This is my first post here, so thank you for welcoming me around this forum.
I came by because I would need a translation of a Latin phrase to ancien Greek, OR another quote that would be close to the latin one if somebody knows about it. That’s a sentence I’ve been obsessed by from years now: TEMPUS EDAX RERUM, “time destroys everything”, by Ovid in his “Metamorphoses”.
Is this phrase after some other Greek sentence, as Ovid mostly used a bridge between both cultures? If it’s not the case, could someone give me an idea of a equivalent phrase in Greek?
Thank you in advance, everyone, and sorry for my poor English skills as well as my bad knowledges of Latin and Greek languages’ history.
Tempus edax rerum, tuque, invidiosa vetustas,
omnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus aevi
paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.
And here is the translation of Maximus Planudes in the 13th century (not really ancient Greek, and I’ve removed the line breaks, because I think it might be prose, but can’t really tell):
The equivalent of “Tempus edax rerum” here is “Ὦ χρόνε πανδαμάτορ.” The Latin means something like “O Time, devourer of all things.” The Greek means “O Time, all-subduer.”
This Greek epithet of time is very old. Here is Simonides (5th/6th century B.C.):
“ὁ πανδαμάτωρ ἀμαυρώσει χρόνος”
Maybe others can comment on whether Ovid is in fact translating Simonides here.