Monday, April 27, 2009

Round-Up: April 27

Here is a round-up of today's blog posts - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. You can keep up with the latest posts by using the RSS feed, or you might prefer to subscribe by email.

HODIE: ante diem quintum Kalendas Maias. You can add a Roman calendar as a widget in your blog or webpage, or display it as a Google Calendar: here's how.

TODAY'S PODCAST:

Heri Hodie Cras Podcast: Today's audio podcast is Latin Via Proverbs: Group 66, which features this saying: De mortuis nil nisi bonum (About the dead nothing, except what is good - that is, say nothing bad about the dead).

TODAY'S PROVERBS:

You can get access to all the proverb of the day scripts (also available as random proverb scripts) at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website.

Proverbiis Pipilo: You can see my Twitter feed of Latin proverbs which I "tweet" while I am online each day (in English, too). Here's a nice one from today: Mutum est pictura poem (English: A picture is a poem that does not speak - although English cannot match the elegant word order of the Latin, with the gender agreement linking mutum and poema).

Audio Latin Proverb of the Day: Today's audio Latin proverb is one of my very favorite rhyming proverbs - Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra (English: A bird in the right hand is better than four outside.). To read a brief essay about this proverb and to listen to the audio, visit the Latin Via Proverbs blog.

Proverbium Perbreve of the Day: Today's two-word proverb is Bilingues cavendi (English: Watch out for two-tongued people - a saying you can see illustrated in Whitney's Emblems, based on the Aesop's fable of the satyr and the man in the snow).

Proverbium Breve of the Day: Today's three-word proverb is Divide ut regnes (English: Divide so that you can conquer - or, as we say in English, "divide and conquer").

Vulgate Verse of the Day: Today's verse is Quasi aquae, delabimur in terram, quae non revertuntur (II Samuel 14:14). For a translation, check out the polyglot Bible, in English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, at the Sacred Texts Archive online.

Latin Animal Proverb of the Day: Today's animal proverb is Ut piscis extra aquam (English: Like a fish out of water - watch out for that ut; very often Latin studetnts become so attuned to its use in introducing purpose and results clauses, it's easy to forget that it can also introduce a simple simile, as here).

Proper Name Proverb of the Day: Today's proper name proverb is Rana Seriphia (English: A frog from Serpiphos - which is to say, someone who is silent, as the frogs on the island of Seriphos were strangely mute, as opposed to the notoriously noisy frogs throughout the rest of the Mediterranean).

Greek Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is Ὀυδὲ Ἡρακλῆς πρὸς δύο (English: Not even Hercules against two - that is, he doesn't take on more than one opponent at a time). If you look at the Greek Proverb of the Day widget, you'll see it comes with a Latin translation, too.

TODAY'S FABLES:

Aesopus Ning: Fables with Macrons: By popular request, I'm marking up the fables from Barlow's Aesop with macrons. So, today's fable with macrons is Dē Vulpe et Lupō, the story of the fox who had to ask the wolf for help because she had gotten stuck in a well.

Fable of the Day: Today's fable of the day from Barlow's Aesop is DE RANIS ET EARUM REGE (the famous story of the frogs who wanted a king). You can use the Javascript to include the fable of the day automatically each day on your webpage or blog - meanwhile, to find out more about today's fable, visit the Ning Resource Page for this fable, where you will find links to the text, commentary, and a discussion board for questions and comments.

Florilegium Fabularum: I'm working my way, slowly but surely, through the amazing collection of fables by Irenaeus published in 1666. Today's fable is De Rustico, the story of a farmer who tried what we could call some "genetic engineering" on his wheat, with the help of the goddess Ceres. Here's an illustration for the fable (image source) from a Greek red figure vase, showing Demeter (Ceres), and some wheat, too!






Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.