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CURIOSITAS FUGIENDA.

CURIOSITY SHOULD BE SHUNNED

Man chained to a rock being pecked by an eagle
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Mitte arcana Dei coelumque inquirere quid sit.
Nec sapias plusquàm debet homo sapere.
Caucaseo vinctus monet hoc in rupe Prometheus
Scrutator coeli, fur & in igne Iovis.
Cui cor edax Aquila in redivivo vulnere rodit.
Materia poenis sufficiente suis.
Ἣ δὲ προμηθει’ ἄχος δάκνει κέαρ ἔντερον ἔνδον
Καρδιοβρόσκος ὅμως ἄετος ἐστὶν ἄχος.[1]

Don’t ask the secrets of God or what the heavens are; nor is it right that you should be wiser than a man should be. Prometheus, chained to the Caucasian rock, warns you thus, the spy of heaven, and the thief of Jove’s fire, whose heart an eagle gnawed in a wound forever fresh, as he served up the means of his own punishment. Foreknowledge, suffering bites the inner heart within; the suffering is like a heart-eating eagle.

Notes:

1.  The Greek again is very difficult to construe, and certainly corrupt.

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