Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTIONTO DICTA CATONISIn the educational training: of the Middle Ages,when Donatus supplied the rudiments, an early andsafe reading-book ^vas the compendium of practicalethics which passed under the name of " Cato."Here was a work with much of the unimpeachablebut hackneyed morality of the copy-book headline,and a useful repertory of material for adorning theletters of a young student desirous of creating agood impression when he ^\Tote home. It is significantthat Chaucer accounts for the foolish marriageof the carpenter in the Miller s Tale by remarkingthat " he knew not Catoun, for his wit was rude."This vade ineaun of proverbial wisdom has. however,bequeathed an extraordinary number of enigmasits title and the meaning of the title, the date ofdifferent strata in our collections, the proportionborne by what we now possess to the larger corpusof Dicta Catonis once in existence, the relation of thesingle lines to the couplets, the disentanglement ofpagan elements from Christian additions or alterations,and the textual criticism of what has beenhanded down to us, all constitute problems ofconsiderable difficulty.Inscriptional evidence proves that about the endof the second century a.d. some of the proverbs585