- [[1]] A similar contempt of them speaks out in the antithesis of the French Jesuit, Bouhours: Les proverbes sont les sentences du peuple, et les sentences sont les proverbes des honnêtes gens.
- [[2]]Compare with this Martial’s so happy epigram upon epigrams, in which everything runs exactly parallel to that which has been said above:
- “Omne epigramma sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi,
- Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui;”
- which may be indifferently rendered thus:
- “Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all—
- Its sting, its honey, and its body small.”
- [[3]] The very shortest proverb which I know in the world is this German: Voll, toll; which sets out very well the connexion between fulness and folly, pride and abundance of bread. In that seeking of extreme brevity noted above, they sometimes become exceedingly elliptical, (although this is the case more with the ancient than with the modern,) so much so as to omit even the vital element of the sentence, the verb. Thus: Χρήματ’ ἀνήρ;— Sus Minervam;—Fures clamorem;—Meretrix pudicam;—Amantes amentes.
- [[4]] This is what Aristotle means when he ascribes συντομία—which in another place he opposes to the ὄγκος λέξεως—to it.
- [[5]] Let serve for further proof this eminently witty old German proverb, which, despite its apparent length, has not forfeited its character as such. I shall prefer to leave it in the original: Man spricht, an viererlei Leuten ist Mangel auf Erden: an Pfaffen, sonst dürfte einer nit 6 bis 7 Pfruenden; an Adelichen, sonst wollte nit jeder Bauer ein Junker sein; an Huren, sonst würden die Handwerk Eheweiber und Nunnen nit treiben; an Juden, sonst würden Christen nit wuchern.
- [[6]] When Erasmus, after discussing and rejecting the definitions of those who had gone before him, himself defines the proverb thus, Celebre dictum, scitâ quâpiam novitate insigne, it appears to me that he has not escaped the fault which he has blamed in others—that, namely, of confounding the accidental adjuncts of a good proverb with the necessary conditions of every proverb. In rigour the whole second clause of the definition should be dismissed, and Celebre dictum alone remain. Better Eifelein (Sprichwörter des Deutschen Volkes, Friburg, 1840, p. x.): Das Sprichwort ist ein mit öffentlichem Gepräge ausgemünzter Saz, der seinen Curs und anerkannten Werth unter dem Volke hat.
- [[7]] It suggests, however, the admirable Spanish proverb, spoken no doubt out of the same conviction: Dios me dè contienda, con quien me entienda.
- [[8]] Chi non può fare sua vendetta è debile, chi non vuole è vile.
- [[9]] Quintilian’s words (Inst. 5. 11. 41), which are to the same effect, must be taken with the same exception; Neque enim durâssent hæc in æternum, nisi vera omnibus viderentur; and also Don Quixote’s: Paréceme me, Sancho, que no ay refrán que no sea verdadéro, porque todas son sentencias sacadas de la misma experiencia, madre de las ciencias todas.
- [[10]] Thus in a proverb about proverbs, the Italians say, with a true insight into this its prerogative: Il proverbio s’invecchia, e chi vuol far bene, vi si specchia.
- [[11]] The name which the proverb bears in Spanish points to this fact, that popularity is a necessary condition of it. This name is not proverbio, for that in Spanish signifies an apothegm, an aphorism, a maxim; but refrán, which is a referendo, from the frequency of its repetition; yet see Diez, Etymol. Wörterbuch, p. 284. The etymology of the Greek παροιμία is somewhat doubtful, but it too means probably a trite, wayside saying.
- [[12]] The same, under a different image, in Spanish: Larga soga tira, quien por muerte agena suspira.
- [[13]] Im Becher ersaufen mehr als im Meere.
- [[14]] In Wein und Bier ertrinken mehr denn im Wasser.
- [[15]] Here is the explanation of the perplexity of Erasmus. Deinde fit, nescio quo pacto, ut sententia proverbio quasi vibrata feriat acrius auditoris animum, et aculeos quosdam cogitationum relinquat infixos.
- [[16]] So, too, in other languages; Qui prend, se rend;— Qui se loue, s’emboue;— Chi và piano, và sano, e và lontano;— Chi compra terra, compra guerra;—Quien se muda, Dios le ayuda;—Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen; and the Latin medieval;—Qualis vita, finis ita;—Via crucis, via lucis;—Uniti muniti.—We sometimes regard rhyme as a modern invention, and to the modern world no doubt the discovery of all its capabilities, and the consequent large application of it belongs. But proverbs alone would be sufficient to show that in itself it is not modern, however restricted in old times the employment of it may have been. For instance, there is a Greek proverb to express that men learn by their sufferings more than by any other teaching: Παθήματα, μαθήματα (Herod., i. 207;) one which in the Latin, Nocumenta, documenta, or, Quæ nocent, docent, finds both in rhyme and sense its equivalent; to both of which evidently the inducement lay in the chiming and rhyming words. Another rhyming Greek proverb which I have met, Πλησμονή, ἐπιλησμονὴ, implying that fulness of blessings is too often accompanied with forgetfulness of their Author (Deut. 8. 11–14,) is, I fancy, not ancient—at least does not date further back than Greek Christianity. The sentiment would imply this, and the fact that the word ἐπιλησμονή does not occur in classical Greek would seem to be decisive upon it.
- [[17]] So in Latin: Nil sole et sale utilius; and in Greek: Σῶμα, σῆμα.
- [[18]] This is St. Jerome’s pun, who complains that the Latin versions of the Greek Testament current in the Church in his day were too many of them not versiones, but eversiones.
- [[19]] Würf er einen Groschen aufs Dach, fiel ihm Ein Thaler herunter;—compare another: Wer Glück hat, dem kalbet ein Ochs.
- [[20]] Thus in respect of this German proverb:
- Stultus und Stolz
- Wachset aus Einem Holz;
- its transfer into any other languages is manifestly impossible. The same may be affirmed of another, commending stay-at-home habits to the wife: Die Hausfrau soll nit sein eine Ausfrau; or again of this beautiful Spanish one: La verdad es siempre verde.
- [[21]] Habent enim hoc peculiare pleraque proverbia, ut in eâ linguâ sonare postulant in quâ nata sunt; quod si in alienum sermonem demigrârint, multum gratiæ decedat. Quemadmodum sunt et vina quædam quæ recusant exportari, nec germanam saporis gratiam obtineant, nisi in his locis in quibus proveniunt.
[LECTURE II.]
THE GENERATION OF PROVERBS.
In my preceding lecture I occupied your attention with the form and definition of a proverb; let us proceed in the present to realize to ourselves, so far as this may be possible, the processes by which a nation gets together the great body of its proverbs, the sources from which it mainly derives them, and the circumstances under which such as it makes for itself of new, had their birth and generation.
And first, I would call to your attention the fact that a vast number of its proverbs a people does not make for itself, but finds ready made to its hands: it enters upon them as a part of its intellectual and moral inheritance. The world has now endured so long, and the successive generations of men have thought, felt, enjoyed, suffered, and altogether learned so much, that there is an immense stock of wisdom which may be said to belong to humanity in common, being the gathered fruits of all this its experience in the past. Even Aristotle, more than two thousand years ago, could speak of proverbs as “the fragments of an elder wisdom, which, on account of their brevity and aptness, had amid a general wreck and ruin been preserved.” These, the common property of the civilized world, are the original stock with which each nation starts; these, either orally handed down to it, or made its own by those of its earlier writers who brought it into living communication with the past. Thus, and through these channels, a vast number of Greek, Latin, and medieval proverbs live on with us, and with all the modern nations of the world.
Antiquity of proverbs.
It is, indeed, oftentimes a veritable surprise to discover the venerable age and antiquity of a proverb, which we have hitherto assumed to be quite a later birth of modern society. Thus we may perhaps suppose that well-known word which forbids the too accurate scanning of a present, One must not look a gift horse in the mouth, to be of English extraction, the genuine growth of our own soil. I will not pretend to say how old it may be, but it is certainly as old as Jerome, a Latin father of the fourth century; who, when some found fault with certain writings of his, replied with a tartness which he could occasionally exhibit, that they were voluntary on his part, free-will offerings, and with this quoted the proverb, that it did not behove to look a gift horse in the mouth; and before it comes to us, we meet it once more in one of the rhymed Latin verses, which were such great favourites in the middle ages:
Si quis dat mannos, ne quære in dentibus annos.
Again, Liars should have good memories is a saying which probably we assume to be modern; yet it is very far from so being. The same Jerome, who, I may observe by the way, is a very great quoter of proverbs, and who has preserved some that would not otherwise have descended to us, [22] speaks of one as “unmindful of the old proverb, Liars should have good memories,” [23] and we find it ourselves in a Latin writer a good deal older than him. [24] So too I was certainly surprised to discover the other day that our own proverb: Good company on a journey is worth a coach, has come down to us from the ancient world. [25]
Rhymed Latin proverbs.