Proverbs/Grammar ~ Grammar/Proverbs: Latin Lesson #185: One more week of deponents!

Welcome to the final week of deponent verbs! So, just to say it one more time: these deponent verbs are special because they do not have any active forms. Their forms are always passive, but the meaning is active, and sometimes they take direct objects, just like active verbs.

And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before... which is almost all of the words in today's sayings. :-)

And now here are the sayings for today:

1. Cito lucratur, cito perditur.
(Someone) earns (something) quickly, (it) is-lost quickly.
cito lu-CRA-tur, cito PER-ditur.

The verb lucratur is deponent, passive in form but active in meaning. The word perditur, however, is a passive verb: that which you earn, lucratur, quickly, is quickly lost, perditur.

Compare the English saying: Easy come, easy go.

2. Fortuna, cum blanditur, fallit.
Luck, when she's encouraging, deceives (you).
for-TU-na, cum blan-DI-tur, fallit.

The word blanditur, "coaxes, flatters," is a deponent verb. The form is passive but the meaning is active: Fortuna blanditur te, "Lady Luck flatters you," which is exactly when you need to be on your guard, because her seeming sweetness cannot be trusted. This same root gives us the English word "blandishment." It also gives us "bland," but that is a word which has shifted in its meaning, so that from "sweet, mild, gentle," it came to mean "unstimulating, flat, tasteless."

Notice also that blanditur is a 4th-conjugation verb, so the stress is on the theme vowel: blan-DI-tur. This is a different stress pattern than for the 3rd-conjugation verbs, which are much more common: PER-ditur, LO-quitur, SE-quitur, etc.

3. Interdum stultus bene loquitur.
Occasionally (a) fool speaks well.
in-TER-dum stultus bene LO-quitur.

You already know all the words in this saying, and the deponent verb loquitur is one of the most commonly used deponent verbs in Latin.

You've seen paradoxical sayings like this before; for example: Invenit interdum caeca gallina granum.

4. Ex bono aliquando sequitur malum.
Sometimes from (a) good (thing), (a) bad (thing) follows.
ex bono ali-QUAN-do SE-quitur malum.

You also know all the words in this saying, and the deponent verb sequitur is another one of the most commonly used deponent verbs in Latin.

The words bonum and malum are neuter adjectives being used substantively here, as nouns: bonum is "(a) good (thing), something good" and malum is "(a) bad (thing), something bad."

The form bono is the ablative of bonum, used here with the preposition ex.

The form malum could be nominative or accusative (the forms are identical for all neuter nouns and adjectives), but here it is the nominative form, the subject of the verb sequitur.

5. Vitulus sequitur vaccam, filia matrem.
(The) calf follows (the) heifer, daughter (follows) mother.
VI-tulus SE-quitur vaccam, FI-lia matrem.

Here you see the verb sequitur again, and this time it has a subject in the nominative case, vitulos, and it it also an object: vaccam is the accusative form of the noun vacca, "cow." And yes, this is also the root that gives us "vaccine" in English because of the original use of cowpox virus as a vaccination against smallpox.

The implied verb sequitur in the second part of the proverb also has a subject, filia, and an object, matrem, which is the accusative form of the noun mater.

You've seen two similar sayings about mothers and daughters before: Qualis mater, talis et filia and Matris imago filia est.

Here's a recap: