HODIE: ante diem quintum Kalendas Novembres. 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 POEM: Here is today's little poem, from the Poetry Widget. This is another one of Owen's elegant little epigrams, with a word list at NoDictionaries.com, as usual:
Vivere vix quid sit novi: mirum nil ergo,English: "I've scarcely learned what it is to live: no wonder then, if I don't know what it is to be born, or what it is to die." They are, of course, the two great mysteries, the bookends of life, being born and dying - with appropriately mysterious deponent verbs for both of them in Latin, nasci and mori.
Si quid sit nasci || nescio, quidve mori.
TODAY'S TWITTER:
Vita Caesaris: You can see my IVLIVS CAESAR feed with a sentence from Plutarch's Life of Caesar each day in Greek, Latin and English. Today's Latin portion continues the story of Caesar's rise to power in opposition to the Senate: In senatu autem optimatibus repugnantibus, arrepta quam dudum quaerebat occasione, magna uoce obtestatus inuitum se & ui coactum ad populum confugere eique se committere iniuriis & uiolentia senatus compulsum, ex Curia se in forum proripuit.
Proverbiis Pipilo: You can see my Proverbia feed of Latin proverbs which I "tweet" while I am online each day (in English, too). Here's one from today: Omnia quae nitent aurea non sunt (which is a Latin version of a proverb well-known in English: "all that glitters is not gold").
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.
Audio Latin Proverb of the Day: Today's audio Latin proverb is Tempus est vitae magister (English: Time is the teacher of life). To read a brief essay about this proverb and to listen to the audio, visit the Latin Via Proverbs blog.
Maxims of Publilius Syrus: Today's proverb from Publilius Syrus is: Patiens et fortis se ipsum felicem facit (English: The man who is patient and courageous makes himself a happy man - an unusual combination, patiens et fortis, definitely worth pondering!).
Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb in Leonine verse form is: Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina (English: The mind of a wolf may often hide beneath the skin of a lamb).
Proverbs of Polydorus: Today's proverb from Polydorus is: Lusciniae non deest cantio (English: The nightingale has no lack of song).
Proverbium Perbreve of the Day: Today's two-word proverb is: Spe expecto (English: I wait in hope; there is a word-play in the Latin between spe and ex-spe-cto, even though there is no linguistic relationship between the words).
Proverbium Breve of the Day: Today's three-word proverb is: Qui tacet, consentit (English: A Latin equivalent of the familiar English saying, "silence is consent").
Vulgate Verse of the Day: Today's verse is Melior est sapientia quam vires. (Wisdom 6:1). 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 Est avis in dextra melior quam quattuor extra. (English: This is the Latin equivalent of "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" - although there are four birds in the Latin, and it rhymes, too!).
Latin Animal Proverb of the Day from Erasmus: Today's animal proverb is Nisi si qua vidit avis (English: Not unless a little bird saw it; from Adagia 2.2.28 - this refers to some event that had no witnesses at all, unless, perhaps some tiny bird happened to be there, unnoticed; compare the English saying "a little bird told me," when you want to claim knowledge of an event to which you yourself could not have been a witness).
Proper Name Proverb of the Day from Erasmus: Today's proper name proverb is Phryx plagis emendatur (English: A Phrygian has to be corrected with blows; from Adagia 1.8.36, in which a person from Phrygian is considered something like a donkey in human form, a slow-witted dolt who cannot respond to reason - a sentiment you can find in Cicero, for example, in references to witnesses from Phrygia, in ancient Anatolia = modern-day Turkey).
Greek Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is Ἀνδρὸς ὑπ' ἐσθλοῦ καὶ τυραννεῖσθαι καλόν (English: If a man is good, then it is a fine thing even to be ruled over by him... which I guess is a saying I can endorse, although such good men are few and far between!).
TODAY'S FABLES:
Ictibus Felicibus: Today's fable with macrons and accent marks is Formicae et Cicada, the story of the grasshopper who went to the ants, begging for food - round about this time of the year, in fact!
Fable of the Day: Today's fable of the day from Barlow is DE VITULA ET BOVE, about the heifer and the ox.
For an image today, I wanted to include one of the wolf in sheep's clothing: Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina, as in the rhyming proverb for today. There are so many images online to choose from, but I though this one was one of the best! What a great use of Photoshop - wow!
