Adagia 2501–2600

[greek], You devour the commons even before the distribution is made. This is appropriate for one who plunges into an affair without waiting for a part to be allocated. Suidas informs us it is a figure derived from banquets at which it was the custom in ancient times to distribute a share to each person, as we may deduce from several passages in Homer. He has this very frequently: 'And none missed the equally shared feast.' We also learn from several authors that food was put out for all without any apportioning and each person took as much as he wanted. This is shown by Plautus: 'He piles up heaps of dishes.' Plutarch mentions this fact too in his 'Table-talk,' discussing which of the two customs might be more commendable. However, the proverb is taken from the Knights of Aristophanes:
When, before you get your share, you devour the commons.'

Plautus' Tranio in the Haunted House says: 'When I see there is activity in our market.' This is a proverbial expression for 'After I see that our fortunes are turning around entirely' - a figure taken from the markets where the price of goods changes very often according to the circumstances. Or, of course, from the formulae of judgments or of legal explanations. It is the opposite of 'To plead in a strange court,' but it is related to 'Taking the market as you find it,' which is dealt with elsewhere.

Whatever falls on the ground, Whatever is created by nature. Marcus Tullius in book 1 of On the Nature of the Gods: 'From these you form and produce "whatever falls on the ground," as they say.' He is ridiculing the Epicureans' atoms, from which they believe all things are engendered, whatever is born anywhere in the universe.

There is no saying more elegant or more useful than this aphorism which is to be found in Terence's Andria: Quoniam id fieri quod vis non potest, /Id velis quod possit 'Since what you want cannot be done, you should wish for what can be done' Ov [greek]. This conversio 'repetition and interchange of words' is very ornamental, for example in this phrase: 'You should not live to eat, but eat to live.' And indeed this adage is very close to [greek] 'Accept things as they are in good part.' And Martial counts among his considerations of happiness 'Be content with what you are.'

So much that a hawk could not fly around it. This is a proverbial hyperbole about the excessively wealthy man who has so much land that not even a hawk can fly around it. Persius: 'At Cures there is a rich man who / Farms more than a hawk can fly around.' Juvenal imitated this in Satire 9: 'Within your pastures so many exhausted hawks.' So too some writer of tragedies quoted in Plutarch: 'I farm a field twice six days / Journey round, the Berecynthian land.' In book 18 Pliny speaks of the latifundia, large estates which he says were the beginning of the ruin of Italy. Accordingly the ancients thought 'it is more satisfactory to sow less and to plough better.'

Persius in his fourth Satire: 'Now we strike, and now expose our shins to arrows.' Alternately we criticize and are criticized, we are mocked and we mock, we bite and are bitten, we wound and are wounded. Derived from warfare. Likewise Horace: 'We are struck, and wear out our enemy with just as many wounds.' In his essay on 'Progress in Virtue' Plutarch introduces a similar metaphor of a ball thrown back and forth: καὶ πεπάυμεθα τοὺς λόγους ὥσπερ ἱμάντας ἢ σφαίρας ἐπιδούμενοι πρὸς ἀλλήλους 'And have ceased to equip ourselves with arguments as if they were thongs or spheres to use against one another' as in the proverb we have noted elsewhere, 'To throw the ball from one to another.'

[greek], Ptolemaic dispute. Diogenianus informs us this was said to reproach those who are eager for quarrels. Ptolemais was some old woman who, during her whole life, was engaged in disputes and never stopped pleading cases.

[greek], He worships the kite. At the beginning of spring the kites reappear, an event at which poor people, released from winter, kneel and rejoice, and as it were worship them. This can be adapted to describe those who are made happy by a new hope. Suidas recalls it as a proverb. And Juvenal has 'Endure, and wait for the cicadas.' In fact it comes from the Birds of Aristophanes: [greek] 'to prostrate oneself to the kites.' The scholiast traces the origin to the same circumstances, explaining that the four seasons of the year are announced to men through birds, and he attributes the spring to hawks.

[greek], Prienian justice. Suidas declares that this is appropriate when we want to say that someone is the most outstanding in judgment. It originated with Bias of Priene whose integrity in judging and pleading cases became proverbial, so that one can say, 'In judgment more eminent than Bias of Priene.' It is quoted from Hipponax, the iambic poet, by Strabo in book 14 of his Geography, and in the life of Bias by Diogenes Laertius. Likewise the trochaic line of Demodicus Lerius: 'If you plead any case, make sure you plead in the manner of Priene.' The scazon of Hipponax goes like this: 'Whenever you make a judgment, make sure you surpass Bias of Priene.' I have talked elsewhere about the judgment of Bochoris and of Rhadamanthys.

[greek], At first Mars was praised because of his sons. Said of those who set an example of exceptional nature at first, then gradually slip into other habits. This is what happened to the Romans. Once they were vigorous and showed by their courage that Mars was the founder of their race; later they slipped into unmartial softness, so that Juvenal was right to thunder: 'But whence, O Gradivus, this lust that has infected your grandsons?' The proverb is recorded by Suidas.

[greek], Fighting like Phrynichus. Diogenianus declares this was commonly said of people who do business by cunning and tricks. This Phrynichus betrayed the Spartans and got a black mark in old comedy.

[greek], You demand a sow for a sick dog, that is, something valuable for something worthless, for the pig is food, but dogs are never edible. Recorded by Diogenianus.

St Jerome uses a proverb like this somewhere: 'I insert my hand into the flame intentionally,' meaning 'I expose myself knowingly to danger and face evils.' It seems it may be derived from the story of Mutius Scaevola. It is to be found in Cicero too.

Used by Plautus in the Carthaginian with the appearance of a proverb: "The material is good, if only you engage a good workman.' A talent is exceptional if only it is taught well, a mind is productive if a suitable teacher is found, or a business is rewarding if only it is negotiated skilfully. The figure is too well known to need to be pointed out.

Aeschylus, in Aristophanes' Frogs, wishing to return to the upper world, says: 'I shall speak there, for I do not wish to speak out here.' And Bacchus answers him thus: 'Not a bit of it, why not rather tell us the good news here.' The scholiast informs us this is an allusion to the proverb ' [greek] 'You may be looking that way, but pass the goods this way.' This will be appropriate when we hold out the promise of one thing and do something else, or when we flatter some people and give a benefit in fact to others. Certain authors say this is borrowed from the Graces, one of whom looks over her shoulder, offers a gift to the second, and smiles at the third.

[greek], You are offering water to a frog. When something is presented which particularly pleases the recipient. For example if you challenge someone who is a drinker by nature to a drinking competition, or if you offer a talkative man the matter and the chance to tell a story. It is the opposite of [greek] 'You are offering wine to a frog.' It will be properly applied when someone is given what he has in abundance, for frogs have water in abundance. In Athenaeus there is recorded this verse about Syracusans: 'Who live without food drinking like frogs.' Theocritus in the Reapers:
Boys, the life of a frog is desirable, because
He has no fear of drinking himself dry; for ample
Supplies lie below him.
The shepherd is criticizing the meanness of a contractor, because he offered a miserly drink to sweating men when frogs living in idleness may drink as much as they like. There are some drunkards today who think they will die of thirst if they cannot live in the very barrels. This is different from 'The horse to the plain,' and the opposite of [greek] 'A mole to Coronea.' Coronea is a town in Boeotia, where there are no moles, and if one is brought in from somewhere else, it dies. This is what Stephanus says, and it is rather like the dung-beetle at a place near Olynthus in Thrace according to Pliny.

[greek], Support when the war is over. Said whenever a remedy comes too late. It is recorded by Suidas. It originated with, or at least was used by Diogenes the Cynic. Laertius tells a story about him like this. A young man was being rather boastful about the wife he had recently taken and put the following inscription on his house: 'The son of Jupiter, victorious Hercules, lives here. Here let no evil enter.' Diogenes wrote after this: 'Help when the war is over,' meaning, that is, that evil had already been received into the house, when the man, who was evil himself, moved in. This belongs with that expression of Plato which I have recorded elsewhere: 'To arrive after the war is over.' Brutus in the letter to the Lycians: 'Your machines have been brought in, as the proverb has it, when the war is over.' Likewise in the letter to the Myrians: 'For delay in war is the same as doing nothing at all; what is done late is done in vain.' In his 'Declamation on Feeding a Dead Body,' Quintilian has two phrases rather like this proverb: 'Is not medicine for the dead too late? Does anyone pour water onto ashes?' This is how he denotes a remedy that comes too late, since for the mortally sick a doctor comes too late, and it is too late to pour water on a building reduced to ashes.

In one of his letters St Jerome quotes a proverb well known among the Greeks which goes like this: 'Fat stomach never bore fine feeling.' But one must admit that it runs more neatly in Greek than in Latin. And a Greek senarius survives in the Greek writers which goes like this: [greek] 'A gross stomach never bears a subtle heart.' Galen too records in Against Thrasybulus that this was commonly repeated: 'And this is chanted by almost everyone, for it is one of the truest of all things, that a fat stomach does not bear a subtle mind.' By the Spartans it was held to be disgraceful if someone was excessively fat. Agatharchides, as reported in book 12 of Athenaeus, says that Anclides, having become extraordinarily corpulent through luxurious living, was summoned to the council and there sharply reprimanded by Lysander; he was very close to being sent into exile, and the Spartans threatened him with this if he did not live more frugally. In the same passage Menander says of some obese person: 'For a fat pig all but hid the man's mouth.' The adage warns us that the keenness of the mind grows dull through indulgence of the body. As Horace writes too: 'For a heavy body / Also weighs down the mind itself with yesterday's excesses, / And traps the wisp of divine spirit in earth.' Plutarch, quoted in Gellius, declares that heavy feeding produces children who are quite dull and slow of mind.

Ιχθὺν νήχεσθαι διδάσκεις, You are teaching a fish to swim. This is just as if you were to say, 'You are teaching the learned.' Very close to one we have recorded elsewhere: 'You teach a dolphin to swim.' Which is also expressed thus: 'You are giving advice to a dolphin on how to swim.' The authority is Diogenianus.

[greek], I am Pitana. Zenodotus declares this used to be said of people who had been reduced to extreme misfortune and restored again to their former happiness. For this is what happened once to Pitana, a town in Aetolia. It was reduced to servitude by the Pelasgians and freed to enjoy its former liberty by the Erythraeans.

There is a proverbial hyperbole which St Jerome used in his Letters: 'As blunt as a pestle,' for something which is far from sharp. Timon the misanthropist calls Cleanthes 'an idle pestle' or 'mortar,' because of his slowness of wit. And 'the sharpness of Chrysippus' is used ironically in the same author for a stupid person - and 'a syllogism with horns' for a ridiculous and frivolous argument.

[greek], A casting of lots, not a throttling. Formerly, because those who were strongest laid hands on the weaker ones and snatched food from them, a scheme was devised so that food should be divided equally by lots and immediately it became accepted to shout: [greek] 'Don't strangle, share.' The expression became proverbial, and we can use it when we want to say that there is no place for violence, but that the business must be dealt with equitably and legally. Plutarch, in the Collected Proverbs, if indeed they are his, quotes it in these words: [greek] 'It is a sharing, there's no strangulation.' Suidas too tells us that the proverb usually has this form.

[greek], A whitewashed or plastered wall. The apostle Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, calls the false and pretentiously dressed high priest Ananias a 'whited wall,' because inwardly he was far different from what he appeared to be outwardly by his dress and bearing. Likewise Christ in the gospels calls those who make a pretence of holiness 'whited sepulchres' for though these sparkle on the outside, on the inside they are full of the bones of the dead. This is what is found in Matthew: 'Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, for such as you are like [greek] 'whited sepulchres,' which outwardly appear beautiful but inwardly are full of the bones of the dead and every sort of filth.' Lucian brings in the colossi of Myron and Praxiteles as a simile of this sort in his Cockerel, because outwardly they gleamed with much ivory, flashed with much gold, and were bright with diverse colours, and because, moreover, they were images of Jupiter and Neptune holding the lightning bolt or the trident in the right hand so that they seem to be in truth something divine, when inside there was nothing but pitch, nails, spiders, mice and other such rubbish which corresponded not at all to the exterior image. And such is the life of Princes, he declares: if you reckon by the noise and pomp, there is nothing more happy, more like the life of the gods than theirs; but if you consider the anxieties, the suspicions, the hatreds with which they are secretly tormented, there is no life more wretched. Seneca wrote that philosophers who teach virtue yet live scandalously are like the little caskets of certain physicians whose labels promise cure though they conceal poison within. On the other hand, those who are better within than they show by their speech, by the immediate appearance of their lives, by their exterior, as it were, these Plato likens to sileni of which we have spoken elsewhere.

[greek], To keep the pot full, was said of those who made a show of fear so that they could discourage someone - for example if someone places defences somewhere so that the neighbours are less likely to commit acts of aggression. This originates with the custom of the city of Athens, where they used to place pots on the roofs to deter screech-owls which were very numerous there. For birds of every sort shun the noise made by [the wind in] these pots. The adage is recorded both by Suidas and by Diogenianus. It comes from the comedy of Aristophanes called the Birds: We must fight and have pots to hand at the same time.
But what good is a pot?
The screech owl won't come to bother us then.

[greek], It is essential to buy both oil and salt. Aristotle records this adage in book 2 of his Rhetoric when he is dealing with topoi and enthymemes. He offers this example of the antistrephon: 'A priestess was advising her son against speaking in public at any time. "For if you recommend something unjust," she says, "you will have the gods angry with you; but if something just, then men will be angry." This the son [greek] "turns round" like this: "No rather, it is an advantage to speak in public. Because if I say just things, the gods will love me, if unjust, then men will love me."' Aristotle thinks this sort of argumentation is very similar to this proverb, in which we are commanded to buy both oil and salt: 'But this is the same as the common expression [greek] "Buy both oil and salt"' meaning that sometimes opposite remedies are necessary, now sharp, now mild. For salt is biting and drying; oil soothes and moistens. Thus physicians add oil to salt, lest it be too corrosive, and wise people soften the sharpness of rebuke with kind words. I am aware that in the Aldine edition you will read [greek] 'wound' for [greek] 'oil,' as if to say the evil and the cure for the evil can be gathered from the same place. But who normally buys a wound?

[greek], Like cork. Said of those who do not know how to dissimulate, or of those who cannot be sunk by the storms of fortune. It occurs in Pindar and is derived from the nature of this wood, which not only does not sink itself, but when tied to other things holds them up so that they do not sink. So it is threaded onto nets and is used to support swimmers.

To smother with caresses, in Plautus, is to deceive by skill and trickery. He says: I am a master of handing that to others; you can't smother me with caresses.' Hence we also say palpari for 'to flatter,' and palpones for 'flatterers' by a similar figure. The metaphor is drawn from grooms, who try to calm down fiery horses by a pat of the hand, as we have explained elsewhere.

[greek], Never let anyone be wiser than the Megarians. A proverbial joke customarily uttered against stupid people. But it was said to flatter the Megarians according to Diogenianus.

[greek] White-skinned men are no use except as cobblers. A jibe at soft and effeminate men, and those born to luxury. This is what is implied, I think, by cerdonica 'shoemaking,' as in Martial: 'What is it to you what this one or that may do with his own leather?' In any case, such people are useless in managing affairs. On the other hand, those who are dark-skinned and hairy are better choices for governing the nation. Hence even Hercules was called [greek] 'blackbottom,' as someone energetic and by no means effeminate, as is explained elsewhere in the adage 'Mind you don't fall in with Blackbottom.'

[greek], A damp night. Customarily said when misfortunes befall, according to Diogenianus. In the same way, in happier circumstances, we say 'Dawn is breaking.' In the same author we find [greek] 'a thick night,' for a winter night. And if anyone thinks these should not be classed as adages, he can blame Diogenianus, if he wishes.

[greek] How does that help with daily bread? That is, How does this help to make a living? For the poets commonly say [greek] for daily bread, and for household goods. Aristophanes in the Clouds: [greek]; 'How would tunes help me gain my daily bread?' This can be applied appropriately to unpractical arts, like poetry: [greek] 'nothing to do with daily bread,' or as the common people say 'with earning bread,' an expression which is more well known than learned.

Apparently a proverbial hyperbole used by Marcus Tullius in book 7 of his Letters to Atticus: 'I could not understand at all the riddle of the Oppii from Velia; it is more obscure than Plato's maths.' This is said because Plato obscures his philosophy with Pythagorean numbers and covers it as with clouds, especially in the Timaeus. For Pythagoras brought almost all philosophical reasoning back to numbers. Macrobius wrote a great deal on this in the commentaries he published on the Dream of Scipio.

[greek], Your words are never from the fields; that is, never base or common. For anything inelegant or unpolished is said to have come 'from the fields.' On the other hand anything witty or graceful is called urbane or city talk. Recalled by Suidas.

[greek], There is no serious harm except what you do to yourself. Recalled by Diogenianus. No one is hurt, except by himself. There is no insult to anyone if he believes it does not concern him.

[greek], Not even a thorn will harm the good. No one will be troublesome to the innocent. Although the thorn by its nature pricks everyone, innocence and purity of life are always safe.

[greek], Naaera and Charmione. Zenodotus wrote that this used to be said of faithful friends who did not hesitate to keep company with their friends even in death. This type of friendship was highly thought of among the Egyptians; they called it [greek] 'of those who die together.' Those who found satisfaction in this sort of intimacy bound themselves together by this rule, that if some fatal accident happened to one, the other would join him in death. Antony and Cleopatra bound themselves to each other by such a covenant. Horace speaks in poem 17 of the second book of Odes of some such alliance with Maecenas: 'That day will bring the doom of both. / I am not one to have pronounced a faithless oath. / We shall both go, we shall both go, / Wherever you lead, companions / Ready to hasten on the final journey.' And again, in another passage: 'What of us? to whom life while you survive may be / Enjoyable, grievous if not.' But let me come back to this proverb. Naaera and Charmione were two waiting women of queen Cleopatra who copied her in her voluntary death, and they were seen, when they were still half-alive, putting back the crown which had fallen from the head of their already dead mistress. A story worthy to be remembered especially, and pleasant to know, but if anyone perchance questions it, he can find it in Plutarch's life of Antony. I would not have included this adage, if I had not been afraid that, since it appears more than once in the printed editions of Zenodotus' Collectanea, some uneducated individual would accuse me of having overlooked it. For to me, if my nose does not betray me, this adage smells as if it were not produced by antiquity at all but were born in Zenodotus' study.

This verse of Hesiod, like many others became a proverb: [greek] 'Be not a friend to many, but not to none either.' In book 9 of his Ethics Aristotle cites this as a proverb, and appears to approve what it says, because it seems to be uncivilized and joyless to live without the society of any friends at all. On the other hand we cannot love many deeply at the same time or please a lot. And does not Lucian tell us in the Toxaris that among the Scythians polyphilia, that is, friendship with many, was just as shameful as it is among other peoples for one woman to have intercourse with many men? But Marcus Tullius has the opposite opinion in his book On Friendship. And Plutarch in his essay 'On Multiple Friendships.'

[greek], To card clouds. This is said of someone who vainly strives to do something stupid or impossible. It is recalled by Diogenianus. Suidas suspects that it originated with the person who said that the clouds were stretched out like fleeces. The image suggests that they had to be carded in the same way.

[greek], A Myconian neighbour. A jibe at someone who comes to a banquet uninvited. For the Myconians had a reputation in ancient times for being gourmandisers and for greedily seeking out other peoples' tables. This is what Suidas says. Zenodotus however says that it suits mean, base men, because the island of Myconos was among the most despised by reason of its infertility, which made its people rather miserly and covetous of others' goods. Athenaeus asserts almost the same thing in the first conversation of the Doctors at Dinner where he quotes this verse of Archilochus who criticized someone called Pericles: 'For bursting uninvited into banquets like a Myconian.' The same author adds that the Myconians were known 'for their stinginess and their covetousness' because they were poor, inhabiting as they did an infertile island. For extreme poverty makes people greedy of others' possessions; hence Cratinus called a certain Ischomachus, who was a slave to greed, a Myconian.

[greek], Your business will fail, if you dream of the dead. This is recorded by Suidas as something commonly uttered from divination based on dreams, the most vain by far of all superstitions. But this is said in such a way as to suggest that death is the end of all the evils of this life.

[greek], Dead men do not bite. This is still commonly said these days. I believe it originated with the saying of Theodore of Chios who was king Ptolemy's teacher of rhetoric. Being co-opted to the council when it was discussing whether Pompey should be driven away from Egypt or admitted, he expressed the opinion that he should be received and then killed, adding this saying: 'Dead men do not bite.' Plutarch tells the story in the life of Pompey.

[greek], Call on knowledge in the last resort. You should not use immediately the ultimate powers of your mind, but when extreme peril presses, then you should resort to your skills.

According to Plato it was a saying repeated even in songs among the ancients that the most wretched sort of death was to die by starvation. However, it comes from book 12 of Homer's Odyssey: 'Any death is hard indeed for wretched mortals. / But to perish of hunger is by far the most wretched thing of all.' Plato quotes these lines in book 3 of the Republic as unhealthy for the morals of young people, since no death is wretched which is encountered in a noble cause. It could be used against miserly people who deprive themselves of pleasure in order to save their money, or those who die without knowledge of the truth, because the mind of man is nourished by the word of God no less than the body by food. Death by such hunger is indeed the most wretched of all.

Plautus said in the Two Captives by way of a proverbial figure: 'Go hunt for a hare, now you have itys "a pheasant"'; that is, 'You have this meal here which is safe, however modest it may be; go seek another, bigger if you can.' The pheasant is a bird so called from 'Phasis' a river in Scythia. Therefore when we want to order someone who has found something good to take on something else, we can use this adage quite opportunely. But I think this passage in Plautus, like many others, is corrupt. The reading should be, not itym, as the codices have, nor ichthyn, an erroneous change I see one editor has made, since neither a bird nor a fish have anything to do with the hunting of a hare, but ictin 'ferret.' For this is an animal belonging to the family of the weasels which is put into rabbit-warrens to chase out the prey. The Romans call it viverra. Suidas declares that the same animal traps fish. Aristotle recalls this in book 9 chapter 6 of his Nature of Animals, although he does not state that it traps hares, but birds and bees. If there is general agreement that ictis is the viverra, Pliny in book 8 states that this was particularly prized for hunting hares and rabbits. He says: 'They introduce them into the warrens which have many surface openings, whence the name of the animal, and thus they catch them above as they are forced out.'

'To challenge with the little finger' is to challenge to a contest contemptuously. It comes from the gesture of those who challenge to a fight by raising the little finger. Horace in his Satires:
Behold,
Crispinus challenges me with his little finger: 'Take these, if you wish,
Take these tablets now; let's have a place, a time,
Judges; let's see who can write the most.'
It can be most wittily applied to intellectual situations; for example, "This grammar teacher on his own challenges all theologians with his little finger.'

There is a flavour of the nature of the proverb in almost all metaphors of this sort: 'To enclose in a pomoerium,' 'To prescribe the goal,' 'To surround with barriers,' and any that are similar. Varro in On Agriculture: 'It was all the better done by certain people who confined the subject in narrower limits, excluding those areas which are not pertinent.' And again in book 1 of the same work: 'Whether it is an art or not, and from what starting points it evolves towards its goal.' Cicero in book 1 of On the Orator. 'You have constrained the whole profession of the orator within rather narrow boundaries.'

[greek]. People are said to have their mind elsewhere when they are lost in thought and so not attentive enough to what is being done in front of them. Aristophanes has a joke in the Acharnians against Euripides for using dialectical quibblings (something which even Fabius Quintilian notes in the Institutes) in these lines:
The same man is in there, and he is not in there, if you know what I mean.
How can anyone be in there and not in there?
Perfectly well, old man. For his mind is outside, far away, collecting little scraps of poetry, not inside, but he himself is inside, composing a tragedy, flat on his back. He calls his little poems epyllia, making a diminutive from epos. The same author in the Knights: 'You are always gaping at the speaker, but for all that you are present your own mind is far away.' And Terence with the same meaning: 'When you are with him, be as if you are not with him.'

[greek], As gentle as a dove. The guilelessness and gentleness of the dove is praised even in sacred scriptures. For the dove is among birds what the sheep is among quadrupeds. She contemplates no harm to any living thing and has no other defence against the hawk but the speed of her flight. The adage is recalled by Diogenianus.

[greek], Now, give me a loan of three drachmas to buy a piglet. This was said by one who was resolved on dying or who wanted to be initiated. For initiates used to sacrifice a pig. Suidas quotes Aristophanes. It is in the Peace: 'Lend me now three drachmas with which I may buy a pig; / I am to be initiated, before I go to meet with death.'

[greek], A woman's rump. This used to be said of a slothful and idle person. Woman is an idle creature and the less intelligence she has, the more she is given to ignoble pleasures. She is fond of idleness and like the drone, as Hesiod says, she takes for herself what is gained by the labour of men. This is what is meant by the proverb 'Ocnus the ass.' France has many such women, and yet Holland has uncounted numbers of women who support lazy and pleasure-loving men with their labour.

[greek], A womanish nature. Diogenianus states that this was said of stupid people. But it seems to apply better to those who are cowardly and changeable. Hence the remark of Ennius: 'For you young men have womanish hearts, / And that virgin has a man's.' And Terence: I have learned what a woman's nature is. When you will, they won't; when you won't, they want.'

[greek], To know what the wind will be the day after tomorrow. This is said of people who guess what is going to happen at a much later time. It originates with sailors or merchants. Pindar says: 'Wise men know what the wind will be the day after tomorrow.' For this is wisdom, to see not only what is in front of your feet but to foresee what is further away.

'[greek], As garrulous as a reef. A proverbial hyperbole applied to an intemperate man who is unbearably talkative. The figure is derived from reefs that, continuously beaten by the waves, make a great roaring noise.

[greek], To a starving hare even cakes serve for figs. According to Suidas this was said of those who, when driven by necessity, consumed even their most precious possessions. Probably derived from the sort of story which Apuleius tells of himself, that driven by hunger he first learned to lick the cakes then to consume them.

[greek], Custom, or law, and country. A proverb which tells us, as I have shown elsewhere with other illustrations, that you must follow and obey the customs of the region into which you go. Zenodotus writes that all peoples have their own laws and principles for living. It is the custom of the Persians for one thing to take counsel in their cups when they are drunk, and to worship their kings as gods. For another, equals kiss each other; lower class folk only touch the knee of higher class people. They set eyes upon their male children only after four years. The Gordians crown as king the one who is the most corpulent among them. The Syrraci grant the crown to the one who is slimmest in body, and, according to some, the one who has the longest head. The Stymphali honour a woman who consorts with many men. The mountain Massagetae copulate in the streets. The Sauromatae sell their daughters when they are drunk. The Mazusian refrains from intercourse with women unless it is one he has captured in battle. The Tabareni, after their wives have given birth, lie with their heads bound just as if they themselves have given birth. Among the Cecertaei artisans carry their work around until someone approaches to buy it. The Sidones eat their parents, except the head, which they cover with gold. The Caesiae, or according to others the Heniochi, weep for the new-born and rejoice for the dead. The Bachiri, if they have recovered from an illness, present themselves to dogs. The Orgenipei have no houses and do not eat flesh; but they are hairless, not only the men but the women too, and they say this happens because of the nature of the water they drink. The Thysetae sacrifice bones to their gods and themselves eat the meat (and these, in my opinion, are really the most sensible). Tauroscythians make human sacrifice. Mediterranean Byzoni live on cow's milk and never eat any other food. Iberians, instead of sheep, keep herds of dogs. The Africans who are called Colcenses have hyenas. And the differences in our cultures and customs nowadays are no smaller than these. To adapt ourselves to them as far as possible, imitating the octopus, is no small part of wisdom.

[greek], There's a storm coming. Suidas states this was customarily said of those who acted wantonly and shamelessly, and takes it from Pherecrates: 'Alas, woe is me, a storm is coming.' Aegis means several things to the Greeks: the shield made of hide that is carried by Africans; then the waves of a rising sea and hurricanes, and this latter in Doric, whence we find [greek] for 'to blow hard.' Others prefer to say it means what is woven from wreaths or a net woven from creepers. He says this is how it is used in book 4 of Herodotus, and in Lycurgus. And there are some who believe that it means the priestess who carries the sacred aegis at Athens, and goes with it into the homes of those who have recently taken a wife. It seems that in these rites there was much licence, just as even among Christians marriages are celebrated with much foolery, with allusions to hurricanes at the same time.

[greek], You're carrying a lot of undergrowth. A jibe at Phormio, a soldier who was apparently shaggy and covered with a thick forest of hair. We have mentioned him elsewhere. It would apply to someone rustic and stupid, such as almost all soldiers are. It is recorded by Suidas.

[greek] To see lions indicates a battle with the enemy. A metaphor taken either from the interpretation of dreams or from the observation of omens. It is recalled by Suidas. I notice that verses like these saying what every dream foretells are carefully recorded by Suidas and Hesychius, though there is nothing more vain. Yet it is likely that both were monks.

[greek], A gull in the swamps. Suidas writes that this was commonly said of those who are easily enticed into giving something. It is derived from the bird, the gull, which is also thought to be called [greek] 'the petrel,' although Theodorus of Gaza translates the latter as fulica 'coot' and the former as gavia 'gull.' This bird is easily deceived and enticed, and gave rise to the proverb because of this characteristic.

[greek], Issa! was a proverbial taunt shouted at those to whom the letter 'Z' fell when lots were drawn, and at those who were in any way unfortunate. This according to Suidas, who quotes the proverb from the Messenia of Menander, and who states that it is used by writers in other places. We may suppose that this letter was inauspicious in the drawing of lots. Martianus Capella, in the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, tells us this letter was hated by Appius Claudius because, when it is pronounced, it sounds like the grinding of a dead man's teeth.

When anything is given abundantly and sufficiently it is said to be given 'By the granaryful'; it is just like 'By the basketful,' because more can be supplied from the granary than from a choenix. It is similar to 'You draw from the cask.'

In your own arena, that is, 'In your own craft.' Derived from the gladiators who used to fight in the arena. And it was a matter of no small importance to them, whether they fought in a familiar or a strange arena.

To capture two boars in one copse, means to catch two people in the same way in the same action. Plautus in the Casina:
Now I shall capture two boars neatly in one copse.

[greek], Fire meeting a torch. Said of a deal which is speedily and easily completed, like fire jumping spontaneously to a torch because of the dryness of the materials. Recalled by Diogenianus. It would be the same as saying 'Fire to naphtha,' for naphtha is a type of pitch to which fire jumps, even across a wide gap.

'[greek], I shall imitate Hippolytus. In his collections of proverbs Diogenianus says this was customarily said of those who had resolved to live pure and chaste lives. The legend is well known from Euripides or Seneca of how this youth, out of hatred for the female sex, devoted himself entirely to the service of Diana, despising the power of Venus. This is how he speaks in Euripides: I declare that I shall take no pleasure in your Venus for a long time.

Suidas quotes this line from a play by Cratinus called Home: 'And someone doing these things says he is achieving nothing.' Suidas informs us that underlying this there is a proverb which can be applied to people who labour in vain. Among Latin speakers, likewise, people who undertake useless labour are 'doing nothing,' as in Terence: 'Besides, this achieves nothing.' And the remark of Attilius is famous: 'It is more satisfying to be idle than to achieve nothing.'

To put Hercules' mask or boots on a baby is to treat very small matters with very weighty means that are entirely inappropriate or unbecoming, as for example if someone speaks of a trivial subject in the tragic style. In book 6, on the peroration, Quintilian says:
For adopting these tragic tones in petty cases is like wanting to fit Hercules'
mask and boots on babies.
Plutarch recalls a saying of Agesilaus which is not very different from this. When some sophist was being commended to him because he made the smallest matters seem important by his oratorical skill, he said he did not think a cobbler was good if he put a big shoe on a small foot, meaning that speech should be adapted to the subject, just as clothes should be fitted to the body.

[greek], Cranes that swallow stones. Suidas quotes this from Aristophanes stating that it was said of those who conduct their business with the greatest forethought, and that it entered into popular speech because cranes, since they fly at a great height and at great speed and cannot look downwards, have the habit of carrying stones which they drop, if they begin to get tired as they fly; by this means apparently they can tell from the noise of the falling stones whether they are flying over land or over the sea. If the stone falls into the sea they carry on their way, but if on land they stop to rest. Pliny relates things very like this in book 10 chapter 23. He says: 'They agree when they will set out. They fly at a great height so that they can see far ahead; they choose a leader whom they can follow. At the end of the line they post birds by turns who utter cries and keep the flock together. At night time they have sentries who hold a stone in their claw; this betrays their inattention by the noise of its fall if they relax in sleep. The others sleep with their heads under their wings and standing first on one foot then on the other. The leader, with head raised, keeps watch and gives warning.' Shortly after Pliny says: 'It is known that when they are about to cross the Black Sea they seek first of all the narrowest point, between the two promontories of Criumetopon [Cape Sarich] and Carambis [Cape Inca], then take on a ballast of sand. When they have passed the mid-point of the sea, they drop the stones, and when they reach the continent the sand from their throats as well.' This is what Pliny says. The passage which Suidas quotes is in Aristophanes' Birds:
There came some thirty thousand cranes
From the shores of Africa, having swallowed huge
Stones .. .
The scholiast has the same to say on this passage as Suidas.

[greek], Fortune is Euripus, or changeable, because she is accustomed to favour now this one now that in turn. About her Boethius says: 'Carried like the boiling tide of Euripus.' We have spoken of the sea of Euripus elsewhere. Just as the sea has its tidal flows and ebbs, so nothing in human affairs is permanent. No sea, however, changes its flow more frequently or more swiftly than Euripus. Pindar in the third Pythian ode took his metaphor from the winds: 'It is right, when it happens, to accept benefits from the gods. For the rest, at other times the winds blow other ways. The happiness of mortals does not come to stay for long.' The scholiast quotes some lines of Euripides: 'Nay rather, even disasters can be eclipsed for men, / And blasts of wind do not always keep their force.'

[greek]. Someone was said 'To open doors' if he revealed the way into some matter or its beginning. The elder Pliny in book 2 chapter 8: 'Anaximander of Miletus is said to have understood its obliquity, that is, to have opened the doors of this science.' Plutarch indicated this was a proverb in the second decade of his 'Table-talk': 'Unwisely, Firmus, instead of the proverbial door you have opened up the world to your own undoing.' 'To open a window' is found in this particular sense in Terence.

Nowadays too this is commonly heard from ordinary people, that it is time for us to beware when the neighbour's house is burning. The proverb warns us to learn from the example of another's misfortune, and to take thought for our own concerns when others are in danger. It comes from Horace's Epistles: 'Do you feel any danger about to come upon you soon? / For it is your concern when next door's wall is burning.' And Virgil: 'Even now his neighbour Ucalegon blazes.'

There is no doubt that this, which is in Virgil's Eclogues, belongs to the category of proverbs: 'Alas, alas! what wish, poor wretch, has been mine? Madman, I have let in the south wind to my flowers, and boars to my crystal springs!' Used when someone makes choices that will be harmful. For the wind is the greatest enemy of flowers, especially the south wind because of its violence.

[greek], An earthenware god. A jibe at a poor man of despised condition. Aristophanes says in the Clouds: 'When I thought you too, a piece of earthenware, were a god.' The great gods were sculptured in ivory, gold, and silver. But the ordinary gods, the petty ones, such as Silenus and Priapus, were portrayed in any sort of material - wood, sometimes, and clay - the same costly material as pots are made of. Hence it can be applied quite aptly to one who seeks to be accepted among the greatest courtiers but has no power through wealth nor influence with the prince through authority. It is akin to this one: 'Blue pimpernel too is a vegetable'; or this one: 'Nothing sacred.' It is recorded in the Collectanea of Zenodotus.

[greek], The Oetaean spirit. Diogenianus says that this spirit had a passionate hatred of brutality and arrogance and would not allow them to go unavenged. Hence haughty and impetuous people were threatened with the Oetaean spirit. The published Collectanea attribute the proverb to the writer Clearchus. However, Oeta is a mountain close to Trachis, and there is a city of the Melienses of the same name. So the application of this proverb will be similar to 'The Temessian spirit will be there.'

Suidas quotes the following words from an unnamed author: 'As the proverb has it, even an enemy would have taken pity, if he had seen the present state of the man.' This is a hyperbole, for an enemy is not easily moved to pity. Virgil in book 12: 'A hand to be pitied even by Priam.' And in book 2: 'What Myrmidon or Dolopian or soldier of stern Ulysses could in telling such a tale refrain from tears?' Very similar to 'What even Momus himself would approve.'

[greek], Votes equal, said whenever someone is close to being condemned and yet is acquitted, or when the mind wavers and hesitates about which way to turn for reasons which persuade and dissuade equally one way or the other. Such as in Terence: 'When the mind is in doubt, a small impulse pushes it one way or the other.' Suidas declares that the metaphor is taken from the ancient custom of the courts whereby an accused man was acquitted if the judges' votes were equal, but was still at risk. In one of his Problems Aristotle gives many reasons why the ancients thought that an accused should be acquitted rather than condemned when the votes were equal. For it seemed appropriate for many reasons that, all other things being equal, the accused should be favoured rather than the accuser. In the first place the accuser comes prepared and with forethought, while the accused is obliged to answer many unforeseen questions. Then it is generally agreed that the accused, being the one who is at greater risk in speaking, is more likely to leave certain things out through fear than the accuser. Then again in an uncertain matter it is important to lean towards the solution where, if there is a mistake, there is less wrong. It is a lesser evil to acquit the guilty than to condemn the innocent, especially in capital cases where, if it happens that the judge errs, there is no way in which he can mend his mistake for the future, once the man has been executed. On the other hand, if a guilty man is released, he can be punished in another trial. Finally an accusation is more liable to the suspicion of malice than a defence, so that, since in other respects there is no apparent means of discrimination, we judge harshly of the accuser rather than of the accused. This, with a few other such things, is what Aristotle has to say. Therefore, just as the one absolutely sure to be released from the accusation is the one who is acquitted by unanimous vote, so the closest to danger seems to have been the one who is released by a sort of special favour because the votes were equal.

A nightingale without a song. A proverbial allegory, just the same as if you say, 'A woman without words,' 'A poet without verses,' 'An orator without ornaments,' 'A sophist without quibbles.' For no bird equals it in melodiousness; even the female nightingale is more melodious than any other bird, as Pliny attests in book 10 chapter 29. But it would not be at all inappropriate to set out here his own words:
The nightingale - not, after all, a bird of notable appearance - sings its chat-
tering song for fifteen successive days and nights as the leaf-buds thicken. On
the one hand there comes such a powerful voice from such a tiny body, such
a long breath; on the other a sound modulated and uttered in complete mas-
tery of music. Now it is drawn out in length in one continuous breath, now
varied with inflections, now marked off staccato, linked with a turn; it is pro-
longed, withheld, unexpectedly hushed. Sometimes she murmurs, or is full,
deep, high, rapid, slow; trilling notes, when this seems right, high, middle,
low. And in short, in these tiny throats everything that the art of men has
devised with the elaborately wound pipes of the flute.
Plautus in the Bacchis Sisters: 'In truth, I too am afraid the nightingale may lose its song.'

Εγὼ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦ εἰς καλὸν μετηνεγκα. I have indeed gone from one good to another. Suidas tells us this used to be said of those who exchange one good occupation for another. He implies that it arose from someone who was a good cithara-player and then became a tragic poet. Poetry is very akin to the art of music, which is why Terence called poetry music. The source of the adage is Aristophanes' Frogs.

Εγχέλεις θηρᾶσθαι. People are said 'To hunt eels' when they stir up trouble for the sake of a private advantage. The metaphor arises from the fact that those who hunt eels catch nothing if the water remains still, only when they stir the water up and down and thoroughly muddy it do they catch them. It will be suitable for those for whom there is no profit when the nation is in a peaceful state. Therefore they are glad if rebellions arise whereby they can turn the state's public disaster to their private advantage. The proverb is found in Aristophanes' Knights:
For your case is like those who hunt for eels
When the fen remains still, they come away with no fish,
But if they stir the mud up and down,
They make catches; thus you yourself make catches when you make public trouble.
This art, alas, is understood only too well by certain princes, who, because of their desire for power, sow discord between states or stir up war on some pretext so that they can more freely tax the wretched common people and satisfy their greed by starving absolutely innocent citizens.

Εγὼ ποίησω πάντα κατα νικόστρατον, I shall do everything as Nicostratus did. Said of whatever is extraordinary. For this Nicostratus is said to have been a comic actor with the sort of reputation Roscius had among the Romans. So he became proverbial in popular language because of his fame as an artist. It is Suidas who describes it as a proverb.

Διπλοῦν κάππα, Double kappa, that is, a riddle by which some evil is signified, for KaKa 'evils' is written as two kappas. Using a similar figure Plautus called a thief 'a three-letter man.'

Τριά κάππα κάκιςτα, Nothing worse than three 'C's. This too was formerly spoken as a riddle in which the customs of three peoples were censured, the Cappadocians, the Cretans and the Cilicians. In his Rules of Grammar Augustine tells us it was shifted to mean Cornelius Sulla, Cornelius Cinna and Cornelius Lentulus. And it was believed that in the Sybilline books the names of these three men were designated by these three letters. The Greek forms the ending of a heroic verse.

Proverbial in appearance is this advice given by Theognis, that a sleeping drunk should not be woken from his sleep. It is very similar to 'Do not disturb a well concealed evil.' You should not reawaken the hatred of someone whom time has already persuaded to forget. You should not reopen a wound in the mind which a scar has already begun to cover. Theognis' ode goes like this:
Do not drive away slumber from any one of us, Simonides,
Whom deep Sleep holds stifled with wine.

Δίσχολοι γνῶμαι, Swaying both ways in his opinion, or, A mind turning this way and that. This is how I think it must be read: δίσχωλος with an omega (ω), so that it means 'swaying both ways.' In the published editions I find it spelled with an omicron (o). It will be applicable then to a man of slippery faith and uncertain allegiances, one whom this line of Homer fits: 'He has a wavering gait and he totters on both feet.' It is reported by Zenodotus.

Ρεχθὲν καὶ πραχθέν, Said and done. A proverbial figure which signifies that nothing has been omitted in taking care of an affair. Terence: I have carried it out, said and done.' Donatus, in his commentary on the Andria asserts this is a proverb for speed: 'He will have found some cause, no sooner said than done.' Again in the Self-Tormentor: 'Clitipho went in there, no sooner said than done.' And how familiar is this figure of speech in the Greek poets: 'Neither said nor done,' for what is in no way true. In the Iliad book 1 Homer has: 'Neither a good word nor a deed has ever come from you.' Euripides in the Hecuba: 'As for you, do not stand in my way / Either by word or by deed .. .' In the opposite sense, those who are skilful and energetic in every respect, are said to avail 'in words and deeds.' According to Homer Phoenix taught Achilles thus: 'To be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.' Likewise Pindar in the first Nemean Ode: 'But your character has the use of one and the other.' This was preceded by: 'For strength displays itself in action, but intelligence in counsel.'

He is from that flock, He belongs to that party or group. Terence in the Adelphoe says: 'But this one, by Hercules, is from that flock'; and in the Eunuchus: 'So that you will accept me into your flock.' Marcus Tullius in his Letters to Atticus has: 'But I wish you had returned to your old flock'; and in the first speech against Verres: 'Whom he will find as the fourth one I cannot see, unless perhaps it is one of that herd of orators, who demanded to support the prosecution .. .' In the fourth action against the same man he used de illo conventu 'from that gang' in the same sense: 'A certain Turpio, his scout and spy, was the basest man of all the informers from that gang.' He was alluding to what we have described elsewhere as [greek]. Flaccus, too, says: 'Enrol him in your circle, and believe him brave and good.' But this expression is often used in a good sense too. St Jerome says in his second book Against Jovinian: 'They are from your herd. Yes, they go around grunting among your citizens.' Marcus Tullius calls friends and those belonging to the same society 'members of the herd,' as in the speech to the pontiffs in defence of his house: 'What you used to say about me to the members of Catilina's herd.'

Language is said to 'have teeth' when it is biting and witty. Marcus Tullius in the second book of letters to his brother: I shall deal with the matter with a good pen and well-mixed ink, and in a document that has teeth. Seneca does not want jokes to be cutting. On the other hand things that are 'toothless' are things which lack bite.

[greek], A Daulian crow, is what the poets call a nightingale, either because Tereus lived with Philomena in Phocian Daulis or because it was there that she was changed into the bird. I cannot see what the adage might mean, unless perhaps it is used of talkative people or those given to singing. I am more inclined to suspect that Zenodotus (whether this is Zenobius or someone else) pretended this was a proverb so that he could introduce a story, something which I have a notion he did in several other cases.

[greek], With the Muses, that is with the favour of the Muses. Said of learned people or anything expressed in a learned manner, or, as Suidas asserts, of an illiterate man living among scholars, as an ironical expression.

[greek], He's imitating his tragic friends. Suidas quotes this from Didymus, adding that it was said of people who were compliant and adopted stern morals in imitation of others. Derived from tragic actors who may be shallow good-for-nothings, but when they are taking the part of a god or a king in a play, they put on an appearance of majesty by means of dress, voice and gesture.

[greek], Aesop's jackdaw. This is said of someone who appropriates other people's goods for himself, or promotes himself with other people's virtues. Lucian makes use of it in the Pretended Critic. Horace has:
The little crow inspires laughter
When deprived of his stolen colours.
The fable circulates among the others under Aesop's name. Pindar in the third Nemean Ode: 'And it is no better for a man to foster greed for other people's goods; seek from your own resources.' The poet is blaming himself for digressing and orders himself to praise the person he undertook to celebrate for his own virtues rather than for others.

[greek], A ram frisking with its horns. Diogenianus states that this is suitably used against wealthy and lustful people. The horns of wellfed rams itch, and the same happens to oxen. Virgil describing a bull calf being frisky:
Already one who attacks with his horn and scatters the sand with his hooves.
Hesychius indicates the origin of the proverb. In the temple of Pallas there was kept an immense bronze ram, which Plato the comic writer said was 'frisking with its horns,' not so much because it was lascivious but because of its immense size, for it is comparable to the Wooden Horse. He says the ancients used [greek] 'licentious,' 'extravagant' not only of what was frisky and untamed but of what was extraordinarily large, just as Eupolis said [greek] for 'a strong wind.' These are torments for grammarians who do not want to admit that this bronze ram might be formidable because its horns were large. But what prevents us from saying even that the wind is frisky and unrestrained, because it plays as it will, where it will? To me it seems that the adage could also be suitably used about stupid people raised to offices beyond their merits.

'[greek], A dog among the phratry members. Said when someone falls among those by whom he may be punished; for a dog in these meetings is immediately killed. Among the Athenians the people were divided into tribes, a third part of each tribe was called a phratria and the leader of this the phratriarchos. If a dog ran into their meetings, it was at once attacked by the people.

There appears to be a proverb underlying these lines of Horace in his Epistles:
'Twas not in the way a Calabrian host invites you to eat his pears
That you have made me rich.' 'Eat some, pray.'
'I've had enough.' 'Well take away all you please.' 'No, thanks.'
'Your tiny tots will love the little gifts you take them.'
'I'm as much obliged for your offer as if you sent me away loaded down.'
'As you please; you'll be leaving them for the swine to gobble up today.'
So you could rightly call 'gifts of a Calabrian host' rustic and naive things and things which are more of a burden than a pleasure to the receiver, or are despicable gifts. The Calabrians, having plenty of pears, were in the habit of setting them before their guests, then when they were sated they invited them to take them home as dessert. If you refused, they were thrown to the pigs. However this is not the giving of a gift but a throwing away of waste. The true giver is one who is aware of the value of the gift he is offering and of the merit of the person he gratifies with it. In Athenaeus, Antiochus is accorded the title of 'Illustrious,' because he used not so much to give away any surplus of money as to pour it away. Sometimes, standing in the public streets, he would say, 'This is for the one that chance gives it to'; then he would throw the money away and leave.

Ἐν θύρᾳ καλός, 'Good-looking' on the doorpost. Said of those who are beloved and popular with the common people. Derived from the ancients' custom of writing the names of handsome men or lovers on trees, leaves or walls: 'So-and-so is good-looking.' Aristophanes alludes to this in the Wasps:
But if, by Jupiter, Pyrilampus sees
'Demus is good-looking' written anywhere in a doorway,
He hastens up and writes 'Cemus is good-looking'
Next to it.
And the same author in the Acharnians:
Ὑμῶν ἐραστὴς ἦν ἀληθῶς, ὥςτε καὶ Εν τοῖσι τοίχοις ἔγραφον ἀθηναῖοι καλοί. This man was never a false lover to you, for he had written
"The Athenians are good-looking' on the walls of your buildings.
There is one syllable too many in the second line of the Greek, but this is what the Aldine edition has. I suspect the order of the words should be changed. It will be correct if you read it thus: 'Ἐν τοῖς ἔγραφον τοίχοις ἀθηναῖοι καλοί'On the walls they wrote: "The Athenians are good-looking."' Unless we prefer to read: 'Ἐν τοῖσι τοίχοις ἔγραφον ἀθῆναι καλαί' 'On the walls they wrote: "Athens is beautiful,"' as if it was to flatter the city that they had written this on its walls. In Athenaeus book 6 it is related from some unnamed author that those who governed the Athenian state flattered the people by saying that everything else was the common property of the Greeks but that this was peculiar to the Athenians that they knew the way which led to heaven. Anyone who has read the eulogies of Aeschines and Meno in Plato understands how handsome they made the Athenians out to be, flattering them with marvellous oratorical skill. The scholiast quotes this distichon from Callimachus: Inscribe here on these fronds as many letters
As are necessary to recall that Cydippe is beautiful.
Maro imitated this with:
and carve my love on the young
Trees. They will grow; thou too, my love, wilt grow.
This adage could also be turned against those who are falsely praised for flattery's sake, or against the thoroughly mendacious titles given to certain princes, such as Father of his country, Delight of the earth, Beloved of the world, Most serene Highness, Renowned, Most merciful, when they are really just plunderers of the public estate.

Scratching one's head, gnawing one's nails, these are the gestures of one who is thoughtful and one who is thinking about making a change which he may regret. From gestures they become proverbial expressions, as in Horace's tenth satire, book 1: 'Yet, if fate had dropped him into our times, he would smooth away much of his work, would prune off all that trailed beyond the proper limit, and as he wrought his verse he would often scratch his head and gnaw his nails to the quick. Often you must turn your stilus to erase, if you hope to write something worth a second reading.' Persius imitated this when he said: 'He does not thump his desk nor taste his torn nails.' And the same author elsewhere: 'Choerestratus gnawing his nails to the quick says this.' In the first passage he is criticizing poets' lack of care in writing; in the second he is describing a young man thinking of changing his past way of life.

[greek], A Carian goat. Diogenianus indicates that this was applied to base and despicable people. Hesychius tells us it was used by Sophocles. Because the Carian people commonly served as mercenary troops in wars and held life to be cheap, they became a byword of contempt. Hence Plato too said, 'Carian midget,' for someone who is worthless and of no account, as we have said elsewhere. It is possible that the proverb derives from the fact that the Carians used to sacrifice a dog in place of a goat, as explained in the proverb 'A Carian victim.'

Language that is windy and senseless is said to be bullata, full of bubbles. The source of the metaphor is [greek] 'bubbles in water,' which we have described elsewhere in the proverb 'Man is but a bubble.' Persius says: 'that my page should swell with trifles and bubbles' - what he calls 'trifles and bubbles' being a meaningless mass of noisy utterances in which there is no trace of solid sense. Horace used the expression 'melodious trifles' in his Art of Poetry: Than verses void of thought, melodious trifles.

We say 'The morsel snatched from one's throat' whenever some gain which was almost within our grasp is suddenly and unexpectedly snatched away. Terence in the Self-Tormentor: 'I am enraged that such a morsel is suddenly snatched from my jaws.' He used bolus for what the Greeks call [greek] 'a morsel of bread.' The metaphor is clear enough.

Καλῶς ἔστω, May it be for the best. A word of omen uttered when someone begins some new and difficult undertaking, as they used to say at the beginning of wills: 'τοῦτο καλῶς ἔσται' 'This will be for the best.' 'But if human nature takes its course .. .' Likewise in speeches: 'Let my words be propitious and fortunate.' The expression is likely to be more piquant if used ironically about something ridiculous and of no moment as if it were of the greatest importance, like Persius' rich miser about to open a winejar: 'May this be for the best.' Often found in literature is 'May this turn out well' or 'May it turn out badly.' Virgil says in the Bucolics: 'We send him these kids - our curse go with them!' And 'May the gods bring good fortune to what you do.' Servius the grammarian thinks this figure is borrowed from Hector and Ajax, whose gifts brought ruin to each other.