HODIE: ante diem undecimum decimum Kalendas Februarias. 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 FABLES: Here are today's fables from the Ictibus Felicibus project. These fables ALL have long marks, plus stress marks for easy reading, and the poems have meter marks, too, along with an easy-to-read prose presentation of the story:
- Testudo et Ranae, the story of the lesson a tortoise learned by watching the nimble frogs.
- Capra et Lupus, the sad fate of the she-goat forced to nurse a wolf-cub.
- Cerva et Vitis, the story of a deer who bit the vine that saved her!
- Vulpes et Mulieres, about how the fox rebuked some women who were eating a chicken.
- Serpens et Lima, the story of a snake foolish enough to bite a metal file.
Vulpes iuxtā villam quandam trānsiēns, cōnspexit catervam mulierum plūrimās gallīnās opiparē assātās altō silentiō comedentem, ad quās conversa: "Quī clāmōrēs (inquit) et canum lātrātūs contrā mē essent, sī ego facerem quod vōs facitis!" Cui rēspondēns quaedam anus, "Pessima animālium (inquit), nōs quae nostra sunt comedimus; tū aliēna fūrāris."TODAY'S MOTTOES & PROVERBS: You can get access to ALL the "proverb of the day scripts" (also available as random proverb scripts) at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website.
3-Word Mottoes: Today's 3-word motto is Ludere, non deludere (English: To play, but not play false - a rendering which tries to capture the word-play of the Latin at least!).
3-Word Proverbs: Today's 3-word proverb is Spem successus alit (English: Success nourishes hope - although English can't imitate the very nice Latin word order).
Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb with rhyme is: Est iam potata, sed erat cerevisia grata (English: The beer has now been drunk, but it was very nice indeed… a nice saying, provided you are sober enough to remember it after drinking the beer!).
Vulgate Verse: Today's verse is Ecce et naves, cum magnae sint, circumferuntur a modico gubernaculo (James 3:4). For a translation, check out the polyglot Bible, in English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, at the Sacred Texts Archive online.
Elizabethan Proverb Commentary: Here is today's proverb commentary, this time by Taverner: Heroum filii noxae: The children of most renowned and noble personages, be for moste parte destructions to a common welth. Verelye our elders have observed from time to time, that the children of most excellent and wise men have growne much out of kinde from the vertues and prowesse of theyr progenitours.
Today's Poem: Today's poem is an elegant couplet from Ovid (Amores 3.9), with a word list at NoDictionaries.com:
Cum rapiunt mala fata bonos - ignoscite fasso! -English: "When wicked fate snatches away good people - forgive my confession - I am shaken to think that there are no gods." The context is Ovid's elegy for the poet Tibullus.
sollicitor nullos esse putare deos.
For an image today, here's the emblem for the story of the goat and the wolf, Capra et Lupus, from a 1541 edition of Alciato:
