The day Diogenes peed on the diners with one leg raised
BarcelonaErasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536; therefore, a very current author) wrote a In Praise of Stupidity which should be required reading in high schools: everything is relevant, educational and entertaining. (See the Catalan translation by Jaume Medina, Ed. 62 and others.) Among many things, Erasmus is the author of more than four thousand adages (Adagia, in Latin), written as Latin and Greek exercises, and conversation exercises, for schools. We would find many that could be disseminated today with the same didactic purpose as the 16th century because, as we have indicated, Erasmus is already an author of our time. There is more than one translation of the adages into Catalan, partial, which you will find in Libros del Índice and in Ediciones de la ele geminada. They are good. All knowledge is useful.
We chose one at random, number 778, so that the reader can see how the proverb corresponds to a still very much alive Catalan saying. It was taken from the magnificent French edition of The Belles Lettres, now in an affordable format, directed by Jean-Christophe Saladin, Paris, 2019, in five portable boxed volumes.
Erasmus gives the title "We mentioned feceris, ita you get involved", which cannot be translated any other way than with this Catalan expression: "What you sow, you will reap." It means, as is a matter of popular wisdom, that if you study and work when you are young, when you are older you will reap the fruits of your efforts. The reverse is not exactly true: there are many people who have not done anything good in their years of magnificent.
It seems that the first person to coin this proverb was Cicero, but Erasmus also remembers that Plautus, in the comedy Epidicus, makes one recite something similar. Translated: "Well sown, but a painful harvest is a shameful thing!" St. Paul wrote: "Those who sow with the flesh will reap only the flesh of corruption. He who sows with the spirit will receive the spirit of eternal life." Euripides, in his Hecuba, said: "He will suffer the consequences of his principles" - although there are politicians with bad principles who are very successful. Diogenes Laerci, the author of the Lives of Illustrious Philosophers, explains that the other Diogenes, the Cynic (which in Greek comes from "dog," with all its virtues), was at a luncheon and someone threw the philosopher, being of the canine school, a bone as one would to a dog; then Diogenes, wanting the offender to "reap what he had sown," began urinating on the diners with one leg raised: also "as a dog would." They couldn't complain.
Endless lessons from the classics, Greeks, Romans, and humanists, always learned and of great morality! Now they're on the decline. They'll return, as happened in Europe after the barbarian invasions.
