This fifth of seven volumes on the Adages continues from where the Collected Works of Erasmus volume 34 left off and includes 900 more adages from III iv 1 to IV ii 100. The aim of the Adages volumes in the CWE is to provide a fully annotated, accurate, and readable English version of the more than 4000 adages gathered, and commented on by Erasmus, sometimes in a few lines and sometimes in full-scale essays.
Following in the tradition of meticulous scholarship for which the Collected Works of Erasmus is widely known, the notes to this volume identify the classical sources and illustrate how Erasmus' reading and thinking developed over twenty-five years, a period spanned by eight revisions of the first edition of the work which appeared in 1508 and won immediate acclaim. Many of the proverbs cited by Erasmus are still in use today.