Paroemiographi Graeci

Ἀβυδηνὸν ἐπιφόρημα.

Translit. Abydēnòn epiphórēma.

Translation An Abydene dessert.

Sense Said of an unwelcome supplement or an importunate hanger-on; from the people of Abydos, who, when sailing past Sigeion, were notorious for inviting themselves to the festivals of others.

Commentary The proverb is applied to a guest who arrives uninvited or to anything tedious added at the end of a banquet. Zenobius reports that the Abydenes had a custom of forcing their company on the Sigeans whenever they sailed past, and that the very mention of their name became proverbial for an importunity that could not be shaken off. The image is of the heavy second course set down after the meal is over.

Αἲξ τὴν μάχαιραν.

Translit. Aìx tḕn mákhairan.

Translation The goat (brought up) the knife.

Sense Of one who, by his own scratching, brings to light the very instrument of his ruin.

Commentary The story, told already in the form of an aetion, is that the goat being prepared for sacrifice scraped at the soft earth and uncovered the sacrificial knife that had been laid aside. Hence the proverb, applied to those who, by their own restlessness, contrive their own undoing. Krates is cited by Zenobius for this version.

Αἰσώπου αἷμα.

Translit. Aisṓpou haîma.

Translation The blood of Aesop.

Sense Of an unjust death that brings divine vengeance upon the perpetrators; from the murder of the fabulist by the Delphians.

Commentary When Aesop, sent by Croesus to Delphi with a sum of gold for the people, refused to distribute it because of their greed, the Delphians cast him from a cliff. A famine and pestilence followed, and the Pythia ordered that recompense be made to whomever should claim Aesop's blood. From this came the proverb 'the blood of Aesop' for any guilt that cries out for retribution.

Ἁλιεὺς πληγεὶς νοῦν φύσει.

Translit. Halieùs plēgeìs noûn phýsei.

Translation A fisherman, once stung, will grow some sense.

Sense Of those who learn only through suffering; the man who has put his hand into the seine and felt the sting of the scorpion-fish will be more careful next time.

Commentary The fisherman thrusts his hand under the rocks for the fish, and a scorpion stings him. The proverb is applied to those who learn nothing except by misfortune. Zenobius traces it to a fragment of the lyric poets; Aelian (NA 9.39) tells the same story in support of the maxim that experience is the best teacher.

Ἁρπαλείου χρυσίον.

Translit. Harpaleíou khrysíon.

Translation Harpalus's gold.

Sense Of ill-gotten wealth that becomes a poison to its owner; from Harpalus, the treasurer of Alexander.

Commentary Harpalus, the Macedonian treasurer of Alexander, fled to Athens in 324 BC with a vast sum of stolen gold. The political scandal that followed (in which Demosthenes himself was implicated) made the very name proverbial for tainted money.

Γλαῦκα εἰς Ἀθήνας.

Translit. Glaûka eis Athḗnas.

Translation An owl to Athens.

Sense To bring an owl to Athens – to carry a thing to the place where it is most abundant; the bird of Athena being the very emblem of the city and stamped upon her coins.

Commentary The most famous of all Greek proverbs of superfluity. The owls of Laurion (the small silver tetradrachms) were proverbially numerous; to send more would be otiose. Aristophanes plays on the proverb at Birds 301: 'Who has brought owls to Athens?' Cicero adapts it as ululas Athenas (ad Att. 1.20.5). The Latin equivalent for the modern reader is sus Minervam docet.

Ἥλιος ἐν χωρίοις.

Translit. Hḗlios en khōríois.

Translation The sun upon the fields.

Sense Said when something happens in the open and clear sight of all; the sun shining on the cultivated land sees everything.

Commentary An old country proverb, applied especially to deeds that cannot be hidden, since the sun looks down upon every furrow. Zenobius compares Pindar's πάντ' ἐφορᾷ Ἥλιος (Pind. fr. 30 Snell-M.).

Ἡρακλῆς πρὸς δύο.

Translit. Hēraklē̂s pròs dýo.

Translation Even Heracles cannot fight two.

Sense Said of impossible odds; even the strongest hero cannot prevail when set against two opponents at once.

Commentary Plato cites the proverb (Phaedo 89c, Euthydemus 297c) to express that no man, however gifted, can stand against more than one antagonist at the same time. The original aetion is referred to the second labour: when Heracles was fighting the Hydra, the crab came to the Hydra's aid, and Heracles called for Iolaus.

Κνίδιον ζύγαστρον.

Translit. Knídion zýgastron.

Translation A Cnidian chest.

Sense Of an enormous, weighty trunk that no single man can lift; spoken of any cumbersome possession or insoluble difficulty.

Commentary The Cnidians manufactured great cypress-wood chests, the largest in the Greek world, sold throughout the Aegean. The proverb is applied to anything that cannot easily be moved or disposed of. Zenobius adds that the Cnidian wine-jars (κάδοι) were equally proverbial.

Λύκος χανών.

Translit. Lýkos khanṓn.

Translation A wolf with gaping jaws.

Sense Of one who has set out to seize and gone away empty; the wolf that came hunting and returned with his mouth open and nothing in it.

Commentary Aristophanes uses the figure at Lysistrata 629; the proverb is applied to those whose hopes of plunder are disappointed. Zenobius cites Crates and several comic poets. The image is of greedy expectation followed by absurd failure.

Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ χεῖρα κίνει.

Translit. Sỳn Athēnâi kaì kheîra kínei.

Translation Move your hand as well, with Athena's help.

Sense Pray to the goddess, but put your own shoulder to the wheel: divine aid is given only to those who labour with it.

Commentary The aetion told by Zenobius (and by Aesop, fab. 30 Hausrath) concerns a wagoner whose cart was stuck in a rut. He prayed to Heracles for aid, and a voice from heaven answered: 'Whip up your oxen and put your shoulder to the wheel; then call upon the gods.' The proverb became a watchword of practical piety. The Latin equivalent is dii facientes adiuvant.

Τὰ ἐπὶ Μανδροβούλου χωρεῖ.

Translit. Tà epì Mandroboúlou khōreî.

Translation Things are going the way of Mandrobulus.

Sense Said of an enterprise that is steadily diminishing – going from gold to silver to bronze and at last to nothing.

Commentary Mandrobulus is said to have dedicated to Hera at Samos a golden ram in the first year, a silver one in the second, a bronze one in the third, and nothing at all in the fourth. Hence the proverb, applied to anything that goes from bad to worse. Lucian (Hermotimus 71) cites it explicitly.

Ἀετὸς μυίας οὐ θηρεύει.

Translit. Aetòs muías ou thēreúei.

Translation An eagle does not hunt flies.

Sense A great spirit does not stoop to small business; the king of birds disdains so trivial a quarry.

Commentary The proverb is applied to those who are too noble or too dignified to occupy themselves with petty matters. It survives in modern proverb-books as aquila non capit muscas. Erasmus gives it among his Adagia (III.ii.65).

Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος.

Translit. Anerríphthō kýbos.

Translation Let the die be cast.

Sense Said when one stakes everything on a single throw; once the dice have left the hand, there is no going back.

Commentary Originally a quotation from Menander (fr. 64 K.-A.), preserved in Athenaeus (XIII.559d). It is the very phrase Caesar is said by Plutarch (Caesar 32.6) and Suetonius (Iul. 32) to have uttered in Greek as he crossed the Rubicon. The Latin alea iacta est is a translation; the original is in the perfect imperative.

Ἁρμόνιος γέλως.

Translit. Harmónios gélōs.

Translation A Harmonian laugh.

Sense Of a forced or sardonic smile, given as a courtesy and not from gladness; the laugh of those who must seem pleased.

Commentary Diogenianus refers the proverb to a certain Harmonios (otherwise unknown) celebrated for affecting cheerfulness in misfortune. The phrase belongs to the small family of Greek expressions for the unwilling smile, of which γέλως Σαρδάνιος is the most famous.

Γέρων ἀλώπηξ οὐχ ἁλίσκεται πάγῃ.

Translit. Gérōn alṓpēx oukh halísketai págēi.

Translation An old fox is not caught in a snare.

Sense Long experience teaches caution; the seasoned schemer is too wary to be trapped by ordinary devices.

Commentary A maxim of practical worldly wisdom, common in the Greek tradition and resurfacing in nearly every European proverb-collection. Diogenianus cites it without commentary; Apostolius later expands the entry with examples from Aesop's fables. Compare the German alter Fuchs geht nicht zweimal ins Garn.

Δὶς πρὸς τὸν αὐτὸν λίθον προσπταίειν αἰσχρόν.

Translit. Dìs pròs tòn autòn líthon prosptaíein aiskhrón.

Translation It is shameful to stumble twice on the same stone.

Sense Whoever falls into the same error a second time has only himself to blame.

Commentary Cited by Polybius (XXXI.11) of the Roman senate, and known in the Latin form bis ad eundem lapidem offendere turpe est. The proverb belongs to the great family of admonitions against repeating one's mistakes.

Εἰς ὕδωρ γράφεις.

Translit. Eis hýdōr gráphēis.

Translation You are writing on water.

Sense Of fruitless labour; whatever is written on water leaves no trace.

Commentary Of broken promises and futile undertakings. The figure recurs in Plato (Phaedrus 276c) and in Catullus 70: in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua. The Christian tradition retained the image: see John Keats's epitaph, 'Here lies One whose name was writ in water'.

Κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ᾠόν.

Translit. Kakoû kórakos kakòn ōión.

Translation From a bad crow, a bad egg.

Sense Like begets like; one cannot expect a good offspring from a bad parent. A version of mala mater, malus filius.

Commentary An apothegm of moral inheritance, found already in the form ἐκ κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ᾠόν in the Greek anthologies. It appears in the Apostolian collection with the variant κακοῦ κόρακος κακὰ ᾠά. Erasmus adopts it as Adag. I.ix.25.

Λύχνου σβεσθέντος πᾶσα γυνὴ Λαΐς.

Translit. Lýkhnou sbestheíntos pâsa gynḕ Laḯs.

Translation When the lamp is out, every woman is a Lais.

Sense In the dark all women look alike – even the plainest passes for the great courtesan of Corinth.

Commentary Lais of Corinth was the most celebrated hetaira of antiquity, the lover of Aristippus. The proverb has a long European afterlife (Plutarch, Coniugalia praecepta 144d, cites it; Erasmus prints it as Adag. III.iv.65) and survives in Italian as al bujo tutte le gatte sono bigie.

Ἀπὸ λεπτοῦ μίτου τὸ ζῆν ἤρτηται.

Translit. Apò leptoû mítou tò zē̂n ḗrtētai.

Translation Life hangs by a slender thread.

Sense Of the precariousness of mortal existence; one fine fibre – the thread spun by the Moirai – separates us from death.

Commentary A common topos in the moralists, but here recorded by the Alexandrian collector with the gloss that the thread is the spindle of the Fate Clotho. The image enjoyed a long Christian afterlife.

Ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός.

Translit. Apò mēkhanē̂s theós.

Translation A god from the machine.

Sense Of an unexpected and unlikely solution descending upon a difficulty; from the crane (μηχανή) used in the Athenian theatre to lower divine actors onto the stage.

Commentary Plutarch (or his epitomator) records that the Alexandrian wits used the phrase of any unforeseen reversal of fortune. Aristotle (Poetics 1454b1) had already censured the device as a dramatic fault. The Latin deus ex machina is the standard rendering.

Δαναῶν δῶρα.

Translit. Danaō̂n dō̂ra.

Translation Gifts of the Greeks.

Sense Of presents that conceal harm; the Trojan horse left by the departing Greeks before the walls of Troy.

Commentary The Alexandrians, says the collector, applied the proverb especially to the gifts of generals and tyrants. Virgil's timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (Aen. II.49) is a Latin translation of the same proverb.

Πάθει μάθος.

Translit. Páthei máthos.

Translation Wisdom comes by suffering.

Sense What man learns, he learns through what he suffers; experience taught by pain is the surest schoolmaster.

Commentary A direct quotation from the parodos of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (177), already proverbial in the Hellenistic period. The two-word formula sums up the entire Aeschylean theology of justice.

Αἰγιαλῷ λαλεῖς.

Translit. Aigialō̂i laleîs.

Translation You are speaking to the seashore.

Sense Of words wasted on a deaf or unmoved hearer; the shingle and the surf give no answer.

Commentary A familiar Greek figure, found in the comic poets and adopted by Lucian (De parasito 56). The Mosquensis recension cites the saying with the gloss that the hearer is as deaf as the gravel itself. Modern equivalents include 'preaching to the wind'.

Ἄνθρωπος ἀνθρώπῳ δαιμόνιον.

Translit. Ánthrōpos anthrṓpōi daimónion.

Translation Man is a god to man.

Sense Said in praise of human kindness; a fellow-man in time of need can be a divine helper to another.

Commentary The phrase is contrasted in Christian moral writers with the more bitter formula homo homini lupus (already in Plautus, Asinaria 495). Gregory the Patriarch cites it from the older paroemiographic tradition; it descends ultimately from a Pythagorean apophthegm preserved in Iamblichus.

Ἀνδρὸς γέροντος αἱ γνάθοι βακτηρία.

Translit. Andròs gérontos hai gnáthoi baktēría.

Translation An old man's jaws are his walking-stick.

Sense When the body fails, conversation and counsel remain; the elder's strength is in his speech.

Commentary A consolatory proverb, perhaps of Cynic colouring; the staff (βακτηρία) is the conventional emblem of the philosopher and the old man together. The Mosquensis preserves the saying with the gloss εἰς πρεσβύτας λάλους ('of garrulous old men'), giving it a mildly satirical twist.

Ἀκίνητα κινεῖν.

Translit. Akínēta kineîn.

Translation To move the immovable.

Sense To stir up what should be left undisturbed; to break a sacred prohibition or to provoke needless trouble.

Commentary An old religious formula: ἀκίνητα κινεῖν is what one must not do with the boundary stones, the sacred precinct, or the laws of the city (Plato, Laws 684e, 843a). By the time of Gregory the proverb has the lay sense of stirring up needless quarrels.

Δάκτυλον δείκνυσιν.

Translit. Dáktylon deíknusin.

Translation He points the finger.

Sense Of one whose conduct is so notorious that everyone marks him out – he is famous (or infamous) δακτυλοδεικτούμενος.

Commentary The figure is Pindaric (Pyth. I.68): δακτύλῳ σημαίνεσθαι, 'to be pointed at with the finger', whether for honour or shame. Gregory uses it of the conspicuously infamous; later Byzantine writers extend it to celebrities.

Ἀδώνιδος κῆποι.

Translit. Adṓnidos kē̂poi.

Translation Gardens of Adonis.

Sense Of fair things that wither in a moment; the little earthen pots planted with quick-growing seed for the festival of Adonis flourished and died within eight days.

Commentary The festival of the Adonia was celebrated by women on the rooftops of Athens. The pots of fennel, lettuce and wheat were the emblems of the dead god's brief life and beauty. Plato uses the figure (Phaedrus 276b) to contrast genuine philosophical instruction with hasty rhetoric.

Αἰεὶ τὰ πέρυσι βελτίω.

Translit. Aieì tà pérysi beltíō.

Translation Last year was always the better.

Sense The good old days; men think the past was always finer than the present.

Commentary Cited already by the comic poets and proverbial in Hellenistic prose. Macarius gathers it under the heading ἐπὶ τῶν δυσαρεστούντων τοῖς παροῦσι – 'of those discontented with the present' – a sentiment that Horace would later make his own (Odes III.6).

Βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ.

Translit. Boûs epì glṓssēi.

Translation An ox upon the tongue.

Sense Said when an enforced silence is laid upon someone, especially by a heavy bribe; the 'ox' is at once the silver coin (so called from its bull-stamp) and the weight of the beast itself.

Commentary The phrase opens Aeschylus' Agamemnon (line 36): βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ μέγας βέβηκεν. Macarius preserves it among the conventional moral proverbs, with the gloss ἐπὶ τῶν διὰ φόβον ἢ δωροδοκίαν σιωπώντων ('of those silent through fear or bribery').

Γνῶθι σαυτόν.

Translit. Gnō̂thi sautón.

Translation Know thyself.

Sense The most famous of the Delphic precepts, inscribed in the pronaos of the temple of Apollo Pythios.

Commentary Attributed by Pausanias (X.24.1) to the Seven Sages collectively, by Diogenes Laertius variously to Thales, Chilon, Bias, Cleobulus, Pittacus or Solon. Macarius preserves it under Γ; Apostolius under the same letter, both with the conventional gloss πρὸς αὐτογνωσίαν.

Ἐκ τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ δένδρον γινώσκεται.

Translit. Ek toû karpoû tò déndron ginṓsketai.

Translation By its fruit the tree is known.

Sense The character of any thing is judged by what it produces; one cannot judge from outward show, but only from the result.

Commentary A maxim that takes on the colouring of the Gospel saying (Matt. 12.33). Macarius, himself an ecclesiastic, preserves the saying in its proverbial form without the scriptural attribution; the Apostolian collection follows him.

Ἰξὸς ἐπ' ἰξῷ.

Translit. Ixòs ep' ixō̂i.

Translation Birdlime upon birdlime.

Sense Of the cumulative trap; one snare laid upon another, so that whoever escapes the first is caught by the second.

Commentary From the practice of fowlers, who smeared their twigs with viscum (ἰξός). The image is of a redoubled and inescapable difficulty. Macarius alone preserves the saying in this exact form.

Σκιὰς ὄναρ ἄνθρωπος.

Translit. Skiâs ónar ánthrōpos.

Translation Man is a shadow's dream.

Sense Pindar's celebrated image of human transience; if the shadow itself is a thing of nothing, the dream of a shadow is less than nothing – and that is what man is.

Commentary A direct quotation from Pindar's Eighth Pythian (95–96): ἐπάμεροι· τί δέ τις; τί δ' οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωπος. Macarius records it as a conventional epitomē; the Apostolian collection takes it over from him.

Ἀβέλτερα παίζεις.

Translit. Abéltera paízeis.

Translation Your jests are silly.

Sense Of clumsy or witless humour; ἀβέλτερος is properly the man who lacks even the rudiments of sense.

Commentary An entry standing first in the Apostolian collection, with the gloss πρὸς τοὺς ἀνοήτως παίζοντας. The Suda (α 35) preserves the same proverb in nearly identical form, drawn from the same paroemiographic stock.

Γέρων ἐραστής, ἔσχατον κακόν.

Translit. Gérōn erastḗs, éskhaton kakón.

Translation An old man in love – the worst of evils.

Sense Of inappropriate or undignified passion; the spectacle of an old man in the throes of love is a stock comic theme.

Commentary An iambic line found among the Menandrean Sentences (Mon. 113 Jaekel). Apostolius cites it as proverbial; it is one of the few moral maxims of his collection that has its origin in the comic stage.

Καιρὸν γνῶθι.

Translit. Kairòn gnō̂thi.

Translation Know the right moment.

Sense A maxim attributed by tradition to Pittacus of Mytilene; one of the Seven Sages' precepts.

Commentary The kairos – the proper season for action – is the cardinal Greek concept of practical wisdom. Apostolius prints the saying with the simple gloss ἓν τῶν ἑπτὰ σοφῶν ('one of the Seven Sages'). It is parallel to the Delphic μηδὲν ἄγαν.

Ἑνὶ λόγῳ τίθημι, ζῆν τὸ φρονεῖν.

Translit. Henì lógōi títhēmi, zē̂n tò phroneîn.

Translation I say it in one word – to live is to think.

Sense True life is the life of the understanding; a man who does not think is not really alive.

Commentary Apostolius preserves it as if from Menander; the form points to a Hellenistic gnome of philosophical colouring, much repeated in late antique anthologies.

Μηδὲν ἄγαν.

Translit. Mēdèn ágan.

Translation Nothing in excess.

Sense The second of the great Delphic precepts, set beside Γνῶθι σαυτόν on the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Commentary Attributed variously to Solon and to Chilon among the Seven Sages. The maxim is the keynote of Greek ethics, presupposed by Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Apostolius gives it under Μ; Macarius cites it twice, once under Μ and once under Δ.

Νοῦς ὁρᾷ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει.

Translit. Noûs horâi kaì noûs akoúei.

Translation It is the mind that sees, and the mind that hears.

Sense True perception belongs not to the bodily senses but to the understanding within.

Commentary Quoted by Apostolius from Epicharmus (fr. 249 K.-A.), and constantly cited by the Greek philosophical tradition: see Plato, Theaetetus 184c; Plutarch, De fortuna 98D. A key text in the Greek anthropology of perception.

Ὄνου σκιά.

Translit. Ónou skiá.

Translation An ass's shadow.

Sense Of empty quarrels; a contention about nothing – like the dispute of the man who hired an ass and quarrelled with the driver about whether he had also hired the shadow it cast.

Commentary The story is told by Demosthenes (according to a famous anecdote in Plutarch, Vitae X oratorum 848a): when his audience was inattentive, he began to tell them the tale of the man who hired an ass to ride from Athens to Megara and at noon dismounted to rest in its shadow, but was then accused of having hired only the ass and not its shade. When the audience pressed him for the end of the story, Demosthenes rebuked them for caring more for an ass's shadow than for matters of state. Aristophanes uses the proverb at Wasps 191.

Πάντα ῥεῖ.

Translit. Pánta rheî.

Translation All things flow.

Sense The summary of Heraclitean physics: nothing remains stationary; all that exists is in perpetual change, like the river into which one cannot step twice.

Commentary Attributed to Heraclitus by Plato (Cratylus 402a) and by Simplicius. Apostolius prints it as proverbial in his fifteenth century, with the gloss εἰς τὰ μεταβαλλόμενα ('on things that change'). The Latin equivalent is omnia mutantur (Ovid, Met. XV.165).