The Adages of Erasmus

by Erasmus

Erasmus was fascinated by proverbs and prepared a collection of more than 4,000 of them, accompanying each with his comments, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays. His massive compendium, characterized by his wit, his elegance, his bursts of satire alternating with serious views, was among the most learned and widely circulated of Renaissance books. This selection emphasizes Erasmus' skill in explaining the proverbs, shows how he made his book, and demonstrates the way in which many of the proverbs moved into the English language. The text is illustrated with images by Brueghel and D¦rer and examples of proverb use from emblem books. Over eighty proverb essays are presented here. Some are masterpieces of social criticism ('War is sweet to those who have never tried it'), others provide scholarly explanations of philosophical ideas or gestures and customs ('Thumbs up'). Many of the proverbs have passed into modern usage ('Know thyself' , To give someone the finger' 'Well begun is half done'), some even retaining their Latin form ('Deus ex machina'). And a few, it turns out, were created by Erasmus himself through his occasional misinterpretation of the ancient languages ('Pandora's box', 'To call a spade a spade'). This edition replaces the pioneering work by Margaret Mann Phillips, providing more essays and more detailed source and background information for the texts. It is based on the translations and scholarship of the Collected Works of Erasmus - mostly that of Sir Roger Mynors but also the work of Phillips herself.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Anthologies, Classics, Literature, History

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1536

About the author

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.

Erasmus was a classical scholar and wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will, The Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.

Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation, but while he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and Melanchthon and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to the Catholic doctrine of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.

Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant, and was buried in the Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city. A bronze statue of him was erected in his city of birth in 1622, replacing an earlier work in stone.

Reviews

[Caroline]

This is an admirable selection of Erasmus's adages, augmented by a good introduction and very helpful notes.

Erasmus's adages were phenomenally popular in the early 1500s. He constantly elaborated existing entries and added more, as edition after edition rolled off the presses. It expanded from an original 818 entries to an eventual 4151 entries. As he improved his Greek and kept reading in all the languages he knew, he found new material. This meant both new adages, and new examples of the use of adages he had already included. To show his erudition (and be more useful) he had to edit previous entries to include the new finds.

The original purpose of the collection was to offer people material to use in their own writing, law cases, sermons, and speech. Authority carried weight, so the use of an adage by a classic writer gave your own humble efforts the stamp of approval from someone like Cicero or Diogenes Laertius.

However, Erasmus expanded some of his brief commentaries on the simple meanings and appropriate use of adages to long essays on religious and political issues. Many of them offer advice to princes on the proper way to rule a kingdom. Others promote his humanistic, Evangelical views. One of the most famous, included here, is an essay on the stupidity of war. It is launched by the adage 'Dulce vellum inexpertis / War is sweet for those who have not tried it.'

The book has a nice variety of adages on all sorts of topics, from the noble one just noted, to the instructional: 'Nosce temps / consider the due time' [take time by the forelock, for she is bald behind], to the low: 'Oppedere, et orpedere contra tonitrua / to fart against the thunder.' For each adage, Barker supplies an introductory note about when it entered collection and was expanded. He also explains how it might have entered English in a different form from its original literal meaning. His many notes for each entry provide the source authors and documents that Erasmus may neglect to supply when he writes about its appearance in ancient and medieval texts. For example he often says the 'satiric poet' which Barker explains means Juvenal. The notes also offer brief information about people and events that Erasmus refers to but would be abscure to most people today.

[Carlijn Van Der Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meer een bladerboek dan een boek om van kaft tot kaft te lezen. Ik vond het niet bijzonder interessant, de verhalen waren soms wel erg lang.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erasmus pulled together adages (sayings or proverbs), constantly revising, adding to, and using them as a point of departure for political, cultural and social commentary in his era. He drew almost exclusively from classical Greek and Latin sources. He was very well read and had access to many manuscripts and books. In all, he collected and published 4,151 adages with commentary.

For this volume, William Barker selected and introduced 119 of these adages. His effort is a perfect complement to the work Erasmus did. Barker contextualizes and provides detailed references to sources for each entry. His introduction is wonderful! He also includes a few of the misinterpretations or mistranslations Erasmus made, including one that has been passed down to our day: Pandora's "Box", which should have been translated as Pandora's "jar" from the original Greek.

Some of my favorite adages include: I ii 21: simile gaudet simili ("like rejoices in like"); I iii 86: omnium horarum homo ("a man for all hours"); I v 4: evitata Charybdi in Scyllam incidi ("having escaped Charybdis I fell into Scylla", i.e. between a rock and a hard place); I vii 17: in vino veritas ("wine speaks the truth"); I vii 28: plaustrum bovem trahit ("The cart before the horse"); II iv 17: tempus omnia revelat ("time reveals all things")

A very interesting one is I viii 46: convertere pollicem: "Thumbs down. Thumbs up." Barker suggests that today's meaning of this phrase has flipped from its original intent. In the gladiatorial games, a thumbs up was a sign to kill the victim. A thumbs down meant to put the weapon down and spare the victim. Another interesting adage is I viii 91: bis dat qui cito dat: "he that gives quickly gives twice". This means that the person who helps you out before being asked is twice as good as the person who helps when asked.

Erasmus brutally attacks those in the Catholic Church who abuse their positions to gain money and power and who act very un-Christian like. Of these, I ix 12: a mortuo tributum exigere ("to exact tribute from the dead") is an especially good condemnation, especially of priests demanding money for all of their official duties. Another is III iii 1: Sileni Alcibiadis ("The Sileni of Alcibiades"). This one talks of how the Church is for and about the followers, not the leaders and hierarchy. These could have been written today.

The entire book is worth the money and time just for adage IV i. 1 (pp. 317-356): dulce bellum inexpertis, which translates as "war is sweet for those who have not tried it." This is a fantastic antiwar piece where Erasmus hits each and every point with power and finesse. Like his comments on the Church, this essay could have been written a few days ago instead of the early 1500s. "It is remarkable how widely these days, how rashly, for what trivial reasons war is begun, how cruelly and barbarously it is waged..." (p. 319) and "war is now such an accepted thing that people are astonished to find anyone who does not like it" (p. 319). He talks of how nature created man defenseless, not armored; desirous of friendship, not hatred, etc. (p. 320). It's a wonderfully written and argued piece. Another, smaller, antiwar essay is in II v 1: Spartam nactus es, hanc orna ("Sparta is your portion; do you best for her").

I thoroughly enjoyed this work and it will be a welcome reference in the years to come.

[Medhat ullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Festina lente" – Make haste slowly
"Tempus edax rerum" – Time, devourer of all things
"Nihil novi sub sole" – Nothing new under the sun
"Cogito, ergo sum" – I think, therefore I am
"Verba volant, scripta manent" – Spoken words fly, written words remain
"Faber est suae quisque fortunae" – Every man is the artisan of his own fortune
"In vino veritas" – In wine, there is truth
"Qui docet discit" – He who teaches, learns
"Multum in parvo" – Much in little
"Carpe diem" – Seize the day-horace
"Memento mori" – Remember you must die
"Amor fati" – Love of fate
"Luctor et emergo" – I struggle and emerge
"Non scholae, sed vitae discimus" – We do not learn for school, but for life

[athenrry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erasme nous offre ici une réelle opportunité de mieux connaître les peuples antiques à travers leurs auteurs mais surtout à travers ces adages qu’il sait, en bon helléniste, expliquer avec style.
C’est ouvrage est d’autant plus intéressant qu’il est écrit par cet auteur du Moyen-Age qui nous ouvre une fenêtre sur son époque à lui, sur ce qu’elle pensait de l’antiquité, de la guerre, de la paix…

C’est une lecture intéressante, surtout pour ceux qui comme moi aime l’histoire et tous les différents peuples et points de vues qu’elle a accueilli en son sein.

[Branden Rennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal best book in existence.

[Kai Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erasmus' essayistic writing is rambling and often a bit lengthy, but hey, that's a writing from a totally different era with totally different conventions.
On the content side many insights are timeless and show a deep understanding of the human being as such.
When he touches topics like the book-business and its bias towards novelty over quality, the relation of (bad) government and wars, politics and greed, the failure of acknowledging those who contribute to society, etc. etc. even a nowadays reader can feel rewarded. And after all, many of the proverbs he interprets in this book are also still in use today. With his interpretations he can reveal some aspects of these proverbs that are not so obvious anymore nowadays.