Footnotes
- [[89]] Regulæ quæ inter maximas numerari merentur.
- [[90]] In German: Grau’ Hare sind Kirchhofsblumen.
- [[91]] Il tempo è una lima sorda.
- [[92]] Πομφόλυξ ὁ ἄνθρωπος.
- [[93]] Cujus vita fulgor, ejus verba tonitrua. Cf. Mark iii. 17: υἱοὶ βροντῆς.
- [[94]] Admirably glossed in the Guesses at Truth: “Pluck up the stones, ye sluggards, and break the devil’s head with them.”
- [[95]] Quando i furbi vanno in processione, il diavolo porta la croce.
- [[96]] Vaô á missa çapateiros, rogaô a Deos que morraô os carneiros.
- [[97]] This is Swedish: Zu mera man stryken Katten pá Swanzen, zu mera pyser pan.
- [[98]] Si la locura fuese dolores, en cada casa darian voces.
- [[99]] Tonto, sin saber latin, nunca es gran tonto.
- [[100]] Qui rien ne sçait, de rien ne doute.
- [[101]] An earnest preacher of righteousness just before the Reformation quotes this one as current about them: Quod agere veretur obstinatus diabolus, intrepide agit reprobus et contumax monachus.
- [[102]] It is Huss who, denouncing the sins of the clergy of his day, has preserved this proverb for us: Malum proverbium contra nos confinxerunt, dicentes, Si offenderis clericum, interfice eum; alias nunquam habebis pacem cum illo.
- [[103]] Por los haldas del vicario sube el diablo al campanario.
- [[104]] Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei. Of course those which imply that they shorten rather than prolong the term of life, are numerous, as for instance, the old French: Qui court après le mière, court après la bière.
- [[105]] In German: Juristen, bösen Christen.
- [[106]] Bebel: Dicitur in proverbio nostro; nihil esse audacius indusio molitoris, cum omni tempore matutino furem collo apprehendat.
- [[107]] Se la superbia fosse arte, quanti Dottori avressimo.
- [[108]] Tal sprezza la superbia con una maggior superbia.
- [[109]] Ein Feind ist zu viel; und hundert Freunde sind zu wenig.
- [[110]] Il est aisé d’aller à pied, quand on tient son cheval par la bride.
- [[111]] The Gallegan proverb, You a lady, I a lady, who shall drive the hogs a-field? (Vos dona, yo dona, quen botara a porca fora?) is only a variation of this.
- [[112]] Mulates qua battent, cabrites qua morts.
- [[113]] A proverb of many tongues beside our own: thus in the Italian: Quanto più la volpe è maladetta, tanto maggior preda fa.
- [[114]] Holy State, b. 3, c. 5.
- [[115]] B. 2, c. 23.
- [[116]] B. 3, c. 2.
- [[117]] Adagia, ad agendum apta; this is the etymology of the word given by Festus.
- [[118]] Chi parla semina, chi tace raccoglie; compare the Swedish: Bättre tyga än illa tala (Better silence than ill speech).
- [[119]] Il tacer non fù mai scritto.
- [[120]] Palabra de boca, piedra de honda.—Palabra y piedra suelta no tiene vuelta.
- [[121]] El mal que de tu boca sale, en tu seno se cae.
- [[122]] Quien con perros se echa, con pulgas se levanta.
- [[123]] La ou la chèvre est attachée, il faut qu’elle broute.
- [[124]] Por la calle de despues se va à la casa de nunca.
- [[125]] Le vesti degl’avvocati sono fodrate dell’ostinazion dei litiganti.
- [[126]] Ogni cosa si sopporta, eccetto il buon tempo.
- [[127]] Nella prosperità non fumano gl’altari.
- [[128]] Quien con ropa agena se viste, en la calle se queda encueros.
- [[129]] Chi non vede il fondo, non passi l’acqua.
- [[130]] Avant traversé rivier, pas juré maman caiman. This and one or two other Haytian proverbs quoted in this volume I have derived from a curious article, Les mœurs et la littérature négres, by Gustave D’Alaux, in the Revue des deux Mondes, Mai 15me, 1852.
- [[131]] No me digas oliva, hasta que me veas cogida.
- [[132]] Prends le premier conseil d’une femme, et non le second.
- [[133]] Non v’è il peggior ladro d’un cattivo libro.
- [[134]] Los muertos abren los ojos a los vivos.
- [[135]] Es ist besser, das Kind weine denn der Vater.
- [[136]] Nace en la huerta lo que no siembra el hortelano.
- [[137]] Oro è, che oro vale;—and of the multitudes that are rushing to the Australian gold-fields, some may find this also true: Più vale guadagnar in loto che perder in oro.
- [[138]] Una spada tien l’altra nel fodro.
- [[139]] Qui porte épée, porte paix.
- [[140]] Chi dinanzi mi pinge, di dietro mi tinge. The history of the word “sycophant,” and the manner in which it has travelled from its original to its present meaning, is a very striking confirmation of this proverb’s truth.
- [[141]] How and why it is that extremes here meet, and what are the inner affinities between a democracy and a tyranny, Plato has wonderfully traced, Rep., ii. p. 217.
- [[142]] See Jeremy Taylor’s Dissuasive from Popery, part 2, b. 1. sect. 11, § 6.
- [[143]] “Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truths, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.”—Coleridge, Aids to Reflection.
[LECTURE V.]
THE MORALITY OF PROVERBS.
The morality of proverbs is a subject which I have not been able to leave wholly untouched until now, for of necessity it has offered itself to us continually, in one shape or another; yet hitherto I have not regularly dealt with or considered it. To it I propose to devote the present lecture. But how, it may be asked at the outset, can any general verdict be pronounced about them? In a family like theirs, spread so widely over the face of the earth, must there not be found worthy members and unworthy, proverbs noble and base, holy and profane, heavenly and earthly;—yea, heavenly, earthly, and devilish? What common judgment of praise or censure can be pronounced upon all of these? Evidently none. The only question, therefore, for our consideration must be, whether there exists any such large and unquestionable preponderance either of the better sort or of the worse, as shall give us a right to pronounce a judgment on the whole in their favour or against them, to affirm of them that their preponderating influence and weight is thrown into the balance of the good or of the evil.
And here I am persuaded that no one can have devoted any serious attention to this aspect of the subject, but will own, (and seeing how greatly popular morals are affected by popular proverbs, will own with thankfulness,) that, if not without serious exceptions, yet still in the main they range themselves under the banners of the right and of the truth; he will allow that of so many as move in an ethical sphere at all, very far more are children of light and the day than of darkness and night. Indeed, the comparative paucity of unworthy proverbs is a very noticeable fact, and one to the causes of which I shall have presently to recur.
Coarse proverbs.
At the same time, when I affirm this, I find it necessary to make certain explanations, to draw certain distinctions. In the first place, I would not, by what I have said, in the least deny that an ample number of coarse proverbs are extant: it needs but to turn over a page or two of Ray’s Collection of English Proverbs, or of Howell’s, or indeed of any collection in any tongue, which has not been weeded carefully, to convince oneself of the fact;—nor yet would I deny, that of these many may, more or less, live upon the lips of men. Having their birth, for the most part, in a period of a nation’s literature and life, when men are much more plain-spoken, and have far fewer reticences than is afterwards the case, it is nothing strange that some of them, employing words forbidden now, but not forbidden then, should sound coarse and indelicate enough in our ears: while indeed there are others, whose offence and grossness these considerations, while they may mitigate, are quite insufficient to excuse. But at the same time, gross words and images, (I speak not of wanton ones,) bad as they may be, are altogether different from immoral maxims and rules of life. And it is these immoral maxims, unrighteous, selfish, or otherwise unworthy rules, of which I would affirm the number to be, if not absolutely, yet relatively small.
And then further, in estimating the morality of proverbs, this also will claim in justice not to be forgotten. In the same manner as coarse proverbs are not necessarily immoral, so the application which is made of a proverb by us may very often be hardhearted and selfish, while yet the proverb itself is very far from so being. This selfishness and hardness lay not in it of primary intention, but only by our abuse; and in the cases of several, these two things, the proverb itself, and the ordinary employment of it, will demand to be kept carefully apart from one another. For instance: He has made his bed, and now he must lie on it;—As he has brewed, so he must drink;—As he has sown, so must he reap; [144]—if these are employed to justify us in refusing to save others, so far as we may, from the consequences of their own folly, or imprudence, or even guilt, why then one can only say that they are very ill employed; and there are few of us with whom it would not have gone hardly, had all those about us acted in the spirit of these proverbs so misinterpreted; had they refused to mitigate for us, so far as they could, the consequences of our errors. But if the words are taken in their true sense, as homely announcements of that law of divine retaliations in the world, according to which men shall eat of the fruit of their own doings, and be filled with their own ways, who shall gainsay them? What affirm they more than every page of Scripture, every turn of human life, is affirming too, namely, that the everlasting order of God’s universe cannot be violated with impunity, that there is a continual returning upon men of what they have done, and that in their history we may read their judgment?
Charity begins at home.