Our readers will recall Spenser's eulogium on
"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternal beadroll worthie to be fyled."
The proverb-seeker finds in his picturesque pages abundant store. The "nonne preeste" exclaims, "Mordre wol out, that see we day by day," and in the Reve's prologue he reminds us that "Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken"; or, as a later writer hath it, "E'en in our ashes live our wonted fires." Chaucer again reminds us that "The proverbe saith that many a small makith a grete"; or, as it is sometimes given, "Many a little makes a mickle." The French tell us that even the drainage of the great deep is possible if only there be sufficient patience: "Goutte à goutte la mer s'egoute."[82:A] Every heart knows its own bitterness, knows all about that skeleton in the cupboard that the world has no suspicion of, knows just where the shoe pinches. Hence Chaucer exclaims, "But I wot best when wryngeth me my scho";[83:A] and in his "Testament of Love," where he writes, "Lo, eke an old proverb, he that is still seemeth as he granted," or, as we should say now-a-days, "Silence gives consent."[83:B] Another well-known adage and piece of worldly wisdom is, "Of two ills choose the least," a proverb found in the "Imitation of Christ" of À Kempis, in Hooker's "Polity," and elsewhere. Chaucer is to the fore with the saying, "Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese." The saying appears as "E duobus malis minimum eligendum" in the pages of Cicero, so that it is not by any means an adage of yesterday's creation. It was, doubtless, a venerable saying long before Cicero employed it. When the idea got compacted into a recognised wisdom-chip, who can say? The rule of conduct is so clear and so in accordance with common-sense that we may well believe that the practice, if not the precept, would date from about the year one.
A "nine days' wonder" appears in the pages of the "Troilus" of Chaucer, as "Eke wonder last but nine daies never in towne." A thing makes a great sensation for a few days, and then something else arises, and the former matter is quite forgotten. Chaucer's addition to the adage of the limitation to town is curious, though on consideration a good deal can be said for it, since in towns incidents succeed each other quickly, and aid this obliteration of the past. Sometimes the proverb is extended into "A nine days' wonder, and then the puppy's eyes are open"—in allusion to the fact that dogs, like cats and several other animals, are born blind. One may read this as referring to those who make a wonder of an ordinary thing; the blindness of these little new-born puppies, or, in somewhat less literal sense, the puppies whose eyes are presently open, are those people who are blind and puzzled over some incident which they presently see through and unravel, and then lose all interest in.
As an encouragement to those who seem to be the victims of one misfortune after another, of continued ill fortune, the ancient saw is quoted, "'Tis a long lane has no turning." The expression is a picturesque one, and no doubt carries comfort and teaches patience. In the pages of Chaucer it appears as "Som tyme an end ther is on every deed." The only time we knew it absolutely to fail was in the case of an old man named Lane, who had his full share of the worries of life, and to whom one kindly well-wisher after another quoted this well-worn saying. Each thought that he had hit upon a happy idea, and applied it there and then, in full faith that it would be of soothing efficacy, but as, in the aggregate, the old fellow had had it fired off at him some hundreds of times, it acted instead as a powerful irritant! It was one trouble the more to carry through life.
One might, in the same way, though we have by no means exhausted the Chaucerian wealth of proverb-lore, hunt through the pages of Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and other writers, and should reap an abundant harvest. It may be somewhat of a shock that Milton's name should appear in such a connection, since the stately dignity of his work would appear entirely alien to the general tone of the popular adage; but one sees in this passage from "Comus"—
"Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining to the night?"—
a beautiful allusion to a well-known proverb. The plays of Shakespeare abound with these proverbial allusions. In the "Taming of the Shrew," for instance, we find, "Now, were I a little pot and soon hot," a proverb applied to short-tempered people who on slight cause wax wroth. The homely pot plays its part in homely conversation. The man whom Fortune has thwarted "goes to pot," waste and refuse metal to be cast into the melting-pot. The man on hospitable thoughts intent may invite his neighbour to pot-luck, to such chance repast, good or bad, as the "pot au feu" may yield. People who deride or scorn others for matters in which they are at least as much concerned are compared to the pot that called the kettle black,[85:A] while the rashness of those who, insufficiently provided with this world's goods, seek to rival others better provided and come to grief in the experiment, are reminded how the brazen and earthen pot swam down together on the swirling flood and collided to the detriment of the pitcher.[85:B] In "King Henry VI." we have "Ill blows the wind that profits nobody,"[85:C] and "Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep." In "Hamlet" the familiar adage, "Murder will out," appears as "Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak." "Every dog has his day"; we say: every man his chance, so in "Hamlet" we find—
"Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."
In "Othello" we come across an equally well-known proverb, "They laugh that win," so quaintly curtailed by Heywood into "He laugth that winth." Another familiar adage is that "Use is second nature," and this Shakespeare, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," refines into "How use doth breed a habit in a man!" In "As You Like It" another well-known saw presents itself in the lines, "If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue." The bush in question was an ivy-bough, the emblem of Bacchus, and the custom of marking the wine-shop by this dates from Roman days. "Vino vendibili hedera non opus est." The custom was continued throughout the Middle Ages; but a good article, the proverb tells us, needs no advertisement, or, as the French proverb hath it, "Au vin qui se vend bien il ne faut point de lierre."