Key to Extra Reading: Units 8 - 15

1. (i) You are measuring sand.
   (ii) You are sinking your ship in port.
   (iii) You are carrying firewood to a forest.
   (iv) You are washing a brick
   (v) You are spitting on to the sky.
   (vi) You are entrusting seeds to sand.
   (vii) You are dissecting fire.
   (viii) You have come after the feast.
   (ix) You are displaying a mouse for a lion.
   (x) You are drawing water in a sieve.
   (xi) You are hunting winds with a net.
   (xii) You are bringing up the siege engines after the war.
   (xiii) An old woman is celebrating the rites of Bacchus (as Bacchanalian orgies involved very vigorous movement they were hardly suited to a person of mature years)
   (xiv) You are fishing in the air [but] hunting in the sea.
   (xv) You are asking for water from pumice.
   (xvi) You are fitting the boots of Hercules on an infant (cf. to send a boy on a man’s errand).
   (xvii) You are seeking water in the sea.
   (xviii) You are seeking the wings of a wolf.
   (xix) You are talking to the wind.
   (xx) You are comparing a tortoise to Pegasus.
   
   
2. Above the moon all things are eternal.
   
   
3. Bad company (lit. meetings) corrupts good character (cf. evil communications corrupt good manners (New Testament, 1 Corinthians, 15, 33) , which is in fact taken from the Greek comedian Menander).
   
   
4. He who dies by his own weapons is destroyed twice.
   
   
5. A fox is not corrupted by gifts (i.e. cannot be persuaded to act contrary to its nature).
   
   
6. No missile which has been thrown into a crowded line [of men] falls in vain.
   
   
7. He cannot put three words together.
   
   
8. Truth can be in difficulties [but] it cannot be conquered.
   
   
9. Injury is not done to a willing person (i.e. someone willing to endure it).
   
   
10. In mighty [projects] even to have wished is sufficient. (Propertius, II, 10, 6)
    
    
11. I cannot carry a kid-goat and you put an ox [on my back].
    
    
12. A word when heard perishes [but] the written letter remains.
    
    
13. Sextus, you owe nothing; you owe nothing, Sextus, I admit it, for a person owes [money] if he is able to pay [it], Sextus. (Martial, II, 3)
    
    
14. A person who prefers to give half to Linus [rather] than lend the whole, prefers to lose half. (Martial, I, 75)
    
    
15. One-eyed Lycoris, Fastinus, loves a boy resembling the Trojan page. How well she sees [though] one-eyed! (Ganymede, son of a Trojan king (Iliacus=Trojan), was so handsome that he was abducted by Jupiter and made cup-bearer to the gods; Martial, III, 39)
    
    
16. Diaulus was recently a doctor [but] is now an undertaker; what he does as an undertaker he had also done as a doctor. (Martial, I, 47)
    
    

(c) Gavin Betts 2000