Monday, April 13, 2009

Round-Up: April 13

Here is a round-up of today's blog posts - and for previous posts, check out the Bestiaria Latina Blog archives. You can keep up with the latest posts by using the RSS feed, or you might prefer to subscribe by email.

HODIE: Idus Apriles, yes, it's the Ides of April. 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 PODCAST:

Heri Hodie Cras Podcast: Today's audio podcast is Latin Via Proverbs: Group 52, which features this great saying about greed for money: Cupiditas pecuniarum omni tyranno gravior (Desire for money is more burdensome than any dictator).

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.

Proverbiis Pipilo: You can see my Twitter feed of Latin proverbs which I "tweet" while I am online each day (in English, too). Here's a recent one with some lovely sound repetition in the Latin: Falsa est fiducia formae (English: Trusting in pretty appearances can be deceiving).

Audio Latin Proverb of the Day: Today's audio Latin proverb is Sol oculus mundi (English: The sun is the eye of the world, a nice image which comes from the medieval dialogue of Pippin and Albin). To read a brief essay about this proverb and to listen to the audio, visit the Latin Via Proverbs blog.

Proverbium Perbreve of the Day: Today's two-word proverb is Destinatus obdura (English: Having made up your mind, endure - a saying adapted from a poem of Catullus).

Proverbium Breve of the Day: Today's three-word proverb is Bona bonis contingunt (English: Good things happen to good people - ah, if only that were guaranteed in writing somewhere, eh?).

Vulgate Verse of the Day: Today's verse is Deus superbis resistit; humilibus autem dat gratiam (James 4:6). 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 Aquila petit solem (English: The eagle seeks the sun - a family motto that goes back to ancient beliefs about the eagle and the sun, as you can read in the Physiologus).

Proper Name Proverb of the Day: Today's proper name proverb is Post nubila Phoebus (English: After clouds, the sun - a lovely saying where Phoebus Apollo stands in for the sun).

Greek Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is Ψωριῶσα κάμελος πολλῶν ὄνων ἀνατίθεται φορτία (English: The mangy camel can tote the loads of many donkeys - so don't dismiss that camel, no matter how mangy she looks). If you look at the Greek Proverb of the Day widget, you'll see it comes with a Latin translation, too.

TODAY'S FABLES:

Aesopus Ning: Fables with Macrons: By popular request, I'm marking up the fables from Barlow's Aesop with macrons (and anybody here on the LatinBestPractices list knows that I am doing this despite not being a fan of macrons, it's true...). So, today's fable with macrons is Fābula 9: Dē Vulpe et Pardō, the story of the debate about beauty between the fox and the leopard.

Fable of the Day: Today's fable of the day from Barlow's Aesop is DE DELPHINO ET SMARIDE (the story of a dolphin who is not nearly as nice in the other dolphin story today; see below). You can use the Javascript to include the fable of the day automatically each day on your webpage or blog - meanwhile, to find out more about today's fable, visit the Ning Resource Page for this fable, where you will find links to the text, commentary, and a discussion board for questions and comments.

Florilegium Fabularum: I'm working my way, slowly but surely, through the amazing collection of fables by Irenaeus published in 1666. Today's fable is De Arione et Delphino, an unexpected item in a book of Aesop's fables - although it is a wonderful animal story with a moral that fits right into the Aesopic tradition. Here's an illustration for the fable by Bouguereau which shows Arion on a kind of sea-horse, rather than a dolphin:






Aesop's Fables in Latin now available at Amazon.com.