his lack of resources to carry out his allotted task. For a naked man cannot very well stand sentry; he will be frozen stiff by the cold of night; nor is an unarmed man equipped to fight. Recorded by Zenodotus. The further it is diverted from its literal sense, the more like a proverb it will be: 'You urge me to write a commentary on this poet, but, as the old proverb has it, you post a naked man on sentry-duty, for I do not possess the wherewithal to support myself at leisure while I do so.' Hesychius differs to some extent from the account given by Suidas and Zenodotus, though this passage of his work is corrupt in the Aldine edition. In any case, I take the sense to be this, that the proverb is normally used when some task is entrusted to people for whom this is quite unnecessary since, even without instructions, they are obliged to perform it (unless I am mistaken) because naked men possess nothing which requires someone to defend it.

[greek], May my luck save me now. When we wish to convey that we shall be pretty cautious in future, if only we may be allowed to escape from present danger. So Davus in the Andria: 'In future I well know I shall be safe, if I avoid this disaster now.' It arose, they say, from a fable. The eagle had seized the tortoise in his talons, and was preparing to drop it from great height, so as to be able to break the shell and eat the meat. At this critical moment the tortoise expressed the wish that it might be allowed to survive for the time being, and for the rest it would take good care not to fall into any such danger again: 'May my luck save me now, and I myself will take good care for the future.' The fable is sometimes told in another form. The tortoise was once seized with a great desire to fly, and asked the eagle to give her lessons. When the eagle said this was impossible, being contrary to nature, she none the less insisted. The eagle therefore gave in, and having carried the tortoise to a great height let her go, to practise her flying. Terrified of a disastrous outcome, she besought the eagle to save her life just this once: 'This time let me be saved.' So Diogenianus; Suidas gives it in the form 'This time let me be saved, that I may learn my lesson for the future.' Pliny knows a third kind of eagle, called by some morphnos, by others plancus and anataria, while Homer's word was perknos. This has no tongue, and is therefore silent, but it is armed with teeth; it is a deep black, and has a somewhat prominent tail. This eagle has a trick of seizing tortoises and breaking them by dropping them from a height. Hence, he says, the fate that befell the poet Aeschylus. It had been foretold to him that he would die by a 'falling down'; and to avoid this risk, he had spent the day in the open air. An eagle, deceived by his gleaming head, which was bald and shining in the sunlight, thought it was a stone, and dropped a tortoise hard on his skull to break the shell and eat the meat. The authority for this is Valerius Maximus, book 9 chapter 12.

[greek], Now that I've suffered shipwreck, my voyage has gone well. Whenever something that looked like a disaster is turned by fortune unexpectedly into a blessing. Zeno of Citium, who abandoned his earlier teachers and became a pupil of Crates after being shipwrecked, is reported to have said 'Fortune does me a good turn by driving me into philosophy.' Suidas is the authority. Plutarch mentions this proverb in the essay 'How to profit from one's enemies.'

[greek], Now I've arrived, was a current expression used by those who have at last without effort reached the required destination, though this has long been beyond their powers. For it commonly happens that something you have long sought for does not occur to you, yet at length it comes into your mind, as it were, of its own accord. Some use it in the form 'Now you've arrived,' when a man arrived at an end which he had said he would never attain.

[greek], Now here at last is Datis' fabled song, was said on any happy and cheerful occasion. There was a Persian satrap called Datis who had an outstanding reputation in the arts of war. When he tried to speak Greek, he had a habit of saying 'I'm joyed, cheered, and pleasured'; and since he often spoke this bad Greek, the thing became a popular byword. Suidas is the authority. But this comes from the Peace of Aristophanes: Now here at last is Datis' fabled song, Sung as he masturbated at high noon: "How joyed and cheered and pleasured now am I!" The scholiast adds that 'datism' was in use for 'speaking bad Greek,' because he said chairomai instead of chairô, misled by the similar endings, in the same way that nowadays we make fun of anyone who says corpus mens and domus tuusy for chairomai in Greek is not used. I am surprised, however, that the scholiast should adduce 'Sickles I asked for, and they said "No spades,'" as though it were related. From this we can infer that the proverb took its rise from ignorance of the language, which not uncommonly provides material for mockery of this kind, when Germans try to talk French or Frenchmen talk German. The same thing happens with men who are hard of hearing.

[greek], No more thorns, was used when things changed for the better, the metaphor being taken from fallow fields which begin to bear crops once the thornbushes are pulled up. This will be a good fit for some piece of business which was previously unrewarding and tedious and later becomes a source of profit. Some trace its origin to the fact that in early times before the discovery of agriculture the fields were blocked with thorns that bore no fruit, and mortals lived a hard and boorish kind of life. Then, when they were shown how to till the ground, a more civilized way of living took its place, and hence arose the expression 'No more thorns.' This interpretation is supported by what I have said elsewhere about the boy who carried thornbranches and loaves at a wedding and said 'I have escaped evil, I have found good.' There is also the expression 'A life of thorns' for one that is uncomfortable and unproductive.

[greek], I'll not be set up as a lioness on tyroknestis [literally, a cheese-grater]. A prostitute's proverb, when the woman declares that she will not make her services available. It is the practice to depict elephants and lions on the handles of soldiers' swords; but they are represented lying down flat, either to prevent the figure from hurting the hand of the man who uses the weapon, or so that they are not easily broken through being shown standing up. Tyroknêstis seems to be a soldiers' word for a sword. The adage can also be diverted to a more respectable use, if, for instance, a man wishes to show that he will not be entirely complaisant and the slave of his master's slightest wish, and were to say 'I'll not be set up as a lioness on a cheese-grater.' The adage is listed by Suidas; it survives in Aristophanes in the Lysistrata.

[greek], Pray not against your ox. The lesson of this adage is that one should not arrange one's life in accordance with what one wants to happen, or hope for anything one chooses from the powers above; everyone should promise himself only those things which he can secure by his own exertions. Recorded in the collections of Diogenianus. The source of the image is not very clear, except that it is clearly taken from a husbandman who neglects to use the labour of oxen in tilling his fields, and hopes that crops will be forthcoming without any exertion on his part.

Quintilian, in book 5 of his Institutiones oratoriae, gives as an example of the proverb, which he says is a short form of fable, 'Not my burden: a saddle on the ox?' It is clear enough that this is taken from a fable, but what the fable was, I have yet to discover. Cicero in book 5 of his Letters to Atticus, in a letter beginning Laodiceam veni pridie calendas sextiles, seems to refer to this adage, and to give us some sort of a handle for conjecture: 'From there' he says 'I have in mind to go on to the Taurus and join battle with Maphragones in hopes of coming to some decision, if I can, about your slave. The saddle is on the ox (don't you agree?). It's not my burden, but I'll bear it; only, if you love me, let it be for a year. But if you are on time, mind you rouse the whole senate. I am surprisingly worried, having now been so long in ignorance of everything.' And again, a little earlier in the same letter: 'But it is incredible how tedious I find the business, for fear that it does not give sufficient scope for the intellectual energy and industry of which you know something. My honourable activity is at a standstill. Imagine me dealing out justice in Laodicea, while Aulus Plotius does the same in Rome! And while our friend has such a large army, here am I with the nominal command of two skeleton legions. Anyhow this is not what I want; what I want is daylight, the Forum, Rome, my own house, and people like you. But I will bear it as best I can, provided it lasts only a year. If there's a prolongation, that will be the end.' These are Cicero's words, and though they are somewhat obscure and (I rather suspect) corrupt as well, one can discern that 'Not my burden: a saddle on the ox' was a proverb referring to someone refusing an assignment as unsuited to his talents. For to wear a packsaddle and carry burdens on their backs is a task not for oxen but for asses and mules. Nor can it be doubted that Quintilian borrowed his example from this passage of Cicero. Raffaele Regio, who attempted to correct Quintilian with added notes, altered the reading as follows: Nos nostrum onus, vos clitellas, 'We (carry) our burden, you (carry) saddles,' supposing the sense to be that neither party would get off without a load. To me, if one is allowed to make any change, it seems better to read Non nostrum onus: bos clitellas? so that these become the words of a man who is rejecting some proposal as absurd and unworthy of him, if it were intended to put a saddle on an ox. Nor is there any discrepancy between this and the sense of Cicero's words which I have just quoted; for his point is that his province is neither suited to him or worthy of his gifts, but he will endure it all the same, provided it does not last longer than a year. And so the sense of the proverb can be expressed in two forms: 'the saddle is placed on an ox,' when some piece of business is entrusted to an unsuitable person, and (supplying a verb meaning 'to carry') 'Is the ox to carry a saddle?' when someone asks to be excused from a task for which he is quite unfitted or which he finds degrading. One thing I would point out to the reader in passing: he must not promptly scratch out or delete anything he may find in my quotations from classical texts which may seem to him not to correspond with sundry people's emendations. Not that I claim to have purged the errors from every text which I cite in this work, but because those who emend texts have their lapses like other men. In this passage, for example, which I have just quoted from the Letters, what a lot of words have been altered in the Aldine edition; whose doing (not to say, whose fault) it is, I do not know. I do not choose to impute this to Aldus, because he is both a good scholar and a friend of mine. In the first place, anyone can see that for 'activity at a standstill' opera cesset is more correct than opera cessent. And then, further on in the same passage, who does not see clearly that there is an alteration both in the punctuation and in the word exsilium, skeleton, which was changed to exulum, exiles. For the [Aldine] text reads 'And while our friend has an army, here am I with only (tantum) the nominal command of two legions of exiles (exsulum)'; whereas Cicero must have meant tantum to be 'so large,' with which he contrasts 'skeleton' legions (exiles), that is, much undermanned. And a little further on in the passage 'join battle with Maphragones in hopes of coming to some decision, if I can, about your slave,' why was the word for decision, deciderem or decidere, changed to decernerem? - as though the former were not far more elegant. For if you were to read decidere, you must supply a verb, such as certarem, to fight, or congrederer, to do battle, a kind of ellipse very common in Cicero, especially in this work, so as to read ut cum Maphragone collatis signis, then supply congrederer. Again, in what follows: 'Clitellae bovi sunt impositae. Illane? Non est nostrum onus, someone took offence at Illane? by itself in aposiopesis, and wrote illae,... [followed by a comma]. The same thing has happened with the words which follow, At si tu ad tempus, but if you [are] on time, where we should understand adfueris, are; for he changed this to adsis tu ad tempus, be on time, corrupting the Latin, to say nothing of the neatness of the phrase. I mention these points reluctantly and under compulsion, for fear that someone, jumping to conclusions as many people do, may be overawed by Aldus' famous name and reject or delete forthwith any wording where they notice a difference from his edition, and may abandon earlier texts out of hand in reliance on this kind of emendation. The proverb was used by Ammianus too, in book 16.

That phrase in Plautus, in the Trinummus, An evil thing known is best, is clearly proverbial in form. It is put into the mouth of an old man, who is trying to persuade a friend not to divorce his wife, however bad she may be, in order to marry another, on the ground that as a rule the man who makes a change, for a start, instead of a bad thing gets something worse; secondly, for something he knows gets an unknown, and thirdly gets something strange for what he is used to. So great is the force of familiarity that evils we are used to seem excellent, and very good things on the other hand seem very bad because they are unfamiliar. So the adage discourages us from any rash zeal for change, and recommends avoidance of what is perhaps the greatest of faults, what was called in Greek philokainon, a passion for novelty, the companion and virtual brother of which is hapsikoron, the rejection of things we had a passion for a short time ago. This maxim in Plautus finds support in Livy from one which Pacuvius Calavius, in an attempt to dissuade the Campanians from their desire to replace their senate, compelled the people, who had learnt from experience, to accept: The more familiar the evil, the easier it is to bear.' Here too belongs that remark in Ovid: What you find hard to bear, the habit formed, / Will easy be; time lightens many loads.' To the same effect is that moral maxim, the author of which I do not know: 'A wife's good, once you know how bad she is'; for once we know what's wrong, we either avoid it or adapt ourselves and put up with it. There is another too: 'Familiar faults we bear and do not blame.' Aristotle in book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics: 'For living creatures are always working, as the writings of naturalists confirm when they tell us that seeing and hearing are hard work; but we have already acquired the habit, as the saying goes.'

Strophylus, a slave in the Aulularia of Plautus, had stolen a pot full of gold which had been buried by the old man in the play, and, being very keen to give his master a hint of this, says I've made a find.' And when asked what it was, he replies 'Not what makes children shout when they find it in beans,' using no doubt a proverbial metaphor to convey that he has found something important. For there is a kind of small worm called a midas which lives in beans, and if children find one of these, they are excited and shout as if they had found something important.

[greek], Midas on the dice gives the best advice, is a proverb that originated in the game of dice, for Midas' is the name of a particular throw. Recorded by Suidas as a proverb. The industrious and learned reader may wish to consider whether for euboulotatos, the best adviser, we ought not to read eubolôtatos, the luckiest throw, which makes the line an iambic trimeter 'For Midas on the dice is the most lucky throw.' The adage can be adapted to a thing that by pure chance turns out well.

[greek], Unless you clean and grind, you'll have nothing to eat. No food, that is, will come your way unless you also contribute your own energy. Ceres is said to have used these words when she taught Triptolemus the use of grain. It looks like an iambic line borrowed from some poet, but it is corrupt; it will scan if you read [greek]. It can be adapted to a very different context: 'Your intelligence will be no use to you unless you use it,' 'Princes' favour will be useless unless you know how to behave,' 'It will be no help to have acquired a good teacher if you don't keep awake yourself.' Recorded by Diogenianus. 88A. Nihil essent alia sine auro All the rest would be nothing without gold [greek], All the rest would be nothing without gold. Where there is poverty, all is neglected. Plato in book 3 of the Laws: 'Declaring by their deeds that, compared with gold and silver, all the things commonly regarded in the city as valuable and beautiful are trifles.'

[greek], There's no difference in build between you and Chaerephon, was said of a pale and skinny person. Chaerephon was a writer of tragedies who told the story of the Heraclidae, and when his nightlong labours made him exceptionally thin and worn, to criticize him became a common jest. He also got 'the Owl' as a nickname. Aristophanes in the Clouds: 'You'll be no different in look from Chaerephon.' He refers to him in the Plutus too: 'Not at all different from Pamphilus' Heraclidae.' For Pamphilus had painted the Heraclidae in the Stoa, supplicating the Athenians with whom they had taken refuge for fear of Eurystheus; and so he calls them 'Pamphilus'.'

'[greek], There's no difference between you and an elephant, was said of big, stupid people; though Pliny gives elephants very high praise for intelligence - but only among brute creatures. It was the size of their bodies and the ugliness of their appearance that gave rise to the adage. Recorded by Diogenianus. It is perhaps to this that Plautus' Palestrio alludes, when he says that his master is 'clad in an elephant's hide' and 'has no more sense than a stone.'

[greek], Not even as far as the porch. Used customarily of pompous, brutal, and insolent men who keep everyone at a distance. There was a law at Athens banning all those tainted with homicide from temple enclosures, just as the outer courts of great men are as a rule open to all comers. The adage evidently alludes to this custom.

Aristophanes, cited by Suidas, in the Lysistrata: 'How true that saying is, nor off the point: / Neither with the abandoned creatures nor without them.' This was said of wives, who do, it is true, make life more difficult, but without them a household cannot exist. It is like that phrase in the Epigrams: 'Not with thee can I live nor yet without thee.' And one I have recorded elsewhere, Necessary evils. In the same passage the following lines are quoted: 'An ill thing is woman; / But none the less, my fellow-citizens, / Without this ill no household can be had.' Cato's saying is well known, that life with wives is uncomfortable, but without them one cannot live at all.

[greek], Not even in skin. A proverbial exaggeration, of exceptionally thin people, as though they were so poorly covered that they seemed to lack even a skin of their own to protect them. Recorded by Suidas.

[greek], You don't know even Stesichorus' triplet, of someone exceptionally ignorant and ill-informed. The adage is thought to derive from the fact that the majority of the poems of Stesichorus are 'epodic,' that is to say they consist of three parts, strophe, antistrophus, and epode. Of these the strophe comes first and is formed of a varying series of metrical forms; the antistrophus is a repetition of more or less the same series of metres; and the epode is an epilogue in a different rhythm. These are also used sometimes by the tragic poets, particularly in their choral odes.

[greek], Nephalian wood. This looks as though it might be applied to abstemious people, who give all forms of pleasure a wide berth; for in Athens the words 'nephalian wood' were applied to anything that came neither from the vine nor the fig nor the myrtle. Nephalian has the same meaning as our word sober.

[greek], A nephalian (or sober) sacrifice, will not be out of place when used of an abstemious meal or of one which is exceedingly frugal and sober. In Athens this form of sacrifice used to be offered to Mnemosyne, to Aurora, to the Sun, to the Moon, to the Nymphs, to Venus and to Urania; for in such a rite there was no pouring of a libation of wine, but of water mingled with honey. So, more or less, Suidas. This is also mentioned by Julius Pollux, book 6 chapter 3, who adds that a verb nephaleuein meant the same as 'to perform a nephalian sacrifice.' This form of offering they called aoinos, wineless, and in the same way the others, in which wine was used, were oinosponda, offered with wine. Seleucus, cited by Athenaeus in book 2, says it was not the custom in the old days for a quantity of wine or anything else in the way of luxuries to be introduced into sacrifices. For since sacrifices were performed in honour of the gods (and that was the reason too why they called them thoinai, thaliai, and methai: thoinai because they drank wine for the gods' sake, thaliae because they came together and dined in honour of the gods, and methai because, as Aristotle suggested, it was after the sacrifice that they drank wine), this was not a proper place to put the business of the stomach first. In the same book Epicharmus writes as follows in criticism of the fall in moral standards: 'After the sacrifice a thoinê, after the thoinê came drinking, after the drinking revelry, after the revelry a swinish rutting, after the rutting, a court-case, after the sentence fetters, mortification, and penalty.' Though this passage arouses my suspicions that there is something wrong, for a phrase 'after the court-case sentence' seems to be missing. There is no disagreement between this and one I have placed elsewhere, A dog's dinner.

Horace in his third satire: 'Fern to be burnt grows in neglected fields.' A striking metaphor teaches us that the mind should be cultivated by a liberal education, or else the result will be its taking-over by a useless forest of vices. Fern is a plant detested by husbandmen, which in practice took over whole fields, and cannot easily be rooted out once it has got a hold.

[greek], You have a warship look. The word nauphracton in Greek means a fleet in battle order. It was the custom of triremes to have certain large holes like eyes, through which the oars are fitted. Hence this somewhat riddling expression 'You stare like a battleship' for those who look at someone with wide-open and very large eyes, or with a savage and threatening air. Aristophanes in the Acharnians: 'Good heavens, man, you have a warship look.' Perhaps too the opportunity for a proverb arose from the successes won from time to time by the Athenians at sea, at Artemisium for instance and at Salamis, which made them very self-confident; so that the phrase might be applied to someone proud and arrogant.

[greek], Leisure to business turned, is the half of an iambic line, which can be used when things turn out unexpectedly, and trouble arises from a source whence we looked for tranquillity and ease. For this too is a thing that happens to many people: while in pursuit of leisure they avoid honest toil and fall into inescapable turmoil. Suidas is the authority, but he gives no clue to the source.

[greek], Ship or cap, for things unidentified; if, for instance, one were to say of an unfamiliar word 'It means either a fish or a pumpkin.' It will not lack point if used of those who in dress and character behave like several different people; if for example a man wore a soldier's belt on top of a philosopher's cloak, or dressed like a monk and in actions and language resembled a brothel-keeper. It is a fragmentary line from the Birds of Aristophanes: 'Ship or cap.' It comes from a species of trireme which is still commonly called a galley, galea, as though it were galerata, wearing a cap. These were built so that they could stretch out oars and move them like wings, besides which they wore at the masthead a cap or a petasus like Mercury's. For in the Peloponnese they call a petasus or broad-brimmed hat a kune, derived from kuôn, the word for dog, since this kind of hat used at first to be made of dogskin. This seems to have been the source of an army jest directed against conceited proud men with an arrogant air. In the same way Festus Pompeius tells us that some merchant ships were called corbitae, because they wore a corbis or basket by way of an emblem at the masthead. Ships that were readyfor war had a cap; those designed for speed wore Mercury's hat as a badge.