Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Mores Peiores

This is an item from Anton Moker's Decalogus metricus et paraenetica disticha, published in 1573. You can see the book at GoogleBooks.

Mores Peiores
Mutantur mores, quando cumulantur honores;
Peiores fieri saepius inde solent.

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

cumulō, cumulāre: heap up, accumulate
pēior, pēius (pēiōris): worse

fīō fierī factus sum: become
honor -ōris m.: honor, glory; office, post
inde: from there, from then
mōs mōris m.: custom, habit; (pl.) character
mūtō -āre: change
quandō: when?; since; si quando: if ever
saepe: often
soleō -ēre -uī -itum: be accustomed