"The son is the father's." Is this equivalent to the English, "Like father, like son"? Or maybe it suggests that the father has the right to control/direct/influence the son.
If so, we might render it "horse thieves have a hard life." Is that right? I couldn't find "ovicipitum" in my dictionary, but I'm guessing it's a combination of ovis (or possibly ovum) and capio, so maybe "sheep thief" (like the English "horsethief"). "Dung is the best track/trace/footstep of the lord/landowner." This may be some sort of injunction for landowners to investigate their own property. "The letter is the guard of history." Does this mean that written records ensure our knowledge of the past? It's a bit telegraphic. I'm rendering this, "afterwards, the opportunity is bald." Does this mean, "if you wait too late, you miss your chance"? Does bald have this suggestion? What's the implied verb here? doceo? So, "it's like teaching geometry to bees," since doceo can take a double object. Perhaps I've just stumbled upon the meaning of this one: moderation (=media) is untouched by envy? If any of you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! (If you can't tell, these are all from the declension practice.hence the absence of any verbs aside from esse).
I thought I'd post some of the proverbs I haven't gotten yet. Here's the link to the publisher's site - the companion website. It's rather like a huge supplement to Wheelock's or any given textbook, except that these examples are interesting and meaningful. The 4000 (!) or so that she's compiled are organized according to grammatical categories. The basic premise of the book is reviewing Latin grammar through proverbs. I recently received a book called Latin Via Proverbs, written by Laura Gibbs, the creator of, an excellent Latin resources that some of you are probably familiar with.
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