Laudator Temporis Acti

Erasmus, Adagia I ii 23 (tr. Margaret Mann Phillips, with R.A.B. Mynors' notes):

Semper graculus adsidet graculo
Jackdaw always sits by jackdaw

Ἀεὶ κολοιὸς παρὰ κολοιὸν ἱζάνει. Jackdaw always sits by jackdaw. This proverb, an iambic line, is found in Diogenianus, and it is noted in the book of Aristotle's Rhetoric which I have just quoted, where he calls it to mind among other proverbs of the same nature, and also in book 8 of his Ethics: 'And jackdaw to jackdaw.' (This is a trochaic dimeter in Greek, no doubt taken from some poet.) Gregory made use of the adage with some elegance in a letter to Eudoxius: 'That jackdaw sits by jackdaw you hear the proverb say.' Varro in book 3 of his Agriculture attests that gatherings of jackdaws have long been known, whence Plutarch says, in 'On Having Many Friends,' 'It is neither like a herd of cattle nor like a flock of daws.' The bird's name in Greek comes from the word kolao, I glue together, and Varro thinks that their Latin name too comes from their habit of flying in flocks (graculus from gregatim). Quintilian does not agree, but asserts that the name was invented from the bird's call.

23 Collectanea no 721, derived from Diogenianus 1.61 (the adage is also in Zenobius 2.47 and Suidas K 1968). Tilley L 283 The like, I say, sits with the jay. 5 Aristotle] Rhetoric 1.11 (1371b15), used in i ii 20; Ethica Nicomachea 8.1 (1155a34). The origin of the line seems to be unknown.

trochaic dimeter] In principle, two units of four syllables each, scanning long-short-long-short. This metrical parenthesis, which was added like many of the metrical comments in the Adagia in 1528, refers only to the phrase as quoted in the second passage from Aristotle, and it is quite possible that its apparently metrical structure is purely accidental.

Gregory] of Nazianzus, Epistulae 178.8 (PG 37.3653), added in 1533 (see i iv 98n).

Varro] Res rusticae 3.16.4 (see i i 40n).

Plutarch] Moralia 93E

Varro] De lingua latina 5.76, cited by Quintilian 1.6.37 (a passage to which Erasmus returns in i iv 37). This discussion of the origin of the word, which, like nearly all ancient etymology, is quite imaginary, was added in 1528. We should not now expect the same man to write valuable manuals on agriculture and on philology, as well as satires (see i ii 60n); but Varro (116-27 BC) was a polymath and a ready writer.

Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 268 (graculus): Related posts:

• People of the Same Stock
• Incompatibility
• Flocking Together
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together
• Like Is Dear to Like
• Akin and Alike
• Worlds Apart