Collected Works of Erasmus: Adages: II i 1 to II vi 100, Volume 33 9781442670631

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
ADAGES II i 1 TO II vi 100
1. Festina lente / Make haste slowly–100. Scytha accissans asinum / The Scythian fighting shy of the donkey
1. Aut quinque bibe aut treis aut ne quatuor / Drink either five or three or anything but four–100. Attica bellaria / Attic dainties
1. Nemo bene merito bovem immolavit praeter Pyrrhiam Nobody sacrificed an ox to his benefactor except Pyrrhias –100. Ipsis placet That is how they like it
1. Spartam nactus es, hanc orna Sparta is your portion; do your best for her– 100. Mopso Nisa datur Nisa is Mopsus' bride
1. Quid nisi victis dolor? / Losers must expect to suffer–100. Verba importat Hermodorus Hermodorus is an importer of words
Notes
Works Frequently Cited
Table of Adages

Citation preview

C O L L E C T E D W O R K S OF E R A S M U S V O L U M E 33

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COLLECTED WORKS OF

ERASMUS ADAGES II i 1 TO II vi 100

translated and annotated by R.A.B. Mynors

University of Toronto Press Toronto / Buffalo / London

The research and publication costs of the Collected Works of Erasmus are supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (and previously by the Canada Council). The publication costs are also assisted by University of Toronto Press.

www.utppublishing.com

©University of Toronto Press 1991 Toronto /.Buffalo / London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-5954-6

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536 [Works] Collected works of Erasmus Partial contents: v. 33. Adages II i 1 to II vi 100 / translated and annotated by R. A.B. Mynors. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8020-5954-6 (v. 33) 1. Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536. I. Title. PA85001974

876'.04

C74-o66326-x

Collected Works of Erasmus The aim of the Collected Works of Erasmus is to make available an accurate, readable English text of Erasmus' correspondence and his other principal writings. The edition is planned and directed by an Editorial Board, an Executive Committee, and an Advisory Committee. EDITORIAL BOARD

Alexander Dalzell, University of Toronto James M. Estes, University of Toronto Charles Fantazzi, University of Windsor Anthony T. Grafton, Princeton University Paul F. Grendler, University of Toronto James K. McConica, University of Toronto, Chairman Erika Rummel, University of Toronto, Executive Assistant Robert D. Sider, Dickinson College J.K. Sowards, Wichita State University G.M. Story, Memorial University of Newfoundland Craig R. Thompson, University of Pennsylvania EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Alexander Dalzell, University of Toronto James M. Estes, University of Toronto Charles Fantazzi, University of Windsor Anthony T. Grafton, Princeton University Paul F. Grendler, University of Toronto James K. McConica, All Souls College, Oxford George Meadows, University of Toronto Press Ian Montagnes, University of Toronto Press R.J. Schoeck, University of Kansas R.M. Schoeffel, University of Toronto Press, Chairman Robert D. Sider, Dickinson College J.K. Sowards, Wichita State University G.M. Story, Memorial University of Newfoundland Craig R. Thompson, University of Pennsylvania Prudence Tracy, University of Toronto Press

ADVISORY

COMMITTEE

Danilo Aguzzi-Barbagli, University of British Columbia Maria Cytowska, University of Warsaw Otto Herding, Universitat Freiburg Jozef IJsewijn, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Robert M. Kingdon, University of Wisconsin Paul Oskar Kristeller, Columbia University Maurice Lebel, Université Laval Jean-Claude Margolin, Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance de Tours Bruce M. Metzger, Princeton Theological Seminary Clarence H. Miller, St Louis University Heiko A. Oberman, University of Arizona John Rowlands, British Library J.S.G. Simmons, Oxford University John Tedeschi, University of Wisconsin J. Trapman, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen J.B. Trapp, Warburg Institute

ADAGES COMMITTEE

Alexander Dalzell, University of Toronto Charles Fantazzi, University of Windsor Erika Rummel, University of Toronto G.M. Story, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Chairman

Contents

Foreword ix Adages II i 1 to II vi 100 1 Notes 339 Works Frequently Cited 453 Table of Adages 454

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Foreword

The aim of this translation of some six hundred of the Adagia (II i 1 - II vi 100) is to present, as in the preceding volumes (CWE 31, 32), an English version of the final form of a steadily augmented and revised work as left by Erasmus in 1536 and published in the Opera omnia of 1540. (For the special problem of the Greek passages which constitute something of an anthology and for which Erasmus supplied Latin versions, see the Translator's Foreword to CWE 31 xiv). The purpose of the notes is to identify the sources on which Erasmus drew, and to show how his collections increased and fresh comments suggested themselves from the Adagiorum Collectanea of his Paris days (1500) into the Aldine Chiliades of 1508 and its successive revisions published in Basel in 1515,1517/18,1520,1523,1528,1530,1533, and 1536. A certain additional range of allusions is also noted, but not the use made of individual adages in the vernacular literatures and in the graphic arts; it is the aim of this version to serve as a tool to workers in those larger fields. Like its predecessor (CWE 32) this volume is the work of the late R. A.B. Mynors, and readers of the serial volumes (CWE 31-36) will wish to know that at the time of his death in October 1989 he had not only virtually completed the present volume but also the next in the series (CWE 34) and made a substantial start on the two remaining volumes of translated text and annotation. Sir Roger had also assembled valuable material for the introductory volume (CWE 30), particularly on the Greek and Latin sources (an essential record which might form the basis of a survey of the appearance in print of all classical literature), the bibliographical history of the work, and of course the necessary indexes. The present volume was prepared for the press by Erika Rummel who also attended to the filling of some lacunae in the notes with the advice of Alexander Dalzell, Charles Fantazzi, G.M. Story, and J. Trapman. In this task, the ASD text, which was available for the last 100 adages, was useful. I provided information to complete about a dozen notes. It is proper that special thanks be expressed to Lady Lavinia, Sir Richard, and Lady Fiona

FOREWORD

Mynors for their hospitality and co-operation when, in February 1990, Sir Roger's Erasmus typescripts, notes, and manuscript compilations were sorted at Treago/ his home on the Welsh border, and retrieved for the continuation and eventual completion of the work to which he had, as his last contribution to the Erasmus enterprise, set his hand. The Editorial Board and the University of Toronto Press are also pleased for the opportunity to express once again their gratitude to the patron of the Collected Works of Erasmus, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for its support of the research and publication costs of the edition. GM

ADAGES II i 1 TO II vi 100

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Festina lente Make haste slowly Make haste slowly. This proverb has at first sight an agreeable touch of the riddle about it, made up as it is of contradictory words. It must therefore take its place in a particular class which I pointed out at the beginning1 of this work - those which are expressed by enantiosis, the contrast of opposites, of which 8vv ev8ai/u,oi>ta, Infelix felicitas, Unhappy happiness, would be an example. And I should think it a reasonable guess, were someone to suppose that it started from that phrase in the Knights of Aristophanes,2 'Make haste with speed/ cnrevde T ruA.a) 8fi\ov, Clear even to a blind man.

43 Ne in Melampygum incidas Mind you don't fall in with Blackbottom

Mind you don't fall in with Blackbottom. Suitably addressed to licentious men who do wrong to others, for it is the language of one who threatens them that they may one day happen upon somebody strong enough to punish their misdeeds. This adage is used by Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, book 2: 'This was perhaps what they mean by falling in with Blackbottom.' Aristophanes1 in the Lysistrata: 'Hence came that hairy man Myronides; / Blackbottom he in truth to all his foes.' He uses the word as though it meant one who will avenge and punish. Blackbottom in Greek indicates in any case one whose posterior is black, and this was given to Hercules as a nickname, because he did not pluck the hair from that part of his person as they did in Lydia, nor was it white as in

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effeminates, but shaggy and thick with black hairs. For effeminate and unwarlike men and those who lead a dissolute and luxurious life are called in Greek bright-rumped and whitebottomed, and conversely they had a habit of calling strong and valiant men blackbottoms, as we learn from the scholiast on Lycophron.2 He tells us that this proverb is also found expressed in these words: OVTTCO MsXafjLTTvya) rervx^Ka?/ You have not yet fallen in with Blackbottom. They think the proverb must be derived from some story such as this, which I will append here, partly from Suidas3 and partly from the explanatory notes on Gregory of Nazianzus.4 Once upon a time there were two brothers, who ranged far and wide, inflicting outrages of every kind on their fellow-men, from which they earned names to match their monstrous behaviour; for one of them was called Passalus and the other Achemon or, as other sources have it, Achmon.5 Their mother, whose name was Sennonis, when she saw the wicked crimes they committed everywhere, told them to be careful in case one day they should fall in with Blackbottom. Later one day it happened that Hercules was lying asleep under a tree, against which he had leaned his weapons. The brothers, Cercopes or Perperi (for both names are found), came up and tried to attack Hercules as he slept with his own weapons. He at once detected their stealthy approach, seized them and bound them, and hung them from his club like a couple of dead hares, to carry them around like that behind his back. As they hung with their heads downwards, they had a good view of Hercules' backside, all shaggy and rough with black hair; this recalled their mother's warning, and they spoke of it one to the other. The moment Hercules heard what they said, he was delighted with his new nickname, roared with laughter, and set them free and sent them away. Plutarch6 alludes to this story in the essay 'How to tell a Flatterer from a Friend/ where he says that Hercules was amused by the Cercopes. Herodotus7 also mentions it in book 7, where he speaks of the place called Blackbottom Stone, and the home of the Cercopes; a passage where a notable mistake has been made by Lorenzo Valla,8 because he either did not know this story or at any rate did not recall it. Plutarch9 in his essay 'On the Education of Children' records this among the other riddles of Pythagoras: Taste not of anything with a black tail,' and explains this as meaning that one should have nothing to do with wicked and disreputable people - though this is rather different from the proverb. 44

Noctuinum ovum An owl's egg An owl's egg, is recorded as a proverb by Niccolo Perrotti in his Cornucopiae, but without an explanation. It was perhaps used in

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Antiquity to convey that a man was abstemious and detested wine; for Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, book 3, tells a quite extraordinary story of the egg of an owl, which it will be best to give in his own words. 'You must observe' he says 'where the owl nests, and seize its eggs and give them lightly cooked to the child to chew; for if he eats anything of this sort before he first tastes wine, it will implant such a hatred of wine in him that he will entirely abstain in future.' Aelian1 in book i of his On the Nature of Animals records something which is even more of an old wives' tale than that, and this too will be better told in the author's own words: 'Storks have a very clever way of protecting their eggs from owls that would damage them. When they touch the eggs, the owls turn them into wind-eggs and make them infertile; so the remedy they use against this is to lay leaves from a plane-tree over their nests, and when the owls touch these leaves they are stupefied and become incapable of doing any harm.' Such is the account in Aelian. There are those who deny that owls' eggs are ever found. The proverb therefore will suit equally a worthless man who comes to no good, which follows from the legend in Aelian, or something almost never found, as this second view suggests.

45 Amazonum cantilena A song for the Amazons A song for the Amazons, used of effeminate and lascivious men, whose virility is in question.1 Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, book 4:2 'One of those dandified young men, with such a lascivious reputation that he sometimes actually became a song for the Amazons/ What 'A song for the Amazons' means I confess that I have not yet discovered in any reliable authority, unless anyone is content to suppose that it was customary among the Amazons to sing taunting songs in mockery of effeminate men. If it is permissible to alter the text, I should be by no means reluctant to read mazonomon for Amazonon, for that is the name for a dish of the largest size,3 on which food was brought to table. It was the practice in Antiquity, when very special dishes were carried in, for flute-players to precede them, sturgeon for instance. Horace4 in his last satire: 'On a great dish the servants carry in / A stork carved limb from limb.' But let this be my private fancy, until such time as scholars produce something more dependable; and of this we need not despair, when new authors are emerging into the light every day.5 When the fourth edition of this book had already been published, there appeared a work by Celius Rodiginus6 in which he goes on record as thinking the proverb to refer not to the Amazons' women-folk, but to poor

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people in general. This is a singularly pointless idea. How much more modesty I myself have shown in openly professing my ignorance of something I did not know! 46 Tantali horti

Gardens of Tantalus

Gardens of Tantalus. Of possessions which all the same one is not allowed to enjoy; or of things which seem to be substantial when they are nothing. Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, book 4: 'You see, he said, how the gardens of Tantalus both exist and do not exist.' Everyone knows the fable of Tantalus1 in the world below, standing by the water with apples hanging over his head; and all the time, hungry and thirsty as he is, he can reach neither. I have said something of this before on the proverb Gardens of Adonis.2 47 Res sacra consultor

A counsellor is something sacred A counsellor is something sacred. Cited by Zenodotus from Epicharmus. This adage means that the man who gives good advice brings something of great value, or that we should be scrupulously honest in giving our advice to those who need it. Plato2 in the Theages: 'It is also said, Demodocus, that a counsellor is something sacred/ Again in his letter to Perdiccas: 'It is right that I should give you counsel as a guest, the kind of counsel that they say is sacred/ Suidas3 tells us that the phrase is used when something dangerous is the subject of debate, so that it seems to resemble To let go one's sacred anchor.4 It is also expressed5 in the form Counsel is sacred. Among the Greek maxims6 is found an iambic line: 'Counsel's in very truth a sacred thing/ 1

48 Ante mysteria discedere

To leave before the mysteries To leave before the mysteries, is to slip away before the business is completed. The metaphor is derived from sacrifices, at which the profane were ordered to leave when the moment came to perform the mystic rites, while the initiated stayed behind; nor was it permissible to leave until the rites were completed. Plato in the Meno: 'Unless, as you said yesterday, you had to leave before the mysteries; but if you were to remain and become an initiate,' and what follows thereafter.

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49 Ex uno multa f acere To make many things out of one

To make many things out of one. People were proverbially said to do this who divided anything into small pieces. It will be suitable for those who present the same material in so many different ways that it seems no longer a unity but several different things. Plato in the Meno: 'And stop making many things out of one, as people say when they criticize those who divide something from every possible aspect/ Livy in the fifth book of his Macedonian War tells an agreeable story of an innkeeper, who kept on serving up the meat of one pig, done with so many different trimmings that the Roman general was astonished, and asked him how on earth he could secure such a supply of game in midwinter. The innkeeper laughed, and confessed that all his separate dishes had been made out of one domestic pig. 'And that is just what these men do/ he said, 'who frighten you by reciting all these formidable names, when it is all just one tribe/ 5° Jovis Corinthus Corinthus son of Jove

Corinthus son of Jove, used to be directed at those who always say or do the same things. Pindar1 in the seventh hymn of his Nemeans, in the words 'But to go over this thrice and four times shows a poverty of spirit, like one who chatters to children again and again of Corinthus son of Jove,' makes it clear that he does not wish to repeat the same thing over and over again, like a man telling children a silly story about Corinthus son of Jove. For mapsulakas, the word he uses for chattering, means one who talks idly and to no purpose. The scholiast on this passage produces a story which is not very relevant, in my opinion, but I will repeat it none the less. Aletes asked the oracle of Dodona, which then belonged to Jove, whether he could make himself master of Corinth. The reply was that he would be successful, if anyone were to give him a piece of turf or clod of earth; but it must be on a day of many garlands, for that was an added condition. So he set out for Corinth; and when he asked some countryman for a loaf bread, the man gave him a turf. Realising that the oracle was now fulfilled, he concentrated on achieving control of the city. It was a day when offerings were made to the dead, and so when he arrived most of the citizens had gone out to the tombs. He found Creon's daughters already bargaining about the monarchy, and promised the youngest of them, if she were willing to assist him, that as soon as he secured the mastery he would make her his

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wife. Being eager for power, she betrayed the city, opened the gates and let Aletes in. Having won the day, he called it Jove's Corinth, because it had fallen to him as a result of Jove's oracle. He then adds another story, which agrees more or less with the explanation given by others. It runs as follows. The people of Megara in early times had to pay tribute to the Corinthians. However, their rule was oppressive and much resented by the Megarians, and they were preparing to rebel, when an envoy arrived from the Corinthians, who made a very savage speech at a public assembly in Megara and thundered out at the top of his voice in a great passion 'Corinthus son of Jove will not stand this.' As he kept on doing this, the mob were furious and there were shouts of 'Down, down with Corinthus son of Jove!' And they drove the envoy out forthwith. This Corinthus was a king of Corinth, who was descended from Jove. It is true that Pausanias2 in his account of Corinth says he has found no authority for making Corinthus a son of Jove; but that anyhow public opinion in Corinth maintains he was. Plutarch3 uses the adage in the essay which he entitles 'Against the Stoics:' 'Corinthus son of Jove is always coming into their conversation; but say nothing of the twirling pestle, for fear you seem to get your teeth into them.' Aristophanes4 in the Frogs: 'What can this be? / Jove's son Corinthus in the blanketry?' This is the slave speaking, who criticizes Bacchus for repeating himself, he having just said 'Again, again pick up the blankets, boy.' And in the Ecclesiazusae: 'When, as they looked, again appeared Corinthus son of Jove.' Philostratus5 in his life of Antipater the sophist: 'When his kinsman tried to force him into the marriage, and regarded Antipater as Corinthus son of Jove.' Though in this passage he seems to have used Corinthus son of Jove for a man of great wealth. Socrates6 also uses this adage in Plato's Euthydemus: 'But it is clearly a case of Corinthus son of Jove, as the saying goes.' This is close to an adage I have recorded elsewhere,7 Twice-served cabbage. Nor will its use be confined to occasions when the same thing is said over and over again; there are also times when people persist too long in the same activity without a break: when, for example, a man always serves the same food, or always sits bowed over his books, or hunts continually, so that he is already beginning to sicken from the sameness of it, we shall rightly use the phrase Corinthus son of Jove. For anything that goes on for ever becomes tedious, as Pindar8 for one bears witness in the Nemeans: 'But in all that men do, repose is sweet. In music lies satiety, and in the delightful flowers of love.' Some texts read meli, honey for mele, music. So it is in the epigram:9 Too much is always wrong: 'tis an old saying, / E'en honey to excess sets the bile flowing.' I think it may be useful to point out that the proverb can be taken in two

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different senses; for this too is made clear by the scholiast10 on Pindar. One is, when the same thing is repeated too often. The other when those who start by talking very big and threatening ferociously run away later in cowardly fashion, like the Corinthian envoys, who after so often thundering out 'Corinthus son of Jove will rightly be ashamed of himself if he does not make you pay the penalty for this/ later on, when they came to grips, turned tail and fled. Nor should we fail to notice that the adage can be adapted equally to both things and persons. To things in this way: I've now heard that a thousand times: I cannot stand any longer this Corinthus son of Jove;' to persons if, for example, one were to call a man who is always harping on the same theme, Corinthus son of Jove. This too is pointed out by the scholiast on Pindar. 5* Testulae transmutatio The turning of a potsherd

The turning of a potsherd. Of things changed suddenly into their opposites. Lucian in his defence of the Salaried Posts in Great Houses: Then he forgot everything, and in the turning of a potsherd, as the saying goes, he willingly subjected himself to such an evident and conspicuous form of slavery.' It is uncertain whether the image is taken from a kind of game which in Greek is called ostracinda. This is hinted at by Plato in his amatory dialogues,1 in fact in the Phaedrus: 'At length' he says 'he makes his escape from this, and becoming of necessity a defaulter, he who was formerly a lover changes in the turning of the potsherd and runs away; while the other one is obliged to follow him, indignant and protesting.' Or it may be taken from ostracism, which was a kind of voting registered by pebbles and beans, invented for the purpose of sending into exile for ten years any citizens who had become unpopular with the mob by excessive wealth or high birth or reputation or distinction of any other kind. This is how Aristides too was driven out, for no better reason than that the mob was tired of hearing him commonly called 'Aristides the just.' The method of conducting an ostracism was as follows. An ostracon, which means a piece of broken pot, was given to every individual in the assembly. On these each of them wrote down the name of the man he wished to leave the city, and they were then all taken to a particular part of the market-place which was railed off. There the magistrates who were entrusted with this duty first of all counted them; and unless there were more than six thousand, the matter went no farther. Next they separated the votes given against each individual, and the man who had the most votes against him was ordered to go into exile for ten years, with permission however to receive his income during that period. Thus ostracism was not a

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punishment for criminal behaviour, but a means of satisfying the envy which is a natural feature of ignoble minds. This practice of ostracism was done away with after it had been used to get rid of a mean and contemptible wretch by name of Hyperbolus. Such is more or less the account given by Plutarch2 in his life of Aristides. And so, since ostracism of this kind was inflicted by the uncontrolled and hasty prejudices of the mob, and overturned in a moment the position of the most distinguished citizens, there is nothing absurd in taking it to be the origin of the adage. The game played with ostraca is described by Julius Pollux3 much as follows. The children divided themselves into two groups on either side of a drawn line, one group being called 'inside the potsherd' and the other 'outside.' Someone then put a potsherd on the line, and whoever proved successful was followed by all those who belonged to his side, and the other side had to run away. But if any one of them was caught as he ran, he sat down and was called 'Donkey/ and when the potsherd was thrown he said 'Night and day;' for the inner surface of it was smeared with pitch, corresponding to night. This form of game was called 'turning the potsherd.' Plato4 in book 7 of the Republic seems to refer to this sort of game when he writes: This would not, it seems, be the turning of a potsherd, but a conversion of the mind as it passes from some kind of nocturnal daylight to the ascent towards true being.' He is thinking of the way philosophy raises the mind from false images of good things to the knowledge of those that are really good. 52 Alterum pedem in cymba Charontis habere To have one foot in Charon's boat

Men in the decrepit stage of extreme old age are said commonly even in our own day to have one foot in the grave. Nor is there much difference between this and Lucian's1 words in his Apologia: 'Already close to Aeacus himself and with one foot almost in Charon's boat.' Again in The Sects: 'And with one foot almost in the grave, as the saying is.' Pomponius in the Pandects,2 book 40, title De fideicommissariis libertatibus, chapter Apud Julianum, uses these words: 'Personally, from the desire to learn, which alone is the best principle for the good life and which I have maintained down to my seventy-eighth year, I have never forgotten that remark attributed to Julianus, "Though I had one foot in the grave, I should still want to learn something new."' There is something in Lucian's3 Wishes which I rather think is relevant here: 'Who already has one foot in the boat.' Plutarch4 in his brief essay 'On the Education of Children' observes that it is a common criticism of the aged to call them 'old dotards' and 'candidates for the coffin,' because they are already foolish from old age and on the edge of the tomb,

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and more like ghosts from the grave than human beings. Plautus5 calls an old man 'ripe for Acheron/ Terence6 'a Silicernian/ someone (I forget who) 'a coffin worthy/ 7 In Greek, according to Hesychius8 and Suidas,9 men of very advanced age are called tymbogerontes and pempeloi: the first word meaning that they are on the edge of the tomb, and the second derived from pempein, to send, and helos, a marsh, because it was thought that the dead on their way to the Lower World had to pass by ferry across the marshes of the Styx. 53 Cavam Arabiam serere To sow the hollows of Arabia

To sow the hollows of Arabia, for To toil in vain, or to waste effort on something very difficult and not particularly rewarding. Lucian in his Apologia: 'So that they must try to sow the hollows of Arabia/ by which he means the marshy part of Arabia, which is most unsuitable for sowing seed. Plutarch, 'On Garrulity:' 'For they say that seed sown in the low-lying parts of Asia does not germinate, and the conversation of talkative people comes to nothing and is fruitless/ 54 Lynceo perspicacior More clear-sighted than Lynceus

Lynceus' piercing sight was proverbial. Pliny1 in the Natural History, book 2 chapter 17: That the last of the old moon and the new moon can be both seen on the same day or in the same night, in Aries the Ram and in no other sign; and few mortals have this gift. Hence the fable of Lynceus and his eyesight/ Some say2 that Lynceus was the first man who discovered mines for metals, copper silver and gold, and that this was the origin of the widespread myth that he could even see things underground. The scholiast on Lycophron3 is a witness to this, and Plato4 mentions it in one of his Letters. Aristophanes5 in the Plutus: Til make you see clearer than Lynceus' self/ Lucian6 in the Hermotimus: 'But you seem to us more clearsighted than Lynceus, for apparently you can pierce the breast and see what is within/ And again in the Icaromenippus: 'How have you now suddenly become a second Lynceus, able to see everything? Horace7 in his first Epistle to Maecenas: 'You may not see as clear as Lynceus could, / Yet for sore eyes a salve you'd not refuse/ Cicero8 writing to Marcus Varro: 'Who is such a Lynceus that in such great darkness he never stumbles, never runs into anything?' Apollonius9 writes in the Argonautica that this man Lynceus was so clear-sighted that his gaze could pierce the earth itself and watch what was going on in the Nether Regions:

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Lynceus, whose eyes most piercing were of all, If fame speaks true, which says that easily E'en things hid deep in earth he could espy. Plutarch10 in the essay which he called 'Against the Stoics' assures us that Lynceus had the reputation of being able to see even through rocks and trees, his sight was so penetrating. Pausanias11 in his account of Corinth records that Lynceus succeeded to the throne after the death of Danaus. Pindar12 in the tenth hymn of his Nemeans mentions Lynceus who, he says, from Mount Taygetus could see Castor and Pollux lying hid under the trunk of an oak, and wounded one of them with a javelin. The scholiast on Pindar cites the History of Cyprus, Aristarchus and Didymus.

55 Quod in animo sobrii, id est in lingua ebrii What is in the heart of the sober man is in the mouth of the drunkard What is in the heart of the sober man is in the mouth of the drunkard. A proverbial maxim, recorded in the collection of Diogenianus. Plutarch1 uses it, expressly as a proverb, in the essay called 'On Garrulity/ Nor should that thing in Herodotus2 be overlooked: 'Down goes the wine, up float the words/ For men3 while sober are restrained by fear or shame from blurting out things which they think it better to keep secret; but wine puts shame to flight and drives out fear, and the result is that men in their cups 'cannot suppress words which in the end will cut their throats/ Pindar4 in the Nemeans: 'And words wax brave over the mixingbowl/ either because wine brings with it confidence, or because boasting has no dangers at a drinking-party, or because he who has won a victory is praised deservedly and without risk.

56 Virgultea scaphula Aegaeum transmittere To cross the Aegean in a wicker boat To cross the Aegean in a wicker [boat], is said of those who try to perform some exceptionally difficult task with little effort. Lucian in The Sects: 'Wishing to cross the Aegean or the Ionian sea in a wicker [boat], as the proverb has it/ The following iambic line is quoted by Suidas1 (it is to be found in the Peace of Aristophanes): 'For paltry gain he'd sail upon a mat/ He is criticizing Simonides for being too fond of money, because he used to write poetry for pay. The word used for wicker, rhips, means a flexible osier or branch of willow, and is connected with rhepo, I incline or bend, because being springy it bends easily. Another line2 is also

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quoted: 'Who sails with God could sail upon a mat/ And there is also one among the proverbial maxims, quoted in addition by the scholiast on Aristophanes: 'If God so please, you'll sail upon a mat.'

57 Phoenice vivacior Living longer than the phoenix Lucian in The Sects: Hv JUT) fyolvixos errj j8ia>T7, Unless you have lived as many years as a phoenix. On the longevity of the phoenix I have written elsewhere. Its rarity also gave rise to a proverb:1 As rare as the phoenix. Of the same type is the phrase2 As rare too as a white crow. For they say that the phoenix is unique, if one can believe what one reads.

58 Cum plurimum laboraverimus, eodem in statu sumus Much hard work, and we're where we were Lucian in The Sects: Km, o/aot'w? ECT^KV, as the proverb says, after much hard work, we're where we were. Of those who toil in vain. This happens to men who after prolonged study are no better educated than they were before, and no richer after a life spent in business.

59 Aquam in mortario tundere To beat water in a mortar To pound water with a pestle. Lucian in The Sects: 'As if a man were to put water into a mortar and pound it with an iron pestle.' This suits those who labour to no purpose; for if a man were to pound water for a whole generation, it will never be anything but water. Lucian in the same work: 'Not knowing that even if you pound till your arms come off, as the saying is, the water will be water still.' Suidas1 expresses it in this way: 'Pound water till you put your shoulder out, all the same it will be water still.' You can teach a donkey2 to play the lyre as much as you like, and give a fool good advice to your heart's content, they go on just the same.

60 Gnomon et regula Set-square and right rule An outstanding feature of anything, the one standard by which everything else is judged, used to be called proverbially the set-square and right rule. Lucian in the Harmonides: 'Which is the summit of all excellence, the set-square, as they call it, and right rule of everything.' Again, in The

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Scythian: This, let me tell you, is the right rule in Greece/ Again, in The Sects: This right rule and accurate measuring-line for everything of the sort/ Craftsmen employ a straight-edge or right rule to true up their work, and they also use set-squares. A set-square has two straight sides, the connection of which forms the diagonal in a rectangle. 61 Caput The head

It is an expression of the same type when we call the principal part of a piece of business or the person responsible for something the head. Terence1 in the Adelphoe: 'You are the head of this affair/ Examples can be found everywhere in both Greek and Latin authors. In the same way we speak of 'the citadel' of anything. Aristotle2 in the preface to the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum: 'that this is the citadel of salvation/ Pontianus in the tenth book of Athenaeus3 says that wine is 'the mother-city of all dreadful things/ for it is the source of intoxication, delirium and drunken rioting. Plato4 in book one of the Laws: 'We consider the head and chief of education to be sound nurture/ Plautus5 in the Asinaria: Tn finding this money to-day I've been the head. - And I the foot. - Head or foot, what you say is no sense at all/ And again in the Captivi: 'Something that makes no sense from head to foot/ The word 'head' is used in another way, when people convey that they do not expound a subject in detail but give it summary treatment. Thus Aeschines6 Against Timarchus: To give only the heads of it/ Again in his speech on Misconduct on an Embassy he uses in the same sense To give the individual headings/ Demosthenes7 too in his speech On the Chersonese: 'Having given the heads of what I wish to say, I propose to sit down/ Again in the speech Against Zenothemis: 'Such is the subject, such at least the main heads of it, on which you will have to give your verdict/ 62 Somnium A dream

Something baseless, empty and of no account we proverbially call A dream. Terence1 in the Adelphoe: The money was all a dream/ Lucian2 in the Harmonides: That was all windy dreams, as they say, mere shadows of words/ Lucian again in the dialogue between Nireus and Thersites and Menippus: 'What you tell me is a pack of dreams/ Plato3 in book 7 of the Republic: 'And thus our city and yours will be inhabited in waking life, not merely in a dream/ Again in the Theaetetus: 'Now let me give you one dream in exchange for another/ one frivolous argument for another. And Syrus,4 the slave in the Adelphoe, calls his master a dream compared with Demea:

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'You're wisdom, every inch of you; he's useless, just a dream.' Plautus5 in the Captivi: This man dreams wide awake.' Plato6 in the third book of the Laws uses 'dreams' for the unsubstantial remains of something. After telling how Darius, though not of royal birth, owed his throne to his knowledge and sound education, on the footing that in the division of the royal power, he would secure only a seventh of it, he goes on: 'Of which some slight dreams remain even to this day.' 63 Ne in tonstrinis quidem Not even at the barber's

Lucian in the essay called How History should be written: 'Never having heard such stories told, not even (as they say) at the barber's,' because men with time on their hands tend to sit doing nothing in the barbers' shops, and they each contribute some story to the common stock. Hence Horace's1 'Where with shaven poll / Sailors safe home long-winded perils tell,' and again in another passage: 'A tale, I guess, to every barber known, / And every blear-eyed lounger in the town.' This I have mentioned elsewhere. 64 Numquid et Saul inter prophetas? Is Saul also among the prophets?

In the first book of Kings, chapter 10, a proverb is recorded to this effect:1 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' It started with Saul who, after falling in with a company of prophets, was himself suddenly seized with the divine frenzy and began to prophesy. This astonished those who had known him before, and one said to the other: 'What has happened to Saul? Is Saul also among the prophets?' This remark became proverbial among the Hebrews, used2 of anything new sudden and unexpected; in Hebrew it is a four-foot iambic line.3 Gregory4 of Nazianzus in his Defence of his taking refuge in Pontus uses it in a way that makes it seem suitable when any casual nobodies take upon themselves some very important task, as for instance in our own day, when everyone discusses the Holy Scriptures: 'Instead of learning, as they should, from God, they all prophecy, so that as it runs in the old story and in the proverb, Saul also is among the prophets.' It is close5 to 'Blue pimpernel too is a vegetable/ and to 'Perfume on the lentils.' 65 In foribus urceum The water-jar on the doorstep

The pitcher on the doorstep (this is Plautus'1 word).

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Aristotle2 in the first book of the Rhetorical 'But the end is good. Hence those phrases "And praise for Priam" and "'Tis shame to wait so long," and the proverb "The water-jar on the doorstep"/ Some commentator3 (I was provided with the book by my very learned friend Battista Egnazio,4 and it has no author's name) says that this means something despicable and worthless; for things are neglected which can be found everywhere and are easily accessible to all. Thus no one troubles to pick up a water-jar on his own doorstep - it is too easy; pearls stored safely in chests are more sought after. Plutarch5 in 'On having Many Friends' says that brambles which cling to one by nature are thought nothing of and passed by, while vineyards and olive-trees are coveted; he is reviewing the aphorism 'Choose not that which is very easily obtained/ Again, in Seneca's6 Letters: 'Many men pass over what is accessible, and search diligently for what is hidden and obscure. Padlocks attract the thief; what is open is thought worthless, the housebreaker overlooks what is exposed to view. This is typical of the multitude, and of the uneducated in general; they long to break into a secret/ Apart from that, the proverb seems incomplete and mutilated; for Aristotle often reproduces things in that state, as though they were already well enough known from other sources. This is clearly half of an iambic trimeter, borrowed from some writer of comedy.

66 Haud quaquam difficile Atheniensem Athenis laudare To praise an Athenian in Athens is no problem Aristotle in the first book of the Rhetoric: 'As Socrates used to say, to praise the Athenians in Athens is no problem/ He quotes it again in the same work where he is dealing with introductions: Tt is no problem' he says 'to praise the Athenians before an Athenian audience,' whereas it would be difficult before Spartans. The saying is to be found in Plato's Menexenus, and from there passed into common currency. The reason for it is the panegyrics and laudatory orations which were by custom delivered in Athens over those who had met a hero's death in battle. Containing as they did much that contributed to the glory of the Athenian people, these found a ready hearing; for everyone listens readily to his own praises.

67 Exigua res est ipsa justitia Justice itself is nothing much Aristotle in the first book of the Rhetoric: 'So even justice, as the saying goes, is nothing much/ What they meant to convey by the proverb was, that it does not make much difference if you are a virtuous man, unless you are also

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thought to be virtuous, and that opinion carries far more weight than fact. How much better Aeschylus1 puts it in the tragedy called Seven against Thebes, speaking about Amphiaraus: 'He wishes not to seem, but be, the best, / Reaping the harvest of a deep-ploughed heart.' Socrates2 gives better advice when he says that every man ought to be the sort of man he wishes to be taken for. And Euripides3 puts it more unambitiously in the Orestes, accepting reputation when reality is not accessible, as the next best thing: 'If truth be out of reach, seeming is best.' Terence4 in the same way in the Adelphoe: 'If it does not really pain you, at least it is a man's duty to feign.' 68

Occasione dumtaxat opus improbitati Rascals have all they need save opportunity Aristotle, in the second book of the Rhetoric: 'And whom they have some excuse to attack, derived either from their forebears or from themselves or from their friends or benefactors or those who have done a service either to themselves or their forebears or to those for whom they are responsible. For as the proverb runs, rascals have all they need save opportunity.' This will be appropriate for those who wish to hurt someone, and put forward excuses for fear of being thought to have done him harm without good reason. There is a familiar moral maxim, one of those ascribed to Publius,1 if I am not mistaken, to this effect: 'Who would do harm, ne'er fails to find a reason/ In our own day too there is an adage in common use among my countrymen, which is by no means to be despised: 'He who wants to beat his dog will soon find a stick.' There is a remark in Terence2 to the same effect: 'He makes up endless reasons not to give it me.' And in Martial:3 'Chiding's the only art my rich friends know, / Not that I've earned it, but they like it so.' Euripides4 too was perhaps alluding to this, when he write as follows in the Iphigeneia in Aulis: It needed but slight opportunity For me and of my children what remains To give you the reception you deserve.

They also quote this iambic line from Menander:5 'But small excuse suffices to do wrong.' 69 Vel a mortuo tributum auferre To exact tribute even from the dead

He takes even from a dead man. Used of someone

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who aims at profit from any source, by fair means or foul. Aristotle in book three of the Rhetoric, treating of actions commonly regarded as disgraceful: To levy tribute, for example, on the poor or the dead, which is the origin of the adage about taking even from a dead man; because this springs from a love of ill-gotten gain/ It is close to that other phrase:1 'He asks a crust of bread from the very statues.' This derives from despotic rulers, who collect taxes on burial-places or on statues of the dead. It comes in a letter from Diogenes2 to Crates: 'Go to the statues in the market-place, and ask them for a crust of bread/ 70

Pudor in oculis Shame is in the eyes , Shame is in the eyes. We are ashamed of things which are exposed to view, for it is when we see something that we first feel ashamed of it, or our shame revives. That is the reason why children, when embarrassed, put their hands over their eyes. And Socrates in Plato,1 feeling shy because he has to speak about love, covers his eyes with this in mind, no doubt. That is also why the poets imagine Cupid blind, because he knows no shame. Here too belongs that remark of Cicero's,2 that a letter doesn't blush. In the same way we see that blind people are most unlikely to feel shame. Ovid3 was no doubt thinking of this when he wrote that night, being blind, is immune from shame: 'Night, love and wine no moderate counsel bear; / Night knows no shame, and love and wine no fear/ The adage is recorded by Aristotle4 in the second book of the Rhetoric: Things that are open and in full view; hence too the proverb that shame is in the eyes/ This is also quoted in Athenaeus, book 13.5 Aristotle again6 in the Problems, when discussing why it is that a man's ears go red when he is ashamed, and his eyes when he is angry, cites this adage as evidence: 'Is it because shame in the eyes produces a cooling effect accompanied by fear, so that colour naturally deserts the eyes, and goes off in search of the most appropriate place of refuge. And that place is the upper part of the ears; for the rest of the ear is bony. But when people are angry, the heat in them increases, and this is particularly visible in the eyes, on account of their white colour. A line is recorded from Euripides;7 Tis in the eyes, dear child, that shame is found/ Aristophanes8 in the Wasps: 'But there's no reverence, even in their eyes, / For ancient shoes/ To this we can also refer words quoted from Sappho by Aristotle9 in the first book of the Rhetoric: 'No shame would there be in your eyes/ Hence too come metaphors like 'How will you have the face to rebuke your son?' and in Cicero,10 in his Letters to Atticus: The recruiting officers dare not show their faces/ Even to-day there is still a current saying 'You will

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not dare to show your face.' In Euripides,11 in the Iphigeneia in Aulis, Menelaus tells Agamemnon to look him in the face, clearly to make him ashamed of what he has done: 'Look me in the face, and I will then say what I have to say.' To which he replies: Think you, son of Atreus, fear will make me close my eyes in shame?' I should perhaps have added here the passage in Homer12 where Achilles calls Agamemnon 'dog-eyed/ for being so brazen that his glance is shameless, like a dog's.

71 Conciliant homines mala Bad luck brings men together Bad luck brings men together. An aphorism with proverbial effect, which sets down a common experience - that enemies are sometimes turned into friends by the impact of some disaster which afflicts them both. Aristotle in the first book of the Rhetoric: 'For there is no reason why the same thing should not sometimes be to the advantage of the opposing sides. Hence the saying that bad luck brings men together, whenever the same thing is bad for both parties.' Of 'Syncretism' I have spoken elsewhere.1 The proverb can also be turned to quite another purpose, to express the way one man who is ignorant or tongue-tied or extravagant supports another of the same description. It is not merely a similarity in their advantages that forges a close link between man and man; often it is shared handicaps that give rise to mutual goodwill. There is some feeling of affection, as a rule, between those who have been in the same shipwreck or fought side by side or been prisoners of war together; those, in short, who suffer from the same afflictions, whether of body or spirit.

72 Ama tanquam osurus, oderis tanquam amaturus Love as in time to come you should hate, and hate as you should in time to come love You should love as if in time to come you will hate, and you ought to hate as if in time to come you will love. This is an aphorism of Bias, and Aristotle in the Rhetoric shows us clearly enough that it had become proverbial when he writes as follows: 'One ought not, as the saying goes, to love as though in future one will hate, but rather to hate as though in time to come one will love.' And a little further on: 'One should love not, as the saying goes, but as though one would love for ever.' For the philosopher shows in that passage how the opinions commonly held and taught on this subject need refuting and

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correcting. Cicero1 in his dialogue On Friendship writes that Scipio so strongly disapproved of the familiar dictum ascribed to Bias, that he used to say it would have been impossible to invent any saying more fatal to friendship than that of the man who maintained that one should love as though in time to come one might hate; and that nothing would induce him to believe that it had been uttered by Bias, as was commonly supposed, for Bias was thought to be a wise man, in fact one of the Seven Sages; no, it was the opinion of some vile or ambitious man or one of those who reduce everything to their own standard. 'For how' he says 'can one make friends with a man if in future, he thinks, they may be enemies? Why, this will make it necessary to wish and hope that one's friend may make as many mistakes as possible, and so give one more handles, as it were, to find fault with him. Conversely, if one's friends do something right or things go well with them, resentment pain and jealousy will be in the order of the day. So this principle, whoever invented it, is the very thing for destroying friendship. It would have been much better to lay down that one should take such care in acquiring friends as will never let us begin to like a man whom some day it might be possible to dislike.' That is what Cicero says. To return to Aristotle:2 a little earlier he quotes the following iambic line, which is also found in book 7 of the Eudemian Ethics: 'No friend is he whose love can ever cease.' The man3 whose affections are inspired by greed ceases to love the moment he has got what he wanted; but the friendship of good men, founded as it is on virtue, is immortal. The line comes, in fact, from the Troades of Euripides.4 Diogenes Laertius5 records the adage incomplete: 'He said that men should love their friends as though they might one day hate them, for the majority of men are bad.' To this we should add that moral maxim of Publius6 which is quoted by Aulus Gellius: 'Your friend today could be your foe tomorrow,' and another which I suppose is his, though it bears the name of Seneca: 'Beware an enemy while you trust a friend.' Sophocles7 too in the Ajax Carrying a Scourge: For well I know that one should hate one's enemy Only so far, as we may yet be friends, And serve one's friend so far, as one who yet May not be friends for ever. Most men learn That friendship's roads are no safe anchorage.

73 Atticus advena A new neighbour from Athens

A new neighbour from Athens, was applied to neigh-

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bours who were rough and fierce. Duris, quoted by Zenodotus, says it took its rise from the Athenian character because at one time they had a regular practice of forcing neighbours off their land. Craterus thinks it started with the Athenians who had been sent to Samos, and drove out the native inhabitants. The adage is touched on by Aristotle in book 3 of the Rhetoric: 'Some proverbs, and aphorisms too, can be used as a sort of evidence: a new neighbour from Athens, for instance/ So too it will be appropriate for those who have recently been appointed to some office in the hope that they will drive out their superiors. 74

Purpura juxta purpuram dijudicanda Purple should be judged against purple Purple should be judged against purple. The most reliable criterion of anything is comparison. That is why merchants, when they buy purple cloth, put another purple piece alongside it to avoid mistakes. We shall1 be able to use this whenever we maintain that the ignorance of uneducated people and their inability to express themselves cannot be fully grasped, unless they are compared with what is written by those who are articulate and learned. Compare, for example, Sallust with Cicero, and he seems virtually tongue-tied, though2 an excellent writer when taken on his own. The adage is recorded by Phoebammon the sophist in his work on the figures of rhetoric. Isocrates3 too mentions it in his Panathenaic Oration: 'But as we examine and assess purple and gold by laying one piece against another/ I do not think it will be entirely off the point if, while on the subject of comparing purple dyes, I add here a passage from the life of Aurelian by Flavius Vopiscus.4 'You remember' he says 'that in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol there was a short length of purple cloth, made of wool, and when the great Roman ladies, and indeed Aurelian himself, laid their purple stuffs alongside it, they all seemed to go off, and take on an ashy tinge, when confronted with its divine brightness. The story is that the king of Persia had obtained it somewhere in the heart of India, and sent it to Aurelian as a present, saying in his letter "I send you a gift of the sort of purple we have in our country." After which both Aurelian and Probus, and most recently Diocletian, took particular pains and sent their most experienced technicians to look for a purple of the same quality; but they could not find one. For the Indian dyestuff they call sandix is said to produce purple of this quality, if correctly treated/ Quintilian5 alluded to this in book 12, in his chapter on the different types of style, when he speaks of writing which is of good average quality and makes an impression when taken by

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itself; but does so no longer when compared with work of real distinction. 'It makes an impression/ he says, 'and deservedly so, for even this is not easy; but such things grow pale and come to nothing when compared with what is better, like wool treated with an ordinary dye, which in the absence of true purple looks well enough; but if you compare the two, "at sight," as Ovid says, "the better mantle will subdue it quite/"

75 Saturniae lemae Saturnian rheums Saturnian rheums. Used of people who are dim-sighted and dull-witted, especially those who grow foolish from old age. The word lema denotes a gathering of rheum in the eyes which causes a weakness of sight; it is derived from lemo, I see, and me the negative particle, not, because gummy secretions of this kind spread over the eyes, and one does not see. Aristophanes1 in the Plutus: Dim-sighted in troth Are the wits of you both In your rheumy [lemontes] Saturnian brains [gnomais].

He has used gnomai, brains, instead of lemai, rheums; the Greek lemontes, which means having sore eyes or dim sight, is derived from it. To call the brains Saturnian, in Greek Cronian, gives a colouring of age and senility, for Cronos,2 the Greek counterpart of Saturn, is imagined in poetry as gouty and old and god of time, by equation with chronos which means time. Archaios, ancient or prehistoric, is sometimes used in Greek for 'stupid': Plato3 in the Euthydemus 'You talk unbroken nonsense; need you be so prehistoric?' And 'as Cronian as' for 'as foolish as/ 'Cronoses' for nonsense and foolishness. Timotheus,4 quoted by Athenaeus, book y. 'Now a new Jupiter is king, where Saturn ruled of old.' Aristophanes5 in the Wasps: 'As for the scribblers of our tragedies, / He says he'll prove them doting Cronos-wits.' Again, in the Clouds: 'How can it be, you Cronos-reeking dotard, / Old when the moon was young?' / Dionysodorus in Plato's6 Euthydemus calls Socrates a Saturn, meaning he is dull and doltish; 'You're such an old Saturn/ he says. Lucian7 referred to this in his Timon: 'You are too purblind and too blear-eyed to see what is going on.' And a little farther on: 'By little and little they're making a regular Cronos of you, most worshipful of gods, and thrusting you down from your high position.' Plutarch8 shows that men whose wits wandered in old age were called Cronoleroi, doting Cronoses, no doubt9 because of the old wives' tales told

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about this same god. Plutarch refers to them again in his essay 'On the Face that appears in the Orb of the Moon/ He tells how Saturn lies sleeping in a cave deep down in one of the Fortunate Isles with golden rocks in his arms,10 and how this sleep came upon him as an effect of the chains cunningly contrived for that purpose by Jupiter.u There are birds, he says, living on the summit of a rock, which bring him ambrosia, which spills from the rock as though it were a fountain, and the whole island is filled with the marvellous fragrance. There are also demons who keep watch over Saturn and supply his needs. These used in old days to be his close friends, when he was ruler of gods and men, and they make many predictions of the future on their own account; but their most important prophecies, and those on the most important subjects, they produce in such a way as to make them pass for Saturn's dreams; for whatever thoughts come into Jupiter's head are dreams in Saturn's. Various trifling stories of this kind are recorded about Saturn in the book I have mentioned. Another point I leave to the judgment of the learned reader: is there any connection between this adage and the symbolic name given by the Pythagoreans to the sea, a tear of Saturn; for this the same writer is our authority in his essay 'On Isis and Osiris.' For sea-water is not only salt and bitter, but also more opaque and more impure than other kinds of water.

76 Cucurbitas lippis Your eyes run pumpkins To have the eyes run with pumpkins, belongs to the same type of adage as those we have been discussing. Aristophanes in the Clouds: 'Now surely you can see them plainly, unless your eyes run with colocynths.' The Greeks call a pumpkin colocynth. The speaker is Socrates, who points to the clouds and says in effect 'unless you can see nothing at all, and have drops of rheum in your eyes as large as pumpkins.' 77 Ollas lippire

Your eyes run pots To have the eyes run with pots. A proverbial exaggeration very like the last. Lucian in his Against an Ignoramus, about a man buying many books wholesale, uses the word pot-rheumy, in the sense of having drops of rheum in your eyes as large as pots. Both these adages gain in elegance and flavour when applied to the mind - for example, if one were to say of a very stupid man who is quite purblind and makes disgraceful mistakes, that his eyes run with pots and not rheum.

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78 Odium agreste Rustic hatred Rustic hatred. The Ancients applied this name to any passionate dislike, because rustics are misanthropic as a rule, and their hatreds are bitter and irreconcilable. Lucian Against an Ignoramus: 'And you enjoy, they say, the rustic hatred of everyone on account of your insolence.' Thus it is that we also use the word 'civilised'1 of a courteous and friendly character; and among lawyers a distinction is made between civil and criminal actions. In fact,2 when you want to convey that anything is barbarous, brutal or cruel, you call it in Greek 'rustic.' 79 Megarenses neque tertii neque quart! The Megarians are neither the third nor the fourth

The Megarians are neither the third nor the fourth. This used to be said in old days of exceptionally idle and worthless people who had no claims to respect at all. The adage took its rise from an oracle. Some authorities, among them Stephanus1 Mneas2 and Ion,3 say it was given to the people of Aegina; others say, to the Megarians. According to Mneas, when the Aeginetans had defeated the Aetolians in Achaea and taken a tenth part of their penteconters (ships, that is, of fifty oars), they dedicated the tenth to the Pythian Apollo as a memorial of their victory, and asked the god who were the leading Greeks, thinking that in view of this success Apollo would award that proud position to themselves. The oracle replied as follows: A horse from Thessaly and a wife from Lacedaemon, But men who drink Arethusa's peerless spring. Yet better even than they are those who dwell Between Tiryns and Arcadia with its wealth of flocks, The Argives in their linen cuirass4 who goad the god of war. As for you, men of Aegium, you are neither third nor fourth Nor twelfth nor of any reckoning or account.

The writer of the scholia on Theocritus5 records a somewhat different form of this epigram; in fact it runs like this: All the world over Pelasgian Argos is the best of all: Horses from Thrace and wives from Lacedaemon, But men who drink Arethusa's peerless spring.

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Yet better even than they are those who dwell Between Tiryns and Arcadia with its wealth of flocks, The Argives in their linen corslets who goad the god of war. As for you Megarians, you are neither third nor fourth Nor twelfth nor of any reckoning or account.

Callimachus6 too in his epigrams applied the proverb to the Megarians: 'Like the Megarians, the hapless maid / Is of no reckoning now and no account/ Theocritus7 too, in his Beloved Catella: 'But we are of no reckoning and no account, / Hapless Megarians, with scorn for our portion.' Lovers too8 are put in numerical order: one is first in his mistress' eyes, another second or third or fourth. It is the same in wills: there is a principal heir, and heirs in the second or third place. The proverb is also9 expressed in the form TT)? Meyapecoi' &%ioi /u.epi'8os, Worthy to be treated or placed like the Megarians. Homer's10 phrase in the second Iliad has this in mind: 'Of no account, in council or in war/ There is a quotation from Euripides:11 'Cowards in battle are of no account; / They may be present, but they are not there/ Latin too seems to express the same idea. Cicero:12 'There is no one, I think, no one at least of any account/ meaning of any influence or value. Again in his third Philippic: 'Her father was a certain Bambalio, a man of no account, the lowest of the low/ Plutarch13 in his Table-talk': 'But are my countrymen, like the Megarians, of no account?' And elsewhere in the same work: 'But are the images of Democritus, he said, of no reckoning or account, like the people of Aegium or Megara?' Personally I think that Aristophanes14 too alludes to this in passing, when he writes in the Acharnians 'that it be unlawful for Megarians to remain on land or in the market-place or on the sea or on the mainland;' for by excluding the Megarians from four places he had in mind of course our 'nor the fourth/ Though in these lines I think there is a corruption in the phrase that means 'on land,' (unless possibly he allows himself a spondee in the fourth foot, as he allows an anapaest).15 I have a suspicion that Cicero16 too was alluding to it when he said in the Brutus: 'After these two leaders, Crassus and Antonius, Lucius Philippus came next, next indeed although a long way behind. Although therefore no one came in between who could outdo him, I would call him neither second nor third; just as in a chariot-race I would not count a man as in second or third place who has hardly left the starting-line when the winner has gained the prize, so it would be among orators with anyone who is so far behind that he barely seems to be running in the same race/ Cicero uses a similar expression - 'fifth-class' - in book 2 of the Academica. Speaking of Democritus, he says: 'Who would not prefer him as a

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philosopher to Cleanthes and Chrysippus and the others of later date, who seem to me to be fifth-class when compared with him?' meaning, of a most inferior rank. Conversely, those who stand out from the rest are called 'first-class/ and the completely despicable are 'outclassed.' This is a metaphor from the classes into which King Servius Tullius divided the Roman people in accordance with the amount of their property. Floras17 in Epitome 49 called an extremely obscure man 'of the lowest class': 'Andricus,' he says, 'a man of the lowest class, maintaining that he was the son of King Perseus' and so forth. Again in Epitome 19 he has 'Gaius Glaucius, a man of the lowest class.' This will be more elegant if transferred to things of the mind, if for instance one were to speak of 'an intelligence of the lowest class/ or were to call a style that hardly deserved to be compared with the work of other writers 'a very low-class style.' It can be ranged under this formula, when they speak of a man as being of a superior or inferior brand, and Cicero18 calls compliments that are phrased with some care 'greetings of a superior brand.' Catullus19 adapted it to people: 'And whosoe'er there may be of superior brand.' The image seems to be taken from merchants, who fix a brand-label on wine or cloth to show the value of their wares. 80

Lepus pro carnibus A hare because of its meat A hare (runs risks, must be supplied) because of its meat. Said of those who can serve some useful purpose, and are therefore at risk; for we pursue the hare not because it does harm but because its meat is good eating. The animal itself is at the same time edible, timorous and unarmed, so that nature might be thought to have produced the hare to serve as food for man. The people of Rhegium,1 in fact, were commonly called 'hares,' as being fearful and easily frightened. The adage is also found in the form 'O A.aya>