Irony from 16th-century Italy
Published by marco on
The post Filosofia monosillabica by Mark Liberman (Language Log) included the image reproduced to the left.
Taking some artistic license, this translates roughly to:
Who can, will not
Who wills[1], cannot
Who knows, does not
Who does, knows not
And so the world
goes badly
[1] I use “will” in both cases in the will-to-live sense, when perhaps “wants” would be a more appropriate modern translation. But “wants” would impose a messy “doesn’t want to” translation.↩