Pasquier, in his Récherches sur la France, reviewing the periodical changes of ancient families in feudal times, observes, that a proverb among the common people conveys the result of all his inquiries; for those noble houses, which in a single age declined from nobility and wealth to poverty and meanness, gave rise to the proverb, Cent ans bannières et cent ans civières! “One hundred years a banner and one hundred years a barrow!” The Italian proverb, Con l’Evangilio si diventa heretico, “With the gospel we become heretics,”—reflects the policy of the court of Rome; and must be dated at the time of the Reformation, when a translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue encountered such an invincible opposition. The Scotch proverb, He that invented the maiden first hanselled it; that is, got the first of it! The maiden is that well-known beheading engine, revived by the French surgeon Guillotine. This proverb may be applied to one who falls a victim to his own ingenuity; the artificer of his own destruction! The inventor was James, Earl of Morton, who for some years governed Scotland, and afterwards, it is said, very unjustly suffered by his own invention. It is a striking coincidence, that the same fate was shared by the French reviver; both alike sad examples of disturbed times! Among our own proverbs a remarkable incident has been commemorated; Hand over head, as the men took the Covenant! This preserves the manner in which the Scotch covenant, so famous in our history, was violently taken by above sixty thousand persons about Edinburgh, in 1638; a circumstance at that time novel in our own revolutionary history, and afterwards paralleled by the French in voting by “acclamation.” An ancient English proverb preserves a curious fact concerning our coinage. Testers are gone to Oxford, to study at Brazennose. When Henry the Eighth debased the silver coin, called testers, from their having a head stamped on one side; the brass, breaking out in red pimples on their silver faces, provoked the ill-humour of the people to vent itself in this punning proverb, which has preserved for the historical antiquary the popular feeling which lasted about fifty years, till Elizabeth reformed the state of the coinage. A northern proverb among us has preserved the remarkable idea which seems to have once been prevalent, that the metropolis of England was to be the city of York; Lincoln was, London is, York shall be! Whether at the time of the union of the crowns, under James the First, when England and Scotland became Great Britain, this city, from its centrical situation, was considered as the best adapted for the seat of government, or for some other cause which I have not discovered, this notion must have been prevalent to have entered into a proverb. The chief magistrate of York is the only provincial one who is allowed the title of Lord Mayor; a circumstance which seems connected with this proverb.
The Italian history of its own small principalities, whose well-being so much depended on their prudence and sagacity, affords many instances of the timely use of a proverb. Many an intricate negotiation has been contracted through a good-humoured proverb,—many a sarcastic one has silenced an adversary; and sometimes they have been applied on more solemn, and even tragical occasions. When Rinaldo degli Albizzi was banished by the vigorous conduct of Cosmo de’ Medici, Machiavel tells us the expelled man sent Cosmo a menace, in a proverb, La gallina covava! “The hen is brooding!” said of one meditating vengeance. The undaunted Cosmo replied by another, that “There was no brooding out of the nest!”
I give an example of peculiar interest; for it is perpetuated by Dante, and is connected with the character of Milton.
When the families of the Amadei and the Uberti felt their honour wounded in the affront the younger Buondelmonte had put upon them, in breaking off his match with a young lady of their family, by marrying another, a council was held, and the death of the young cavalier was proposed as the sole atonement for their injured honour. But the consequences which they anticipated, and which afterwards proved so fatal to the Florentines, long suspended their decision. At length Moscha Lamberti suddenly rising, exclaimed, in two proverbs, “That those who considered everything would never conclude on anything!” closing with an ancient proverbial saying—cosa fatta capo ha! “a deed done has an end!” The proverb sealed the fatal determination, and was long held in mournful remembrance by the Tuscans; for, according to Villani, it was the cause and beginning of the accursed factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Dante has thus immortalised the energetic expression in a scene of the “Inferno.”
| Ed un, ch’ avea l’una e l’altra man mozza, Levando i moncherin per l’aura fosca, Si che ’l sangue facea la faccia sozza, Gridò:—“Ricorderati anche del Mosca, Che dissi, lasso: Capo ha cosa fatta, Che fu ’l mal seme della gente Tosca.” ———Then one Maim’d of each hand, uplifted in the gloom The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots Sullied his face, and cried—“Remember thee Of Mosca too—I who, alas! exclaim’d ‘The deed once done, there is an end’—that proved A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.” Cary’s Dante. |
This Italian proverb was adopted by Milton; for when deeply engaged in writing “The Defence of the People,” and warned that it might terminate in his blindness, he resolvedly concluded his work, exclaiming with great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished, cosa fatta capo ha! Did this proverb also influence his awful decision on that great national event, when the most honest-minded fluctuated between doubts and fears?
Of a person treacherously used, the Italian proverb says that he has eaten of
| Le frutte di fratre Alberigo. The fruit of brother Alberigo. |
Landino, on the following passage of Dante, preserves the tragic story:—
| ———Io son fratre Alberigo, Io son quel dalle frutta del mal orto Che qui reprendo, &c. Canto xxxiii. “The friar Alberigo,” answered he, “Am I, who from the evil garden pluck’d Its fruitage, and am here repaid the date More luscious for my fig.” Cary’s Dante. |