Praestat Dare Quam Accipere
Accipere humanum est, inopi donare deorum;
Nunquam tam paucos credo fuisse deos.
BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE
God giveth, man receiveth (and doth bow).
Never, I think, were fewer Gods than now.
God giveth, man receiveth (and doth bow).
Never, I think, were fewer Gods than now.
Source: John Owen (c.1564-c.1628), Epigrammata, 4.67, with an English translation by Thomas Harvey. Meter: Elegiac.
The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There is only one word in this poem that is not on the DCC list:
inops (inopis): needy, lacking, destitute
accipiō -cipere -cēpī -ceptum: receive
crēdō crēdere crēdidī crēditum: believe
deus -ī m.; dea -ae f. god; goddess
dō dare dedī datum: give
dōnō -āre: present with a gift (+ acc. of person and abl. of thing)
hūmānus -a -um: human
numquam: never
paucī -ae -a: few
praestō -stāre -stitī -stitum: excel, exhibit
quam: how?; (after comparative) than
sum, esse, fuī: be, exist
tam: so
