ad unguem factus homo
A man polished to the nail (Horace)

Suggested Reading:

Quote Unquote (Dictionary of Foreign Quotatns) (Latin Edition)"Everyone sees what you seem to be, few realise what you really are believed Machiavelli... I paint not what I see but what I feel , said Picasso... W... Read More >

American readers of the popular Asterix comic book series knows the intro too well:

The year is 50 B.C. All of Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All? Not quite! A village inhabitated by indomitable Gauls is holding out, strong as ever, against the invader. Life is not easy for the Roman legionaries stationed in the fortified camps of Aquarium, Delirium, Nohappimedium and Opprobrium…

But do you know the Latin version? More on Asterix’ Latin Intro

Below is a table of recurring Latin terminology, or Latin inspired terms, in Asterix (The Adventures of Asterix), a very popular series of French comic books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.

The 33 main Asterix books or albums (one of which is a compendium of short stories) have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects, including Latin.

(Read more about Asterix)

Source

Fortuna opes auferre, non animum, potest.
(Seneca, Medea, 176)

Pron = for-TOO-nah OH-pehs ow-FER-ray nohn AH-nih-moom POH-test.

Fortune is able to take one’s wealth away, but not one’s character.

Comment: This is going to sound, perhaps, a bit morbid.  I have a trip
to Italy coming up with some students, and so once again, I will put
my body (life, future, etc) into a large hunk of metal and allow it to
be hurled across the Atlantic ocean.  And so I will spend some time
considering “what if . . .”

It’s a little morbid, but it’s also real.  What if . . . something
happens to me and I don’t make it?  Fortune can take really everything
away from me that I touch every day as my life. If that happens, can I
still be really who I am?  The ultimate example of that is: could I go
down in a plane crash and be my real self?

I spent some time while in seminary going every week to visit a
Trappist monk at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA.  I
read his obituary in the paper yesterday. He was 85.  He once told me
that Trappist monks have this exercise called the “dying daily”
exercise.  They lie down on their bed and envision themselves dead.

Morbid.  But, it’s a way of letting go of all the stuff.  My old
friend, the monk, finally made his practice real.  He laid down one
last time, and did what he had practiced.  Eventually, we all do.

This is really not morbid.  It’s life.  We have today.  As I see it
now, we live our best life today, and then we lay it down.  Entirely.
Let it go.  All of it.  And if we wake tomorrow, we do that again.
When the last day comes, whenever it is, we will have lived some
really full, wonderful days.  We will have lived some really
difficult, trying days.  Even the most ordinary ones will have been
really wonderful.  Why?  Because we lived out of who we really are.

Bob Patrick

Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest, at nemo mortem.
(Seneca, Phoenissae 152-3)

Pron = eh-RIH-peh-reh WEE-tahm NAY-moh nohn HOH-mih-nee POH-test aht
NAY-moh MOR-tehm.

Anyone can take a person’s life away, but no one is able to take death away.

Comment: This proverb expresses everything in terms of the negative:
taking things away.  It wants us to know that finally, there is a
negative beyond which nothing can be retrieved.  You can take a life.
You cannot take the taking of a life away.

I think it begs a question: Can we give life?  No?  Why not?  Yes?  How?

And, if you think no, then reflect on the “no one” of the proverb.
And if you think yes, reflect on how it is that you give life TODAY.

Bob Patrick

NB: I’ve made a decision.  The emails of the Latin Proverbs of the Day will come to an end on March 15, 2007–the Ides of March.  This web archive will stay up indefinitely.

Historically, it is a  day of “endings” (Julius Caesar was killed by his “friends” and political opponents that day). And, I will say that I have a new project in mind, which I will announce on March 21 by email–March 21, also known as Alban Eiler in Celtic lands and traditions.  There’s a hint.

Dum bibimus, dum serta, unguenta, puellas poscimus, obrepit non
intellecta senectus.

(Juvenal, Satires, 9:128-9)

Pron - doom BIH-bih-moos, doom SAIR-tah, oon-GWEN-tah, PWEL-lahs
POHS-kih-moos, ohb-REH-pit nohn in-tel-LEHK-tah seh-NECK-toos.

While we are drinking and demanding garlands, oil and girls, old age
sneeks up on us unknown to us.

Comment: Another way of putting this might be as a statement: When we
wake up one morning and discover that old age has definitely arrived
(however one determines that) what do we want to look back over our
shoulders and see?

The best answer to that (only fools try to answer this question for
others–so call me a fool) may be that we are utterly unattached to
the past, and that we are fully at peace to have arrived at old age.

It still leaves ME asking for myself: am I living today in a way that
I can let today go when today is over, and not regret it tomorrow? If
so, old age, when it arrives (I’m sure that aging is happening, but
not ready to call myself “in” old age) will be just like another day.

That would be nice.

Bob

Rem actam agis.
(Plautus, Pseudolous 260)

Pron = rehm AHK-tahm AH-ghis

You are doing something (that has already been ) done.

Comment: This is either a scolding (you are doing something that’s
already been finished!), or this is a humbling reminder.  As much as I
love creative and
ingenious activity, it reminds me that the vast majority of human
activity is a repeat, a cycle, a circle, a pattern that we keep
repeating.  Until we learn.  So that we can learn.  So that we can
point a finger and say:  look, this is wisdom.

So, sitting around (our computers) and repeating proverbs is something
that has been done before.  :)

Bob Patrick

Vitia nostra regionum mutatione non fugimus.
(Anonymous)

Pron = WIH-tee-ah NOS-trah ray-ghee-OH-noom moo-tah-tee-OH-neh nohn
FOO-ghee-moos.

We do not flee our errors by a change of locations.

Comment:  I remember some school changes while I was growing up:
moving from AL to GA and then from GA back to AL,  from middle school
to high school, from high school to college, and from college to
graduate school.

At each of those transitions, some thought occurred to me that the
change of location would be nice.  Whatever troubles I had at the
time, so I thought, would vanish with the new setting, and I could
“start all over”.  That never materialized of course, because, as I
would learn, and as this proverb asserts, the change of location
doesn’t make our errors, our problems, our anxieties, our worries, our
griefs, our hatreds and fears go away, nor are we able to leave them
behind.

They are our stuff, and they move with us.

At some point, it began to dawn on me that it was not the physical
move that mattered.  It was the interior moves that mattered.  Face
the fear.  Own the hatred.  Dissect the worry. Feel the grief.  Take
responsibility for the error.  And slowly, sometimes dramatically, the
interior landscape begins to change.

Bob Patrick

Iuvenile vitium est regere non posse impetus.
(Seneca, Troades 250)

Pron = you-when-EE-lay WHI-tee-oom ehst REH-geh-reh nohn POHS-seh
IHM-peh-toos.

It is an error of youth not to be able to control one’s impulses.

Comment:  Ah, that’s because:

Adults don’t overeat.
Adults don’t drink too much.
Adults never spend too much money on things they cannot afford.
Adults never have indiscriminate sex.
Adults never say things they regret.
Adults never lose their temper.
Adults never feel jealous or envious.

Of course, you understand the absurdity of these statements, and so, I
hope, the absurdity of a long-held notion that young people are so out
of control.  No more so than many of their adult counterparts.

The issue, it seems to me, for all human beings, regardless of age is:

1) To feel our feelings.  No one gives out brownie points for
suppressing the actual notice of our own feelings, passions or
emotions.  Not only do we not get brownie points for suppressing our
feelings, passions and emotions, we get sick if we do.

2) Once we feel our feelings, to start an internal dialogue about what
they mean, and how to express that meaning in our lives in a way that
help.

Ways that help us, help others (or at least don’t hurt others).

3) Recognizing our own feelings enables use to see others more deeply,
humanly, compassionately.

I am clear on this:  we cannot extend one more ounce of compassion to
another that we have not first allowed for ourselves.

And, with reference to this proverb:  any adult who finds a young
person too impetuous, or out of control with regard to a particular
feeling, emotion or passion is telling you that he/she hs not been
honest about that feeling, emotion or passion in his/her own life.

Bob Patrick

Laboribus vendunt dei nobis omnia bona.
(Anonymous)

Pron = lah-BOH-rih-boos WHEN-doont DAY-ee NOH-bees OHM-nee-ah BOH-nah.

By the struggles of being human, the gods sell us all good things.

Comment: Let’s consider our lives for a moment.  What is the last
significant struggle that you faced?  (Significant means–it got your
attention.)  What did this struggle have you face in your life?  What
change did it invite you to (whether you accepted the invitation or
not)?  How did that struggle make an expansion of your life, of your
vision, of your perception of the world possible?  Did that struggle
in some minor or major way rattle the real you loose from your ego for
a moment (or longer)?

These are the gifts of the gods, the good things that the divine in
and around and among us has to offer us, and they most often come in
the midst of a struggle.

Bob Patrick

Nec piscatorm piscis amare potest.
(Robert Burton, 1577-1640, English writer)

Pron = neck pis-kah-TOH-room PIS-kiss ah-MAH-ray POH-test.

The fish is not able to love the fisherman.

Comment: If I am driving (a little fast), I cannot love the police car
with the radar gun out in a hidden bend in the road.  If I am a
teenager walking down the hall at school, I cannot love the teacher
who is standing the hall looking for someone to bust for a clothing
violation.  If I am a server in a restaurant, I cannot love a haughty
customer who is criticizing everything I do.

Point: if you want love from others, you cannot go fishing for
them–that is, try to hook, hurt, harm, harass and harrowing them.

You must honor them.

Bob Patrick

Nudo detrahere vestimenta quis potest?
(Plautus, Asinaria 92)

Pron = NOO-doh day-TRA-heh-reh wes-tih-MEHN-tah kwis POH-test.

Who is able to take away the clothes from the naked?

Comment: This is the equivalent of You cannot get blood out of turnips, or you cannot give what you don’t have, or more bluntly: youll get it when I have it.

There is some real honesty in this kind of saying.  For those who would try to do what they really have no ability to do, it is an invitation to be honest about that.  For those who would abuse the poor or those caught in a bad place, it is a warning to see more clearly.

If a man or woman is naked, you cannot take his/her clothes because of a debt owed to you.

I’ve had to confront a student or two recently about missing work or lack of effort (at all).  I think it was the right thing to do, given the circumstances, but reflecting on this proverb leaves me wondering:   due to circumstances that I know nothing about, are they left with nothing to give, nothing to draw on?  Are they the “naked” that I am asking clothing from?  The bottom line is that I don’t know.
Considering the possibility humbles me.

Bob Patrick