Proverb Lore Part 1

Proverb Lore.

by F. Edward Hulme.

CHAPTER I

Value of Study of Proverbs -- Difficulty of exact Definition -- Definitions by various Writers -- The Saw -- The Adage -- The Essentials of a Proverb -- The Value of Brevity -- Legitimate Use of Hyperbole -- Proverbs often one-sided Views of Truth -- Sometimes contradict each other -- Figurativeness of Language -- A very characteristic Feature -- Parables of our Lord -- Proverbs often condensed Parables -- Examples of Word-Pictures -- Commonest Objects supply Lessons -- Interesting as referring to Usages that have pa.s.sed away -- Some Proverbs enduring, some transient -- May have more than one Significance -- Some palpable Truisms and Plat.i.tudes -- Great Antiquity of Proverbs -- On Jewellery, Pottery, Furniture, etc. -- Rustic Conservatism -- The aid of Alliteration -- Rhyme as an Aid to Memory

The study of proverbs is one of exceeding interest and value. By means of it our thoughts travel back through the ages to the childhood of the world, and we see at once how amidst the surroundings that vary so greatly in every age and in every clime the common inherent oneness of humanity a.s.serts itself: how, while fas.h.i.+ons change, motives of action remain; how, beneath the burning sun of Bengal or Ashanti, in the tents of the Crees, or amidst the snows of Lapland, the thoughts of men on the great problems that confront the race are strikingly at one. Hence, while the outward garb and phraseology of these proverbial utterances must necessarily greatly vary, we find, when we pierce below the surface, a remarkable similarity of idea. When we desire to point out the foolishness of providing any place or person with anything that they are really better able to procure for themselves, the absurdity of "carrying coals to Newcastle" is pointed out, and we might at first sight very naturally say that surely here we have a popular saying that we can specially claim as a piece of English proverbial wisdom. We find, however, in the Middle Ages the popular saying, "Send Indulgences to Rome"; while even before the Christian era the Greeks were teaching the same lesson in the formula, "Owls to Athens," the woods of Attica yielding these birds in abundance, while the city itself, under the special guardians.h.i.+p of Pallas Athene, had, as its device and symbol, on its coinage and elsewhere, the owl, the bird a.s.sociated with that G.o.ddess--coals, owls, indulgences, so different in outward seeming, teaching the self-same truth. Any attempt at cla.s.sification of proverbs by nationality is exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, since the more one looks into the matter the more one realises what a cosmopolitan thing a proverb is. Gratifying as it would be to patriotic feeling to gather together all the best proverbs in circulation in England and claim them as the product of English wit and wisdom, we should at once on investigation find that in great degree they were, perhaps in actual wording, and certainly in significance, the property of humanity at large.

The necessity of curbing the hasty tongue, the dispraise of folly, the value of true friends.h.i.+p, the watchfulness that enmity entails, the influence of womankind, the fabrication of excuses, the vainglory of boasting and pretension, the exposure of hypocrisy, the evil of ingrat.i.tude, the golden irradiation of the pathway of life by hope, the buoyant strength and confidence of youth, the sad decrepitude of old age, the retribution that awaits wrongdoers, were as keenly understood three thousand years ago as to-day, and the trite expression of these verities, crystallised into warning, encouragement, or reproof, is as much a part of the equipment of life to the date-seller of Damascus as to the ploughman in an English s.h.i.+re.

Proverbs have been handed down from generation to generation from the remotest ages, and were in circulation from mouth to mouth long before any written records, since in the earliest writings extant we find them given as obvious quotations. By means of them, primitive peoples entered upon a heritage of sound wisdom and good working common-sense, and had ready to hand counsels of prudence, hints for the conduct of life, warnings of its pitfalls. Much that is interesting in history, in manners and customs, is also preserved in them, and though times change it is scarcely safe to say that any proverb is obsolete. A local allusion may be understood by some old countryman that to the philosopher and savant is nought.

Time after time as we travel onwards through life we find our knowledge somewhat nebulous, our ideas in need of precision and sharpness of definition. We accept so many things, almost unconsciously, on trust, and should find it almost impossible in many cases to give an exact reason for the belief that is in us. The nature and construction of a proverb appears a thing too self-evident for any question to arise, the definition of it one of the simplest of tasks, and we do not at all realise its difficulty until we are fairly brought face to face with the problem, pen in hand, and a sheet of blank paper before us. Waiving a personal definition, we will endeavour by means of the statements of others, men whom we may more or less recognise as authorities and specialists, to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

Dr Johnson, in his n.o.ble dictionary, a splendid ma.s.s of erudition,[4:A]

defines a proverb as "a short sentence frequently repeated by the people; a saw; an adage," but this definition, as it stands, is scarcely sufficient. Having already a fair though nebulous notion of what a proverb is we may perhaps accept it, since we automatically fill in what is wanting, but if we could imagine the case of one who had no previous notion of the nature of a proverb the definition of Dr Johnson would not fill the void, since there are many colloquial phrases in constant use that are not proverbial in their nature at all.[4:B] The Doctor points out, under a second clause in his definition, that a proverb may also be a byeword of reproach, but it would appear needless to dwell specially on this. A proverb may exert its influence on us in many ways, by encouragement, by derision, by warning, and so forth, and there seems no occasion to make a special section of those that yield their lesson to us by way of reproach. As an example of the use of this cla.s.s we may instance the pa.s.sage of Milton, from his "Samson Agonistes"--

"Am I not strong and proverb'd for a fool In ev'ry street: do they not say, how well Are come upon him his deserts?"

Our readers will doubtless recall, too, how in Holy Writ it is declared that "Israel shall be a proverb and a byeword among all people."

The word saw is Saxon in its origin, and is defined by our great lexicographer as "a saying, a maxim, a sentence, an axiom, a proverb."

Shakespeare writes--

"From the table of my memory I'll wipe away all saws of books,"

and elsewhere of another of his characters he says that "his weapons"

were "holy saws of sacred writ." Perhaps, however, the best and best-known Shakespearian instance is in his graphic description of the seven ages of man in "As You Like It," where we are presently introduced to the portly Justice with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, "full of wise saws and modern instances," a well-bound encyclopaedia of legal axiom, precedent, and practice.

Milton writes, somewhat more forbiddingly, of

"Strict age and sour severity With their grave saws."

The word proverb is Greek in its inception, and means, literally, a wayside saying. Adage, a fairly equivalent word, is also of Greek birth.

The reference in "Macbeth" will at once be recalled--

"Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage."[5:A]

Synesius, a Christian writer of the early part of the fifth century, affirms, in quoting from a work of Aristotle that is now lost, that "A proverb is a remnant of the ancient philosophy preserved amid many destructions on account of its brevity and fitness for use," and in like strain Agricola declares proverbs to be "short sentences into which, as in rules, the ancients have compressed life." Cervantes puts this yet more pithily in his definition, "Short sentences drawn from long experience." Howell, too, is happy in his declaration, "Sayings which combine sense, shortness, and salt." Russell declares a proverb to be "the wisdom of many and the wit of one"--the one being the man who puts into happy form a truth that many had already felt, and thereby crystallised it for the use of all future time. Bacon, less happily, declares proverbs to be "the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation"; but this definition manifestly covers a far wider area than can be justly claimed for them. We need scarcely here point out that the word spirit does not mean the courage and resolution that summon a nation to the defence of its rights. It is but the Anglicised form of the French _esprit_, a word that has no entirely satisfactory English equivalent.

Chambers hath it that "proverbs are pithy, practical, popular sayings, expressive of certain more or less general convictions," and this is a definition that really seems to cover very satisfactorily the whole ground. That of Annandale is like unto it, "A proverb is a short and pithy sentence forming a popular saying, and expressing some result of the experience of life in a keen, quaint, and lively fas.h.i.+on."

Popularity is an essential feature, an absolute necessity. A saying of some wise man may strike us at once as one of the happiest of utterances, but if from any cause it does not find acceptance and adoption into the common speech, the absence of this popular recognition of its work debars it. It may richly deserve a place amongst the proverbs, being as pithy, as wise as any of them, and possess every essential of a proverb save the one. This one essential of general acceptance being wanting, we have left to us a golden sentence, a striking aphorism, a soul-stirring utterance. This is a point that some of the compilers of lists of proverbs have overlooked, and they have been tempted to insert in their pages brilliant wisdom-chips from the writings of divers clever men, or to coin them for themselves.

Worcester, in his dictionary, defines a proverb as "a common or pithy expression which embodies some moral precept or admitted truth," but we find in practice that some few of these popular sayings are not altogether moral in their teaching. Hazlitt affirms that this popular diction is "an expression or combination of words conveying a truth to the mind by a figure, periphrasis, ant.i.thesis, or hyperbole." Here, again, the soundness of the teaching is taken for granted.

Cooper, in his Thesaurus, A.D. 1584, translates _proverbium_ as "an old sayed sawe," and this really, in spite of its great brevity, very nearly touches the root of the matter. Being "old," the popular utterance has the stamp and dignity of antiquity: it is no newfangled thing that may or may not find a lasting resting-place in the minds and consciences of men; while, being "sayed," it is not merely a golden maxim buried deeply in the pages of some venerable tome, it has pa.s.sed into the daily life and struggle for existence, and become incorporated in the popular speech. It has borne the test of time; generation after generation of the sons of men have recognised its value and accepted it.

In the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana" a proverb is defined as "a common saying, sentiment, or sentence in which all agree"; but while so common a saying, a sentence that all can agree upon, as "twice two make four,"

comes entirely within this definition, it is in no sense a proverb.

Slavery we all feel to be an evil, and we deplore its existence, but while the sentiment does credit to our hearts, and unanimous as we may all be on the point, it is in no degree proverbial. The definition, moreover, requires from us a unanimity of acceptance, but this is by no means always forthcoming, as regards the moral teaching, for example, of some of our ancient adages. If we take, for instance, so well recognised a proverb as "Honesty is the best policy," some persons will see in it a mine of shrewd wisdom, while others will decide that the man who is honest because he thinks that it will pay best is at heart a rogue. Our acceptance or rejection of its teaching does not alter the fact that for good or ill the utterance ranks as a proverb.

The Rev. John Ward, the vicar of Stratford-on-Avon in the reign of Charles the Second, was a great collector of these items of proverbial wisdom, and his stipulations as to the correct structure of a proverb were very definite, though perhaps a little too severe. He declared that in each such utterance six things were essential. It should be short, plain in its language and teaching, in common use, figurative in its expression, ancient, true. When all these requirements are met we have, doubtless, an ideal proverb, but many excellent adages are current that cannot be thus bound in.

Horace declares, wisely enough, in his "Art of Poetry," in favour of brevity:

"Short be the precept which with care is gained By docile minds, and faithfully retained,"

and it is a very valuable feature. How happy in expression, for instance, are such proverbs as "Fast bind, fast find," "Forewarned, forearmed," "Haste is waste."

That a proverb should be plain in language and teaching is, we take it, by no means an essential. It rather owes often somewhat of its value to the fact that there is something in it that compels a.n.a.lysis, possibly awakens doubt or resistance, startles us by an apparent contradiction, and compels us to delve at some trouble to ourselves before we grasp its significance. Ray, one of the best known students of proverb-lore, realises this when he stipulates for "an instructive sentence in which more is generally designed than expressed" as his ideal.

Quaint exaggeration of statement, the use of hyperbole, is often employed, and very happily, to compel attention. Some men seem to be so specially the children of fortune that they from the most untoward events gain increased advantage, and after a submergence that would drown most men emerge buoyantly from this sea of trouble and go cheerily on their way. Such are very happily described in the Arab proverb, "If you throw him into the sea he will come up with a fish in his mouth." To those who would attempt great tasks with inadequate means how truly may we say, "It is hard to sail across the sea in an eggsh.e.l.l." Of those who labour hard for results that bear no proportion to the effort made we may equally truly say, "He dives deep and brings up a potsherd." In France, if a man attempts a prodigious, or possibly impossible, task, it is said of him, "Il a la mer a boire," while the thoughtless or reckless man, who to avoid a slight and pa.s.sing inconvenience will run imminent risk of grave misfortune, is said to jump into the river that he may escape the rain, "Il se jette a l'eau, peur de la pluie." The hyperbole employed startles and arouses the attention and drives the lesson home.

It is especially characteristic of the Eastern mind, and the Bible, a book of the East, is full of examples of its use.

Proverbial wisdom, it must be borne in mind, deals sometimes with only one aspect of a truth. The necessary brevity often makes the teaching one-sided, as the various limitations and exceptions that may be necessary to a complete statement of a truth are perforce left unsaid.

One proverb therefore is often in direct contradiction to another, and yet each may be equally true. Solomon, for example, tells us to "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit," and he also tells us to "answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."[10:A] These two directions are placed one immediately after the other of deliberate forethought that the sharp contrast may force itself on the attention. The two modes of action are in direct contradiction, yet each is equally valuable in its place, and according to circ.u.mstances one or other of them would be the right course to pursue. To the restless, unstable man we may well quote the well-known adage, "A rolling stone gathers no moss";[10:B] but, on the other hand, it is equally true that "A tethered sheep soon starves."

While one villager is content to remain in the little hamlet where he was born, living hardly throughout his life, the recipient of a scanty wage, of soup and blankets from the vicarage or the hall, and, finally, of a pauper grave, his schoolmate, the rolling stone, goes out into the big world and fights his way into a position of independence.

The fourth stipulation of Ward--figurativeness of expression--while it may appear to somewhat clash with his second, the demand for plainness of utterance, is undoubtedly of great value; but it is not an essential.

Such proverbs as "Plough, or not plough, you must pay your rent," "The receiver is as bad as the thief," "The child says what father says,"

"Misfortunes never come singly," "Extremes meet," "Ill doers are ill deemers," are direct statements to be literally accepted, and to these scores more could be added. The figurative treatment is, nevertheless, still more in evidence, and very justly so. By its employment the attention is at once arrested and the memory helped. This love of picture language is specially characteristic of early days and of primitive peoples, and those who would turn away from an abstract discourse in praise of virtue, temperance, or strenuous endeavour will gladly accept the teaching if presented in more concrete form--the fairy tale, the fable, or the parable.

This figurativeness of language was a marked characteristic of the teaching of our Lord, and the common people, who would have been repulsed by dogma or exhortation, thronged gladly to the Teacher who reached their hearts through the beautiful and simple stories that fascinated them and awoke their interest. The sharp experiences of the wayward son in the far-off land, the story of the anxious housewife seeking at midnight for the lost piece of silver, the lonely traveller sore beset by thieves, the withering grain that fell amidst the roadside stones, the goodman of the house so stoutly guarding his belongings, the sheep that had strayed afar into the perils of the wilderness, the useless tares amidst the fruitful grain, the house upon the s.h.i.+fting sand, the widely-gathering net, the pearl of great price, have been a delight to countless generations, and will ever continue to be so.[11:A]

A proverb that is figurative in its construction may be considered as really a condensed parable. Hence Chaucer, in the prologue of "The Wife of Bathe," refers to "eke the paraboles of Salomon."

Numerous examples of these word-pictures will at once occur to us. How expressive of the reproductive power of evil is the well-known proverb, "Ill weeds grow apace." In one of the Harleian MSS. of about the year 1490 we find it given as "Ewyl weed ys sone y-growe"; or, as another writer hath it,--

"Ill weede groweth fast, ales, whereby the corne is lorne, For surely the weed overgroweth the corn."

In France it is "Mauvaise herbe croit toujours," and in Italy "Erba mala preste cresce," and in some kindred form it appears in the proverb lore of almost all people. How telling, again, the picture and the lesson in "Still waters run deep."

"Small griefs find tongues: full casks are ever found To give, if any, yet but little sound; Deep waters noiseless are, and this we know, That chiding streams betray small depth below."--_Herrick._

In Germany it is "Stille Wa.s.ser sind tief"--"Still waters are deep"--or "grunden tief," "are grounded deep." In its English and German dress we learn that the silent man is a thoughtful man, but in France it is rendered as "Il n'y a pire eau que l'eau qui dort"--"There is no worse water than that which sleeps"--making the considerably stronger a.s.sertion that a thoughtful man becomes thereby a distinctly dangerous member of society!

While we are reminded of the restless turmoil of the babbling brook, and gain in its contemplation a hint of the fussy activity that in shallow minds ends in little but outward show, we must nevertheless learn that the day of small things must not be despised, for "Little brooks make great rivers." Recalling the fable of the ensnared lion and the kindly and industrious mouse that came to his rescue, we learn afresh that the weak may often help the great, for "When large s.h.i.+ps run aground, little boats may pull them off." How true, too, to experience is it that "To a crazy s.h.i.+p all winds are contrary," when in many lives there seem times when everything goes wrong, and the unfortunate victim of circ.u.mstances is buffeted from all directions. Another of these aqueous proverbs reminds us how in such case the most desperate remedies may be tried, for "A drowning man will catch at a straw." To profit, too, by seasons of good fortune is no less needful, for "Every tide will have an ebb,"

and we may not a.s.sume that the opportunities we neglect to-day will be always open to our embrace.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,"

we are told by Shakespeare, who doubtless knew this proverb, and trans.m.u.ted it by his genius into fine gold--

"Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries."