Thursday, March 29, 2012

Suum Cuique Tribue

Here is today's emblem and distich by Gabriel Rollenhagen, Book 1.88, with an English rendering by George Wither. Here you can see the Divine Judge holding forth the true scales.

Suum Cuique Tribue
Cuique suum tribuat, poenas vel praemia, iudex
lance pari ac aequis omnia ponderibus.


False Weights, with Measures false eschew
And, give to ev'ry man, their Due.



The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There are only two words in this poem that are not on the DCC list:

lanx, lancis f. - plate, dish, scale of a balance
tribuō -ere -uī tribūtum: assign, bestow, grant

aequus -a -um: equal; aequē, equally
atque, ac: and in addition, and also, and; (after comparatives) than; simul atque, as soon as
iūdex iūdicis m.: judge, juror
omnis -e: all, every, as a whole
pār paris: equal
poena -ae f.: penalty, punishment
pondus ponderis n.: weight
praemium -iī n.: bounty, reward
quis- quae- quidque: each one, everyone
suus -a -um: his own, her own, its own
vel: or else, or; even; vel . . . vel: either… or