A play on a Latin proverb?

Question

Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1)Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.I'm told this is a play on a Latin proverb.Can anyone explain?

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[nq:1]Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1) Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem. I'm told this is a play on a Latin proverb. Can anyone explain?[/nq]
Labor's?
Reminds me of a construction site sign I saw a few years back, Labor's Wanted.

dg

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[nq:1]Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1) Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem. I'm told this is a play on a Latin proverb. Can anyone explain?[/nq]
Assuming Holofernes' remark to mean "the word dunghill has been substituted for the word unguem," I searched on "ad unguem":

Latin and Greek phrases
Definition of: ad unguem
ad unguem: To a nicety; exactly.
Ad unguem. To the minutest point.
ad unguem; to an inch; to a nicety, to a hair, to a turn, to a T

Best Donna Richoux

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[nq:1]Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1) Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem. I'm told this is a play on a Latin proverb. Can anyone explain?[/nq]
It's not a proverb. Don't believe everything (anything?) you read at Cyn City. The word "proverb" is frequently used of catch-phrases for reasons I don't understand. For example, we have the related phrases, all claimed to be proverbs:
"Ab imis unguibus usque ad verticem summum" = "from top to toe" (Cicero), "non tranversum unguem discedere" = "not miss by nail's breadth" (Cicero), "*** medium ostenderet unguem" = "to flip the bird" (Juvenal).
"Ad unguem" is from Horace, Satires book 1 #4, l.32, meaning literally "to the fingernail" and figuratively "to perfection". He also used equivalently "in unguem." In Satires book 1 #5 l.62 "ad unguem factus ****" to mean "a man accomplished to his fingertips."

Horace was fond of expressions about fingernails. In his Odes book 3 #6 l.24(1) he uses "de teneri ungui" (from the tender fingernail) to mean "from early youth." Odes book 3 is also the source of "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (#2 l.13), in case you need to know this when you read Wilfrid Owen's poem.
"Unguis" can mean, as well. toe-nail, claw, or hoof.

(1) Odes book3 #6 has more memorable going-to-the-dogs lines later (c. l.45):
Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
Aetas parentum peior avis tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem.

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[nq:2]Love's Labor's Lost (act V, scene 1) Costard: Go to; ... is a play on a Latin proverb. Can anyone explain?[/nq]
[nq:1]It's not a proverb. Don't believe everything (anything?) you read at Cyn City. The word "proverb" is frequently used of ... you need to know this when you read Wilfrid Owen's poem. "Unguis" can mean, as well. toe-nail, claw, or hoof.[/nq]
(small reluctant snip)
So "*at* the fingers' ends" is a deliberate misinterpretation?

On the transition: Google turns up an article in Catalan using the (perhaps medieval; mentioned in connection with Petrarch & Erasmus) Latin phrase "usque ad ungulam", seeming to mean "thoroughly" (Not as easy to read as thought.) On the other hand, if "ad dungill" rhymes with "jungle", he might be getting to "unguis" through the French "ongle". CDB

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[nq:1]It's not a proverb.[/nq]
He should have said 'saying' or 'cliche'?
[nq:1]"*** medium ostenderet unguem" = "to flip the bird" (Juvenal).[/nq]
Surely Juvenal didn't attach the same meaning to that one that most people would today?
[nq:1]Aetas parentum peior avis tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem.[/nq]
Italy wake up and change your ways, if you
remain degenerate you will not survive and
there will be no one left to read these words:
The age of our parents, more accursed than the
previous age, sired us even more accursed, soon
will shall breed a generation viler still.
Ain't Google wonderful? I wouldn't look half so smart without it!

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[nq:1]Horace was fond of expressions about fingernails. In his Odes book 3 #6 l.24(1) he uses "de teneri ungui" (from the tender fingernail) to mean "from early youth."[/nq]
Bennett's Loeb gives that as , and glosses it 'with passion unrestrained', footnoted: "Literally: 'from her tender nail'; i.e. in every fibre (sic) of her being."

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[nq:2]"*** medium ostenderet unguem" = "to flip the bird" (Juvenal).[/nq]
[nq:1]Surely Juvenal didn't attach the same meaning to that one that most people would today?[/nq]
Juvenal used it to mean "to show derision by pointing."

A play on a Latin proverb?

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