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Group 9: Latin

109. Vita est somnium.

110. Vita perpetuum proelium.

111. Ventus est vita mea.

112. Tua verba gerrae sunt.

113. Factum, non fabula.

114. Mala gallina, malum ovum.

115. Iucunda poma, si procul custodia.

116. Extra hypocritae aurati, interius lutei.

117. Non gladio, sed gratia.

118. Dignum patella operculum est.

119. Flamma fumo est proxima.

120. Intacta invidia media sunt.

121. Ignavis semper feriae sunt.

122. Cura pii diis sunt.

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Study Guide

109. Life is a dream. (This notion took its most famous expression in the title of the play La vida es sueño by the seventeenth-century Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca.)

110. Life is an unceasing battle. (There is a famous Latin saying which expresses a similar sentiment: Vivere militare est, "To live is to be at war," a saying made famous by the philosopher Seneca.)

111. My life is wind. (This comes from the Book of Job.)

112. Your words are fiddle-sticks. (You can read a brief essay about this proverb at the AudioLatinProverbs.com blog.)

113. Something real, not a story. (In other words: for real, not just a story. This phrase turns up in Petronius: Omnes naves naufragarunt, factum, non fabula, "All the ships were wrecked. For real; it's not just a story.")

114. Bad chicken, bad egg. (I've always heard the expression "bad egg" in English, but I've never heard it blamed on the poor chicken! Compare this similar saying about the crow: Mali corvi malum ovum, "Bad egg of a bad crow.)

115. Fruits are sweet if the guard is far away. (You can read a brief essay about this proverb at the AudioLatinProverbs.com blog.)

116. Outwardly hypocrites are golden, inwardly they are filthy. (The words extra and interius are both adverbs. As you can see from the 'y' in hypocrita, this is a word that the Romans borrowed from the Greeks. In Greek, a "hypocrita" was an actor, a stage performer. I've got a Bestiaria Latina blog post about the incredible importance of masks and theatrical vocabulary in the modern vocabulary of identity. Notice that while hypocrita is a first declension noun, it is masculine, rather than feminine, and takes masculine adjectives: aurati and lutei. Although the vast majority of first declension nouns are feminine, there are a few masculine nouns in that declension as well.)

117. Not with the sword, but with kindness. (You can read a brief essay about this proverb at the AudioLatinProverbs.com blog.)

118. The cover is worthy of the pan. (In other words: "like father, like son," or "like master, like man." The Latin adjective dignum takes the ablative case, so patella is in the ablative. This saying made its way into Erasmus's Adagia 1.10.72.)

119. The fire is close to the smoke. (In other words: where there's smoke, there's fire. You can find this phrase used in Plautus's Curculio.)

120. Things in the middle are untouched by envy. (In other words, if you do things in moderation you will not attract envious attention. This saying can be found in Livy. You can read more Latin proverbs about "envy" at the Bestiaria Latina blog.)

121. For the lazy folks, it's always vacation. (The Latin noun feriae appears only in the plural. This saying makes it way into Erasmus's Adagia, 2.6.12.)

122. Pious people are a care for the gods. (The Latin word order can be confusing for English speakers. The word pii is the subject, and you can tell because the verb is also plural, sunt. The word cura is the predicate, which as often in Latin comes first in the sentence, and the dative diis forms a phrase with cura, "a care for the gods," "an object of concern for the gods." This phrase also is found with the dative curae, "pious people are [for] a care.")