The Sermon on the Mount and other discourses of our Lord afford us numerous examples of the national Jewish proverbs.[171:B] "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is one illustration of this kind of popular folk-lore, and "Cast not your pearls before swine," is another; and in the old Greek proverb, "A scorpion for a perch," we have practically, "If he asks a fish will he give him a serpent?"
The Spaniards say, "Echar magaritas a puercos," and this throwing of pearls before swine re-appears in English proverb-lore, and, indeed, much further afield.
To "buy a pig in a poke" is to make a purchase without knowing really what one is buying. The alliteration has, no doubt, given the saying an added popularity. In France it is, "acheter chat en poche," or "acheter le chat pour le lièvre," a cat being palmed off as a hare on the incautious purchaser. We see now, too, how a determination to see for oneself would "let the cat out of the bag," and expose the trickery of the proceeding.
When a man has heedlessly made a bad bargain he is said, ironically, to have "brought his pigs to a pretty market"—the advantageous sale of his pig being a very important matter to the country cottager, meaning the payment of his rent, the clearing of the score at the village shop, and his general rehabilitation in the ranks of the solvent.[172:A] The generally unsympathetic and unsociable nature of the pig and his human counterparts is expressed in such sayings as: "Feed a pig and you will have a hog," and "What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?" while its "wallowing in the mire," and being well content to have it so,[172:B] has also been utilised as a warning.
A bit of homely advice, quaintly put, is found in this—"Do not drive black hogs at night." "Much cry and no wool" is the result of shearing swine, a hopeless task. The adage is often met with. In Fortescue's treatise on "Absolute and Limited Monarchy," written over four hundred years ago, we find a reference to "the man that scheryd his hogge, moche crye and no wull." In a book published in 1597 it runs: "Of the shearing of hogges there is great crie for so little wolle," and we find the saying again in "Hudibras" and many other books, and in old plays.
In "Hudibras," too, may be found the equally familiar expression, "wrong sow by the ear," a proverb of great antiquity that occurs frequently in the old dramas. We are told by some etymologists that the sow in question is not porcine at all, but is a large tub with handles. Sowsed meat is meat that has been in pickle in one of these sows. To have got the wrong sow (by the ear or handle for facility of moving) is to have brought the wrong vessel. To confirm this view they quote the old Latin proverb, "Pro amphora urceolus"—instead of the great amphora you have brought me a small pitcher. Either reading will serve the turn, and is of like significance in application—the warning against getting hold of an entirely wrong idea and hammering away at it.
To "cast sheep's eyes" on one is to snatch a hasty glance, looking askance with sheep-like timidity on some fair object whose regard has not been won or as yet appealed to. The idea that "One black sheep infects the flock and poisons all the rest" has, we need scarcely say, no warrant in actual fact, though, morally, a black sheep is a dangerous addition to any flock, a something to be promptly eliminated from regiment, workshop, school, or whatever other body he may be infecting or exposing to risk of contagion. A much more attractive adage is the well-known declaration, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." The French say, "À brebis tondue Dieu mesure le vent," and the English proverb, as we find Herbert using it in 1640, is a repetition of this—"To a close-shorn sheep God gives wind by measure." This shearing process suggested eighteen hundred years ago, or possibly long before this,[174:A] the proverb, "Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere"—"It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them." This note of warning is repeated in the reminder that "The orange that is too hard squeezed yields a bitter juice," both proverbs teaching moderation.
It is a pleasant little saying that "He who has one sheep in the flock will like all the rest the better for it." In these happy islands the fear of the wolf has long been extinct, but in other lands the sheep and the wolf are often bracketted together in their proverbs; thus in France one is warned against a too self-effacing humility in this world in the words, "He that maketh himself a sheep shall be eaten of the wolf"; while another lesson of worldly prudence is taught in the Italian proverb, "It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor." The Spaniard says, "Oveja que bala bocada pierde"—"The sheep loses a mouthful when it bleats," a proverb which seems to encourage mere greediness at the expense of social converse, but which we may take more favourably to imply that it is better to stick steadily to one's work than break off for useless interruptions and, possibly, querulous complaints.
A "bull in a china shop" calls up a picture of tremendous uproar and devastation. The ancient Greeks substituted "An ass peeping." Menander, three hundred years before the Christian era, refers to it, as do Lucian and others. The story upon which it is founded is, that an ass, being driven along the road, put its head into the shop of a potter. This potter was a great lover of birds, and had many of them in his shop, and the sudden appearance of the ass's great head frightened them and led to a big smashing up of the crockery. The moral may be found in another ancient saying—"A mad beast must have a sober driver." The Latin "Bovem in lingua habet"—"He has an ox on his tongue"—is a hint that the man has been bribed to silence or false speech, an ox being a favourite device on the coins. Another saying of like significance is that, "The man has a bone in his mouth." A valuable lesson to the discontented, a warning that necessary troubles must be endured, that duties may not be shirked, is this—"To what place can the ox go where he will not plough?"
That the malicious cannot do all the harm they would is happily suggested in the adage, "Curst cows have curt horns." This proverb is centuries old, and is merely a translation from an ancient Latin[175:A] original—if indeed it be safe to suggest any date when this proverb sprung into birth—for it is quite possible that Noah quoted it as a bit of the good old wisdom of his forefathers.