HODIE: ante diem quartum Kalendas Apriles. You can add a Roman calendar as a widget in your blog or webpage, or display it as a Google Calendar: here's how.
FABULA FACILLIMA: Here is a super-easy fable for today, with just present tense verbs Asinus in Pelle Leonis, the story of a donkey who dressed up in a lion's skin. (Plus here are some more of these fabulae facillimae.)
MORE 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:
- Corvus et Gallina, the sad story of a chicken who knows what her chicks are destined for.
- Herus et Canes, an intense story about what a farmer does in desperation during a time of famine.
- Leo et Taurus, the story of a lion who lays a trap for a bull by inviting him to dinner.
- Asinus et Tympana, the story of a donkey who continues to be beaten even after he dies.
- Socrates et Servus Nequam, Socrates's witty rebuke of a ne'er-do-well slave.
Corvus gallīnae grātulābātur quod tot ōva pareret, et eī toties pullī nascerentur. "Vae mihi!" inquit gallīna, "nam dominus meus vorat et ōva et pullōs, aut aliīs comedendōs vendit; ita causam dolōris potius quam gaudiī memorās."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 Respicio sine luctu (English: I look back without grief).
3-Word Proverbs: Today's 3-word proverb is Spes vitam fovet (English: Hope nourishes life).
Rhyming Proverbs: Today's proverb with rhyme is: Ex verbis fatuos, ex aure tenemus asellos (English: We grasp donkeys by the ear, and fools by their words - a saying that can be nicely applied to the story of the donkey in the lion's skin above, too!).
Vulgate Verse: Today's verse is Praecordia fatui quasi rota carri (Sirach 33:5). 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 Conybeare: Cestreus ieiunat: Cestreus, a kinde of codfishe which never eateth any other fishe whereof commeth this proverbe: The codde fasteth, spoken of good and just menne which doe not raven nor take other mennes goodes from them.
Today's Poem: Today's poem is one of the rhyming couplets collected by Wegeler, with a word list at NoDictionaries.com:
Quando placet Christo, de mundo tollimur isto;English: "When it pleases Christ, we are taken away from this world; no one can know who must be the first to go." I'm not sure how to make the first line rhyme in English as it does in Latin, but I was glad that the second line rhymed so easily.
Nemo potest scire, quis primo debet abire.
Here is an illustration for the story of the dogs and their master in a time of famine, Herus et Canes:
