Proverbs/Grammar ~ Grammar/Proverbs: Latin Lesson #238: One more day of "dies" sayings

The focus for today's lesson is more sayings with dies. One thing you might notice is that dies is sometimes masculine — unus dies, "one day" — and sometimes feminine, una dies, "one day." There is not a hard-and-fast rule about that, although in general the masculine dies is more likely to refer to a 24-hour period or to a date on the calendar, especially a holiday, dies festus. Of course, this is not a substantial difference of meaning, so the main thing is just to be prepared for masculine or feminine dies; you'll see them both today.

And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:

And here are today's proverbs:

1. Dies diem docet.
(One) day teaches (another) day.
dies diem docet.

You know all the words in this saying! You have both nominative dies, subject of the verb, and accusative diem, object of the verb.

The idea is that you learn today from the mistakes of yesterday. Or, at least you should try to do so: let yesterday be your teacher!

2. Urget diem nox, et dies noctem.
Night pushes day, and day (pushes) night.
urget diem nox, et dies noctem.

The new verb here is urget, "pushes, impels, drives," as in English "urgent" and "urgency."

You have both dies and diem again, and also nox, nominative, subject of the verb, and accusative noctem, object of the verb.

This is similar to the saying you saw last time: Diem nox premit, dies noctem.

3. Sufficit diei malitia sua.
Its-own trouble is-sufficient for-the-day.
SUF-ficit di-E-i ma-LI-tia sua.

Now you have diei, the dative form of dies. In the 5th declension, just as in the 3rd and 4th declensions, the final -i is the sign of the dative. The dative is an indirect object with the verb: sufficit diei, "it is sufficient for the day."

The feminine noun malitia, "badness, trouble, ill-will," is the origin of English "malice." It is nominative, the subject of the verb, and the adjective sua is also nominative feminine, agreeing with malitia. You haven't seen this word before, but you know the adjective it comes from: mala / malus / malum.

This is from the Gospel of Matthew; here is the complete verse: Nolite ergo solliciti esse in crastinum. Crastinus enim dies sollicitus erit sibi ipsi: sufficit diei malitia sua, "Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

4. Non uno est condita Roma die.
Roma was not founded in-one day.
non uno est CON-dita Roma die.

The new word here is condita, "built." The meaning of that word is pretty easy to guess since this is as famous saying also in English: "Rome wasn't built, non est condita, in one day." The form is feminine because it agrees with the subject, Roma.

In this saying, you can see that dies must be masculine because it has a masculine adjective, uno: "in (just) one day, in a single day," uno die.

The phrase ab urbe condita, abbreviated AUC, was how the Romans numbered the years of their history. You can find out more at Wikipedia: ab urbe condita.

5. Ver non una dies, non una reducit hirundo.
One day isn't spring, nor (does) one swallow bring-it-back.
ver non una dies, non una re-DU-cit hi-RUN-do.

The new verb here is reducit, "lead back, conduct, bring back." You haven't seen this verb before, but it is a compound form of a verb that you know: re-ducit, "back-leads, leads back."
This time dies is feminine, una dies, and it is the subject of the implied verb reducit, while ver is the object: "One day doesn't (bring back) spring." (The word ver is sneaky: it's a neuter 3rd-declension noun, so the accusative is the same as the nominative: ver.)

The word ver is also the implied object of reducit: "one swallow does not bring back spring." The swallow, hirundo, is a feminine noun, as dies is here, so it also takes a feminine adjective: una hirundo.

Compare a saying you've seen before: Una hirundo non facit aestatem.

Here's a recap: