kopos kopon luei

[Bert]

In my reader there is a saying that goes like this; [face=SPIonic]ko/poj ko/pon lu/ei[/face]
I think I get the drift but I am not sure.
Toil dissolves toil.
In other words doing the toil now prevents hardship later. Is that right?

[ThomasGR]

My approach is a sublte differently.
I would translate it in this way, although perhaps not (literately) correct:

Toil saves Toil.

(Doing some preparation works now, it can save you much harder work later, when you have to solve the real task.)

[Emma_85]

Hmm... I'm not too sure about your translation Thomas... luw is normally only translated as save when talking about saving persons. Destroy or dissolve don't sound as good of course ...
Not sure what it means exactly though, maybe it's as Thomas said, you work now and save doing work later, but I'm not sure, I mean it depends on the context. It could be like that, but my guess is that this is a play on words, that is the word kopos has two meanings and both are used in this sentence.
kopos means:
a) tiredness
b) work/toil
so 'tiredness destroys work', as you can't toil or work when you're tired.

[ThomasGR]

MAybe you are right, what about then
Toil spares Toil

...
but when I was an apprentice, that proverb was used by my master all the time. He referred to preparations, than can spare someone from tedious work and make look the real task easy to manage.

[Emma_85]

Toil spares Toil

Hmm... save was better than spare... eh... which dictionary are you using? My dictionary is quite limited listing only about three basic possible translations of luw in act./pass., but I couldn't find that meaning (spare) in the Liddell on the perseus site either.

[ThomasGR]

I do not try to make a good translation,
but to render the meaning of this proverb.

[Bert]

Thanks guys.
Thomas' rendering does fit in the context.
The Little Liddell does have as one of its meanings; to relax, to weaken.
If it weakens or relaxes the future toil, it saves you from doing that much then.
Kind of like, "A stitch in time saves nine"

[Emma_85]

ah... I thought you were trying to give an exact translation in your second post... I didn't realise you were just trying to make the meaning of the sentence more clear . I understand what you mean and as I said I don't actually know what the meaning of this ancient Greek proverb is for sure. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[Emma_85]

Hmmm... what exactly is the context?

[Bert]

Hmmm... what exactly is the context?

The boy who wrote this proverb was describing the drudgery of doing math repetitions, learning the multiplication tables etc.
Then he says [face=SPIonic]ko/poj ko/pon lu/ei [/face]
I didn't go into the context because I thought that this might be a well known proverb. Oops.