Saepe malum facimus...

Here is today's Rhyming Distich, and here are some more posts with Rhyming Distichs. This one is from Zacher's Altfranzösische Sprichwörter. As an "illustration" of sorts, I cannot resist sharing the video for the "lesser of two weevils" scene from the film Master and Commander:

Saepe malum facimus minus, ut maiora cavere
Sic mala possimus; sapientes hoc docuere.


The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. All the words in this poem are on that list!

caveo -ēre cāvī cautum: be on guard, beware
doceo -ēre -uī doctum: teach
facio facere fēcī factum: do, make
hic, haec, hoc: this; hōc, on this account
māior -ius: greater, older
malus -a -um: evil
minus -oris n.: a smaller number or amount, less
possum posse potuī: be able
saepe: often
sapiens -ntis: wise, sensible
sīc: in this manner, thus; sīc . . . ut, in the same way as
ut, uti: as (+ indic.); so that, with the result that (+ subj.)