The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought / Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day

by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

1. A child may have too much of its mother's blessing.

2. A kiss from my mother made me a painter.—Benj. West.

3. Ama sinhesten, ezduenac, ain zuna. [Who does not follow his mother will follow his stepmother, i.e. who will not hear must feel.]—Basque.

4. A mother curses not her son.—Sanskrit.

5. An ounce o' mother-wit is worth a pound o' clergy.—Scotch.

6. As if he had fallen out of his mother's mouth (i.e. so like his mother).—Low German.

7. Barmherzige Mütter ziehen grindige Töchter. [Compassionate mothers bring up scabby daughters.]—German.

8. Choose cloth by its edge, a wife by her mother.—Persian.

9. Das Kind, das seine Mutter verachtet, hat einen stinkenden Atem. [The child that despises its mother has a fetid breath.]—German.

10. Das Kind fällt wieder in der Mutter Schooss. [The child falls back into its mother's bosom.]—German.

11. Das Kind folgt dem Busen. [The child follows the bosom.]—German.

12. Die Mutter eine Hexe, die Tochter auch eine Hexe. [Mother a witch, daughter also a witch.]—German.

13. Die Tochter ist wie die Mutter. [Like mother, like daughter.]—German.

14. Es meinet jede Frau, ihr Kind sei ein Pfau. [Every woman thinks her child a peacock.]—German.

15. Es ist kein' so böse Mutter, sie zöhe gern ein frommes Kind. [There is no mother so bad but that she will bring up a good child.]—German.

16. Fleissige Mutter hat faule Tochter. [A diligent mother has a lazy daughter.]—German.

17. God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.—Henry Ward Beecher.

18. Happy is the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it.—Hare.

19. He deceives thee, who tells thee that he loves thee more than thy mother does.—Russian.

20. He has faut [i.e. need] o' a wife that marries mam's pet. —Scotch.

21. He that is born of a hen must scrape for a living.

22. I have always found that the road to a woman's heart lies through her child.—Haliburton.

23. I would desire for a friend the son who never resisted the tears of his mother.—Lacretelle.

24. If the world were put into one scale and my mother into the other, the world would kick the beam.—Lord Langdale.

25. In a matter of life and death don't trust even your mother; she might mistake a black bean [nay] for a white one [yea].—Alcibiades.

26. lst eine Mutter noch so arm, so giebt sie ihrem Kinde warm. [However poor a mother is, she keeps her child warm.]—German.

27. It is not as thy mother says, but as thy neighbours say. —Hebrew.

28. Jedes Mutterkind ist schon. [Every mother's child is beautiful.]—German.

29. Keine Mutter tragt einen Bastart. [No mother bears a bastard.]—German.

30. La madre pitiosa fa la figluola tignosa. [A merciful mother makes a scabby daughter.]—Italian.

31. Like mother, like daughter.

32. Mai agucosa, filha preguicosa. [Diligent mother, idle daughter.]—Portuguese.

33. Mere piteuse fait sa fille rogneuse. [A merciful mother makes her daughter scabby.]-French.

34. Milk with water is still milk [i.e. though, your mother is bad, she is nevertheless your mother].—Badaga.

35. Mothers' darlings are but milksop heroes.

36. Mothers' love is the cream of love.

37. Muttertreu wird taglich neu. [Mother's truth keeps constant youth.]—German.

38.
Mysterious to all thought,
A mother's prime of bliss,
When to her eager lips is brought
Her infant's thrilling kiss.—Keble.

39. Nature sent women into the world that they might be mothers and love children, to whom sacrifices must ever be offered, and from whom none can be obtained.—Jean Paul.

40. No bones are broken by a mother's fist.—Russian.

41. No hay tal madre come la que pare. [There is no mother like her who bears.]—Spanish.

42.
O l'amour d'une mere! amour quo nul n'oublie!
Pain merveilleux, que Dieu partage et multiplie!
Table toujours servie au paternel foyer!
Chacun en a sa part, et tous l'ont tout entier.
[O mother-love! love that none ever forgets!
Wonderful bread, that God divides and multiplies!
Table always spread beside the paternal hearth!
Each one has his part of it, and each has it all!]
—Victor Hugo.

43. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.

44. One scream of fear from a mother may resound through the whole life of her daughter.—Jean Paul.

45.
Seem I not as tender to him
As any mother?
Ay, but such a one
As all day long hath rated at her child,
And vext his day, but blesses him asleep.
—Tennyson.

46. Sind die Kinder klein, so treten sie der Mutter auf den Schooss; sind die Kinder gross, so treten sie der Mutter auf das Herz. [When the children are small they tread upon the mother's breast; when they are large they tread upon the mother's heart.]—German.

47. So moder, so dogter. [Like mother, like daughter.]—Frisian.

48.
Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lacrymosa
Quo pendebat Filius.

[Sorrow-stricken stood the Mother
Weeping by the cross
On which hung her Son.]
—Mediaeval Latin Hymn.

49. Tendresse maternelle toujours se renouvelle. [A mother's affection is forever new.]—French.

50. The child is often kissed for the mother's (nurse's) sake.

51. The elephant does not find his trunk heavy, nor the mother her babe.—Angolese (Africa).

52. The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.—Napoleon.

53. The good mother says not "Will you?" but gives.—Italian.

54. The mother's heart is always with her children.

55. The mother's breath is aye sweet.—Scotch.

56. The mother knows best if the child be like the father.

57. The mother makes the house or mars it.

58. The nurse's bread is better than the mother's cake. —Frisian.

59. The prayer of the mother fetches her child out of the bottom of the sea.—Russian.

60. The watchful mother tarries nigh, Though sleep has closed her infant's eye.—Keble.

61. There is nothing more charming to see than a mother with her child in her arms, and there is nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her children.—Goethe.

62. Though a mother be a wolf, she does not eat her cub's flesh.—Afghan.

63. Timidi mater non flet. [The coward's mother need not weep.]—Latin.

64. To a child in confinement its mother's knee is a binding-post. —Hitopadesa.

65. Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all mothers venerable.—Jean Paul.

66. Unless the child cries even the mother will not give it suck.—Telugu.

67. Wer ein saugendes Kind hat, der hat eine singende Frau. [Whoever has a suckling child, has a singing wife.]—German.

68. Wer dem Kinde die Nase wischt, kusst der Mutter den Backen. [Whoever wipes a child's nose kisses the mother's cheek.]—German.

69. What a mother sees coils itself up, but does not come out [i.e. the faults of her child].-Angolese (Africa).

70. You desire, O woman, to be loved ardently and forever until death; be the mothers of your children.—Jean Paul.

71. Zu solchen Kindern gehort eine solche Mutter. [To such children belongs such a mother.]—German.