Aliis Prodesse

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Aliis Prodesse
Si prodesse aliis studeas, tibi proderis ipsi;
At nisi ames alios, et te quoque nullus amabit.

Source: Marcus Antonius Muretus (1526-1585), Juvenilia.  Meter: Dactylic Hexameter. Note the adverbial use of et in this phrase: et te, "you too, you as well."

If you strive (si studeas) to benefit others (prodesse aliis), you will benefit yourself (proderis tibi ipsi) but if you do not love others (at nisi ames alios) no one will love (nullus amabit) you likewise (et te quoque).

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

alius -a -um: other, another
amo -āre: to love
at: but, but yet
et: and
ipse, ipsa, ipsum: him- her- itself
nisi/nī: if not, unless
nūllus -a -um: not any, no one
prōsum -desse -fuī: be of use, do good, help (+ dat.)
quoque: also, too
sī: if
studeo -ēre -uī: be eager, be zealous, care for (+ dat.)
tū tuī tibi tē: you (sing.)

(image source - full size poster; poster made with AutoMotivator)

Distich Inventory

Here are some of the sources and materials I've been collecting:

Andrelinus. You can read about Andrelinus's Disticha here.

Appendini. You can read about Appendini's Disticha here.

Bornitius. I included some information about Bornitius in this blog post about Here is a blog post about Camerius and his distichs, but I need to write up a separate blog post about Bornitius and I'm pretty sure there is another book of Bornitius distichs I need to transcribe.

Camerarius. Here is a blog post about Camerius and his distichs.

Campion. You can find the epigrams of Campion at Dana Sutton's website.

Cato. Here is a blog post about Cato's distichs and the sources I used.

**Cato Bernardinus. I'm working right now on transcribing Cato Bernardinus.

Catullus. The poems of Catullus can be found at the Latin Library.

Cornelisz. Pieter Cornelisz Hooft's Emblemata amatoria (1611) is part of the Emblem Project Utrecht.

Dunbar. You can find the epigrams of Dunbar at Dana Sutton's website.

Epitaphia. I just have items here from the Latin Library collection; I need to research this topic in more detail.

Fabricius. You can read about Fabricius's Poetae Singulis Distichis Descripti here. This book also contains verses by Carchesius, Hessus, and Vicedominus.

Florilegium Gottingense. I used this edition at Google Books: Voigt: Florilegium Gottingense.

Gartner. I used this Google Book as my source: Gartner: Dicteria Proverbialia. (Did I finish harvesting from Gartner? I don't think I finished; need to check.)

Glandorpius. Here is information about Glandorpius's Distichorum liber.

Godfrey of Winchester. You can find the epigrams of Godfrey of Winchester at the Latin Library site.

Heinsius. Daniël Heinsius's Quaeris quid sit Amor (c. 1601) and his Ambacht van Cupido (1613) at the Emblem Project Utrecht.

Kochanowski. You can find Kochanowski's Latin works at Google Books.

Martial. Here is a blog post about Martial and the sources I used.

Moker. You can read about Moker's Decalogus metricus et paraenetica disticha here.

Muretus. You can find the distichs of Muretus in this edition of Publilius Syrus.

Nihus. You can read more about Nihus's Epigrammata Disticha here. So far I have only transcribed from Book 1, which contains anonymous poems, Aslepiadius, Asemnius, Augustinus, Austonius, Basilius, Claudianus, Ennius, Euphorbius, Eusthenius, Hilasius, Iulianus, Maximianus, Palladius, Pentadius, Petronius, Pompeianus, Vitalis and Vomanus. I have not done the later sections, only the ancient sections.

Östnordiska. You can find Låle's Östnordiska och latinska medeltidsordspråk at Google Books.

Oudin. You can read about Oudin's Silva distichorum moralium here.

Owen. Here is a blog post about Owen and his distichs.

Rollenhagen. Here is a blog post about Rollenhagen and his emblems.

Scaliger. You can find the iambic distichs of Scaliger in this edition of Publilius Syrus.

Stradling. You can find Stradling's Latin poetry at Dana Sutton's website.

Thomas More. I have a blog post about Thomas More and his Latin poetry here.

Verinus. Here is a blog post about Michele Verinus and his poems.

Vlaenderen. Here is information about Van Vlaenderen's Epigrammata Miscellanea.

Wegeler. I love this book! I used the edition at Google Books: Wegeler: Philosophia Patrum.

Zacher. Here is the Google Book that I used: Zacher: Altfranzösische Sprichwörter.

About: Rhyming Distichs

The distichs come from the following sources:

• Gartner: Dicteria Proverbialia
• Voigt: Florilegium Gottingense
• Wegeler: Philosophia Patrum
• Zacher: Altfranzösische Sprichwörter

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Here is the Rhyming Distich of the Day; you can see a vocabulary list and notes by visiting the latest Rhyming Distichs posts at this blog; for more information about the rhyming distichs, scroll down - meanwhile, you can also get a copy of the widget for your own website or blog if you want! Ready for more? Check out the Random Rhyming Distich too! :-)

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About: Thomas More

You can read about the life and accomplishments of Thomas More in this Wikipedia article. For this poetry, I used the edition at Internet Archive: Memoirs of Sir Thomas More
with a new translation of his Utopia, his History of King Richard III, and his Latin poems, by Arthur Cayley (1808).

Click here to see the epigrams by Thomas More published in this blog.

About: Camerarius & Bornitius

Joachim Camerarius (1534-1598) published four books of emblems about the natural world (plants-animals-birds-reptiles), with each emblem accompanied by a Latin distich along with an essay in Latin. Later, these four books were then collected into a single volume, Symbolorum et Emblematum Centuriae Quatuor (1668), which you can find at GoogleBooks. To find the single volume, with much higher quality page scans, visit the University of Munich Digital Library. There is a beautiful edition online at the Internet Archive, too. In the widget, the emblems identified as coming from Books 1, 2, 3, or 4 are from Camerius.

The widget emblems identified as Book 5 are not by Camerarius but by Bornitius. Inspired by the design of the Camerarius books, Bornitius, a.k.a. Jakob Bornitz (ca. 1560-1625), published a single "century" of emblems under the title Symbola et Emblemata, which is available at GoogleBooks; as the subtitle of the book explains: continuatio famosi Ioachimi Camerarii intitulari potest. You can find a different edition, with the emblems neatly outlined in the letters of the motto text, at the University of Mannheim CAMENA project. There is also a wonderful online edition as part of the Emblem collection at the Herzog August Bibliothek.

Meanwhile, here is a section of the title page from one of the volumes of Camerarius's emblems, Volume 1 - dedicated to plants:

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Here is the Camerarius Emblem of the Day; you can see a vocabulary list and notes by visiting the latest Camerarius posts at this blog. Meanwhile, you can also get a copy of the widget for your own website or blog if you want! Ready for more? Check out the Random Camerarius Emblem too! :-)

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About: Martial

You can read more about Martial in this Wikipedia article. I've used here the edition of Martial online at the Latin Library. You can find an old Loeb edition, available for free, at GoogleBooks, containing the Latin plus a facing translation by Walter Charles Alan Ker, 1919-1920: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

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Here is the Martial Distich of the Day; you can see a vocabulary list and notes by visiting the latest Martial posts at this blog. Meanwhile, you can also get a copy of the widget for your own website or blog if you want! Ready for more? Check out the Random Martial Distich too! :-)

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About: Cato (so-called)

No, they are not by the famous Cato the Elder of the Roman Republic, but the sayings of Cato were enormously famous and influential in the Middle Ages. They were probably composed sometime in the third or fourth century A.D., and you can learn more about them in this Wikipedia article. You can find the text online at The Latin Library; there's also a bilingual Latin-English version online. The Latin text in the widget follows that of Duff's Minor Latin Poets, online at the Internet Archive.

Here is the Cato's Distich of the Day; you can see a vocabulary list and notes by visiting the latest Cato's distich; meanwhile, you can also get a copy of the widget for your own website or blog if you want! Ready for more? Check out the Random Cato's distinch too! :-)

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About: Owen

These poems come from the epigrams of John Owen, a remarkable figure of the Latin poetry Renaissance, who was known under various Latin names: Joannes Owenus, Joannes Ovenus and Joannes Audoenus, etc.. He was born in 1564 (?), and published his epigrams in the years 1606-1613; he died in 1622 (?). You can read more about Owen's life and career in Dana Sutton's Introduction to the Epigrammata.

There is a lovely edition of the epigrams, in both Latin and in the English translation by Thomas Harvey (1677), which Dana Sutton has put online: The Epigrammata of John Owen.

• Latin: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 12
  
• English: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 12

There are numerous editions at GoogleBooks, along with a Latin-French edition and a Latin-Spanish edition.

(1658 edition of the epigrams)

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Here is the Owen epigram of the day. Click here to see illustrations and notes to the epigrams by Owen published in this blog. For more about using this widget in your own blog or website, see the Owen Epigram Widget page.

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About: Rollenhagen

Gabriel Rollenhagen, in his short lifetime (1583-1619), published two collections of Latin emblems: Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum (1611) and Emblematum centuria secunda (1613), which you can read online at the Herzog August Bibliothek online. Even more famous is the English version by George Wither (1588-1667), A Collection of Emblemes, which combines the emblems from both of Rollenhagen's books. You can see page images from Wither at Penn State and a digitized version, but without the images, at the University of Virginia. Wither supplied the emblems with lengthy poems, along with "lotteries" of additional verse; I have only included here the English distich which accompanies each emblem.

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Here is the Rollenhagen Emblem of the Day, with English verses by Wither; you can see a vocabulary list and notes by visiting the latest Rollenhagen posts at this blog; for more information about Rollenhagen and also Wither, scroll down - meanwhile, you can also get a copy of the widget for your own website or blog if you want! Ready for more? Check out the Random Rollenhagen Emblem too! :-)

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About: Verinus

Verinus was a well-known poet and a child prodigy in his day but now largely forgotten (he was born c. 1469 and died at a very young age c. 1487; more information). You can find his De moribus puerorum disticha at Google Books.

Verinus' poems became quite well-known in the 17th century as a result of being published as "Book 11" of the epigrams of John Owen starting in editions published in 1620 and later, although the poems of Book 11 were not written by Owen at all! Dana Sutton, who has created a wonderful digital edition of Owen, does not even reprint the poems and dismisses them with the following words:

This set of rather repulsive moralizing epigrams have a certain social and perhaps even psychological interest as a rare example of Renaissance Latin literature written for children. The gloomy ones that urge the young reader to brace for death’s inevitability, and to mistrust his fellow man, and even more his fellow woman, are not the sort of thing one inflicts on the modern child.

While I agree that Verinus has some gloomy verses, that is a big part of the epigrammatic tradition - Owen has some gloomy meditations on death as well, of course! As for the misogynistic poems, Owen can likewise be accused of the same. So, I am not quite sure what accounted for Sutton's vitriolic rejection of Verinus's poems, but there are quite a few of them that I like and I am excited to start publishing them here at the Disticha blog.