The Book of Proverbs — Liber Proverbiorum
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Chapter 23
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Douay-Rheims><Vulgate><Knox Bible
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When thou shalt sit to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before thy face:
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Quando sederis ut comedas cum principe, diligenter attende quæ apposita sunt ante faciem tuam.
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When thou art sitting at table with a prince, mark well what is set before thee,
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And put a knife to thy throat, if it be so that thou have thy soul in thy own power.
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Et statue cultrum in gutture tuo: si tamen habes in potestate animam tuam.
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and, have thou thy appetite under control, guard as with a drawn knife thy gullet.
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Be not desirous of his meats, in which is the bread of deceit.
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Ne desideres de cibis ejus, in quo est panis mendacii.
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Hanker thou never after those good things of his; they are bait to lure thee.
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Labour not to be rich: but set bounds to thy prudence.
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Noli laborare ut diteris, sed prudentiæ tuæ pone modum.
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Do not be at pains to amass riches; let thy scheming have its bounds.
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Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have: because they shall make themselves wings like those of an eagle, and shall fly towards heaven.
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Ne erigas oculos tuos ad opes quas non potes habere, quia facient sibi pennas quasi aquilæ, et volabunt in cælum.
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Never let thy eyes soar to the wealth that is beyond thy reach, eagle-winged against thy pursuit.
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Eat not with an envious man, and desire not his meats:
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Ne comedas cum homine invido, et ne desideres cibos ejus:
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Shun the niggard’s table; not for thee his dainties.
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Because like a soothsayer, and diviner, he thinketh that which he knoweth not. Eat and drink, will he say to thee: and his mind is not with thee.
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quoniam in similitudinem arioli et conjectoris æstimat quod ignorat. Comede et bibe, dicet tibi; et mens ejus non est tecum.
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Abstracted he sits, like soothsayer brooding over false dreams; Eat and drink, he tells thee, but his mind is far away.
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The meats which thou hadst eaten, thou shalt vomit up: and shalt loose thy beautiful words.
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Cibos quos comederas evomes, et perdes pulchros sermones tuos.
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For that grudged food thou wilt have no stomach; all gracious speech will die away on thy tongue.
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Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech.
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In auribus insipientium ne loquaris, qui despicient doctrinam eloquii tui.
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Speak not with fools for thy hearers; of thy warning utterance they will reck nothing.
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Touch not the bounds of little ones: and enter not into the field of the fatherless:
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Ne attingas parvulorum terminos, et agrum pupillorum ne introëas:
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Leave undisturbed the landmarks of friendless folk, nor encroach on the orphan’s patrimony;
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For their near kinsman is strong: and he will judge their cause against thee.
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propinquus enim illorum fortis est, et ipse judicabit contra te causam illorum.
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a strong Champion they have, to grant them redress.
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Let thy heart apply itself to instruction: and thy ears to words of knowledge.
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Ingrediatur ad doctrinam cor tuum, et aures tuæ ad verba scientiæ.
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Still let thy heart be attentive to warnings, open be thy ear to words of instruction.
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Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.
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Noli subtrahere a puero disciplinam: si enim percusseris eum virga, non morietur.
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Nor ever from child of thine withhold chastisement; he will not die under the rod;
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Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.
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Tu virga percuties eum, et animam ejus de inferno liberabis.
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rather, the rod thou wieldest shall baulk the grave of its prey.
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My son, if thy mind be wise, my heart shall rejoice with thee:
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Fili mi, si sapiens fuerit animus tuus, gaudebit tecum cor meum:
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Wise heart of thine, my son, is glad heart of mine;
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And my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips shall speak what is right.
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et exsultabunt renes mei, cum locuta fuerint rectum labia tua.
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speak thou aright, all my being thrills.
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Let not thy heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long:
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Non æmuletur cor tuum peccatores, sed in timore Domini esto tota die:
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Do not envy sinners their good fortune, but abide in the fear of the Lord continually;
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Because thou shalt have hope in the latter end, and thy expectation shall not be taken away.
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quia habebis spem in novissimo, et præstolatio tua non auferetur.
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the future holds blessings for thee, never shall that hope play thee false.
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Hear thou, my son, and be wise: and guide thy mind in the way.
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Audi, fili mi, et esto sapiens, et dirige in via animum tuum.
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Listen, then, my son, and shew thyself wise, keeping still an even course.
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Be not in the feasts of great drinkers, nor in their revellings, who contribute flesh to eat:
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Noli esse in conviviis potatorum, nec in comessationibus eorum qui carnes ad vescendum conferunt:
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Be not of their company, that drink deep and pile the dishes high at their revels;
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Because they that give themselves to drinking, and that club together shall be consumed; and drowsiness shall be clothed with rags.
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quia vacantes potibus et dantes symbola consumentur, et vestietur pannis dormitatio.
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ruined they shall be, sot and trencherman, and wake from their drunken sleep to find themselves dressed in rags.
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Hearken to thy father, that begot thee: and despise not thy mother when she is old.
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Audi patrem tuum, qui genuit te, et ne contemnas cum senuerit mater tua.
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Thine to obey the father who begot thee, nor leave thy mother without reverence in her grey hairs;
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Buy truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
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Veritatem eme, et noli vendere sapientiam, et doctrinam, et intelligentiam.
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truth to covet, hold wisdom, and self-command, and discernment for treasured heirlooms.
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The father of the just rejoiceth greatly: he that hath begotten a wise son, shall have joy in him.
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Exsultat gaudio pater justi; qui sapientem genuit, lætabitur in eo.
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Joy there is and pride in an upright man’s begetting for the glad father of a wise son;
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Let thy father, and thy mother be joyful, and let her rejoice that bore thee.
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Gaudeat pater tuus et mater tua, et exsultet quæ genuit te.
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such joy let thy father have, such pride be hers, the mother who bore thee!
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My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways.
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Præbe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi, et oculi tui vias meas custodiant.
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My son, give me the gift of thy heart, scan closely the path I shew thee.
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For a harlot is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
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Fovea enim profunda est meretrix, et puteus angustus aliena.
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What pit so deep as the harlot’s greed, what snare holds so close as wanton wife?
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She lieth in wait in the way as a robber, and him whom she shall see unwary, she will kill.
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Insidiatur in via quasi latro, et quos incautos viderit, interficiet.
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Like a footpad she lurks beside the way, a deadly peril to all that forget their troth.
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Who hath woe? whose father hath woe? who hath contentions? who falls into pits? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
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Cui væ? cujus patri væ? cui rixæ? cui foveæ? cui sine causa vulnera? cui suffusio oculorum?
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Unhappy son of an unhappy father, who is this, ever brawling, ever falling, scarred but not from battle, blood-shot of eye?
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Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink off their cups.
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nonne his qui commorantur in vino, et student calicibus epotandis?
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Who but the tosspot that sits long over his wine?
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Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shineth in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly,
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Ne intuearis vinum quando flavescit, cum splenduerit in vitro color ejus: ingreditur blande,
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Look not at the wine’s tawny glow, sparkling there in the glass beside thee; how insinuating its address!
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But in the end, it will bite like a snake, and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.
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sed in novissimo mordebit ut coluber, et sicut regulus venena diffundet.
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Yet at last adder bites not so fatally, poison it distils like the basilisk’s own.
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Thy eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter perverse things.
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Oculi tui videbunt extraneas, et cor tuum loquetur perversa.
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Eyes that stray to forbidden charms, a mind uttering thoughts that are none of thine,
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And thou shalt be as one sleeping in the midst of the sea, and as a pilot fast asleep, when the stern is lost.
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Et eris sicut dormiens in medio mari, et quasi sopitus gubernator, amisso clavo.
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shall make thee helpless as mariner asleep in mid ocean, when the tiller drops from the helmsman’s drowsy grasp.
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And thou shalt say: They have beaten me, but I was not sensible of pain: they drew me, and I felt not: when shall I awake, and find wine again?
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Et dices: Verberaverunt me, sed non dolui; traxerunt me, et ego non sensi. Quando evigilabo, et rursus vina reperiam?
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What! thou wilt say, blows all unfelt, wounds that left no sting! Could I but come to myself, and be back, even now, at my wine!