Dripping Water Hollows Out Stone

written by Josip Belamarić

 

My job is honorable and fine; stone cutter they call me. This proud slogan stands on the capital near the portal of the Stone Cutting School in Pučišća on the island of Brač. On the other, Prof. Tonči Vlahović—during whose many years of management the school was thoroughly restored—had it carved with the famous motto, Dripping water hollows out stone. It is the Ovid’s hemistich Gutta cavat lapidem which, already many times quoted in the ancient Roman and Greek literature, was rounded off in the medieval hexameter (Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo), and became and remained an incentive to meditations on the passing of things and time. There are few places, however, where this proverb could be more appropriate than at the entrance to the workshops and classrooms of Brač stone cutters.