CHANGE OF MEANING IN PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS, ETC.
(Vol. viii., pp. 464, 465.)
Very hesitatingly I venture to express dissent from Mr. Keightley's ingenious suggestion of a change of meaning in the proverb "Tread on a worm and it will turn." I support my dissent, however, by the following lines from Shakspeare:
"Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?
Not he that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on;
And doves will peck in safe-guard of their brood."
Third Part of King Henry VI., Act II. Sc. 2.
King Henry says, Withhold revenge, dear God!
Clifford replies, The lion, the bear, the serpent, the smallest worm, and doves, if injured, will make an effort at revenge or defence. It is clear that Shakspeare uses the word worm as meaning, not a venomous serpent, but the most defenceless of reptiles.
Again, I do not think that Mr. Keightley's quotation from Schiller's Wallenstein's Tod supports his view. I am not a German scholar, but I find that the translator of Wallenstein's Tod (I believe Lord Ellesmere) has translated or paraphrased the lines quoted by Mr. Keightley as follows:
"But nature gave the very worm a sting,
When trampled on by man, to turn again."
The sense of the passage (spoken by Butler) requires that "wurm" should be understood to mean a harmless despised reptile, not a venomous serpent.
It seems that Schiller had Shakspeare in his mind when he wrote the lines in question; indeed, they are almost a copy of Shakspeare's line. I consider them as parallel passages.
It may not be irrelevant to observe that worm in some places still means a serpent; but I believe it has usually a prefix, as "hag-worm" in Westmoreland and the West Riding of Yorkshire; so also in the latter "slow-worm" means a species of small snake or viper found on some of the moors. (For "slow-worm," see "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., pp. 33. and 479.) I have been told that "blind-worm" in Surrey means a viper. I conclude with a Query, Does Wurm in modern German ever mean a serpent?
F. W. J.
"To put a spoke in one's wheel," is not singular in its double entendre (Vol. viii., pp. 262. 351. 464.). "There is no love lost between them" is in a similar predicament. We now speak of no love being lost between A. and B., when we would intimate that the warmth of their mutual affection may be accurately represented by 32° Fahrenheit. That this has not always been the meaning of the phrase, the following verse from the old ballad of The Children in the Wood will testify:
"Sore sick he was, and like to die,
No help that he could have;
His wife by him as sick did lie,
And both possess'd one grave.
No love between these two was lost,
Each was to other kind;
In love they lived, in love they died,
And left two babes behind."
R. Price.
St. Ives.