_Una pesca in un occhio._
A peach in the eye,
means to give him a thrashing. This proverb, it is said, originated in
the close of a certain droll adventure. The community of the Castle
Poggibonsi, probably from some jocular tenure observed on St. Bernard's
day, pay a tribute of peaches to the court of Tuscany, which are usually
shared among the ladies in waiting, and the pages of the court. It
happened one season, in a great scarcity of peaches, that the good
people of Poggibonsi, finding them rather dear, sent, instead of the
customary tribute, a quantity of fine juicy figs, which was so much
disapproved of by the pages, that as soon as they got hold of them, they
began in rage to empty the baskets on the heads of the ambassadors of
the Poggibonsi, who, in attempting to fly as well as they could from the
pulpy shower, half-blinded, and recollecting that peaches would have
had stones in them, cried out--
_Per beato ch' elle non furon pesche!_
Luckily they were not peaches!
_Fare le scalee di Sant' Ambrogio_; "To mount the stairs of Saint
Ambrose," a proverb allusive to the business of the school of scandal.
Varchi explains it by a circumstance so common in provincial cities. On
summer evenings, for fresh air and gossip, the loungers met on the steps
and landing-places of the church of St. Ambrose: whoever left the party,
"they read in his book," as our commentator expresses it; and not a leaf
was passed over! All liked to join a party so well informed of one
another's concerns, and every one tried to be the very last to quit
it,--not "to leave his character behind!" It became a proverbial phrase
with those who left a company, and were too tender of their backs, to
request they would not "mount the stairs of St. Ambrose." Jonson has
well described such a company:
You are so truly fear'd, but not beloved
One of another, as no one dares break
Company from the rest, lest they should fall
Upon him absent.
There are legends and histories which belong to proverbs; and some of
the most ancient refer to incidents which have not always been
commemorated. Two Greek proverbs have accidentally been explained by
Pausanias: "He is a man of Tenedos!" to describe a person of
unquestionable veracity; and "To cut with the Tenedian axe;" to express
an absolute and irrevocable refusal. The first originated in a king of
Tenedos, who decreed that there should always stand behind the judge a
man holding an axe, ready to execute justice on any one convicted of
falsehood. The other arose from the same king, whose father having
reached his island, to supplicate the son's forgiveness for the injury
inflicted on him by the arts of a step-mother, was preparing to land;
already the ship was fastened by its cable to a rock; when the son came
down, and sternly cutting the cable with an axe, sent the ship adrift to
the mercy of the waves: hence, "to cut with the Tenedian axe," became
proverbial to express an absolute refusal. "Business to-morrow!" is
another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined by his own neglect.
The fate of an eminent person perpetuated the expression which he
casually employed on the occasion. One of the Theban polemarchs, in the
midst of a convivial party, received despatches relating to a
conspiracy: flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open
them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety laying the letter under the
pillow of his couch, observed, "Business to-morrow!" Plutarch records
that he fell a victim to the twenty-four hours he had lost, and became
the author of a proverb which was still circulated among the Greeks.
The philosophical antiquary may often discover how many a proverb
commemorates an event which has escaped from the more solemn monuments
of history, and is often the solitary authority of its existence. A
national event in Spanish history is preserved by a proverb. _Y vengar
quiniento sueldos_; "And revenge five hundred pounds!" An odd expression
to denote a person being a gentleman! but the proverb is historical. The
Spaniards of Old Castile were compelled to pay an annual tribute of five
hundred maidens to their masters, the Moors; after several battles, the
Spaniards succeeded in compromising the shameful tribute, by as many
pieces of coin: at length the day arrived when they entirely emancipated
themselves from this odious imposition. The heroic action was performed
by men of distinction, and the event perpetuated in the recollections of
the Spaniards by this singular expression, which alludes to the
dishonourable tribute, was applied to characterise all men of high
honour, and devoted lovers of their country.
Pasquier, in his _Recherches 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
bannieres et cent ans civieres!_ "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,
Grido:--"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_.
This was Manfred, the Lord of Fuenza, who, after many cruelties, turned
friar. Reconciling himself to those whom he had so often opposed, to
celebrate the renewal of their friendship he invited them to a
magnificent entertainment. At the end of the dinner the horn blew to
announce the dessert--but it was the signal of this dissimulating
conspirator!--and the fruits which that day were served to his guests
were armed men, who, rushing in, immolated their victims.
Among these historical proverbs none are more entertaining than those
which perpetuate national events, connected with those of another
people. When a Frenchman would let us understand that he has settled
with his creditors, the proverb is _J'ai paye tous mes Anglois_: "I have
paid all my English." This proverb originated when John, the French
king, was taken prisoner by our Black Prince. Levies of money were made
for the king's ransom, and for many French lords; and the French people
have thus perpetuated the military glory of our nation, and their own
idea of it, by making the _English_ and their _creditors_ synonymous
terms. Another relates to the same event--_Le Pape est devenu Francois,
et Jesus Christ Anglais_: "Now the Pope is become French and Jesus
Christ English;" a proverb which arose when the Pope, exiled from Rome,
held his court at Avignon in France; and the English prospered so well,
that they possessed more than half the kingdom. The Spanish proverb
concerning England is well known--
_Con todo el mondo guerra,
Y paz con Inglaterra!_
War with the world,
And peace with England!
Whether this proverb was one of the results of their memorable armada,
and was only coined after their conviction of the splendid folly which
they had committed, I cannot ascertain. England must always have been a
desirable ally to Spain against her potent rival and neighbour. The
Italians have a proverb, which formerly, at least, was strongly
indicative of the travelled Englishmen in their country, _Inglese
Italianato e un diavolo incarnato_; "The Italianised Englishman is a
devil incarnate." Formerly there existed a closer intercourse between
our country and Italy than with France. Before and during the reigns of
Elizabeth and James the First that land of the elegant arts modelled our
taste and manners: and more Italians travelled into England, and were
more constant residents, from commercial concerns, than afterwards when
France assumed a higher rank in Europe by her political superiority.
This cause will sufficiently account for the number of Italian proverbs
relating to England, which show an intimacy with our manners that could
not else have occurred. It was probably some sarcastic Italian, and,
perhaps, horologer, who, to describe the disagreement of persons,
proverbed our nation--"They agree like the clocks of London!" We were
once better famed for merry Christmases and their pies; and it must have
been the Italians who had been domiciliated with us who gave currency to
the proverb--_Ha piu da fare che i forni di natale in Inghilterra_: "He
has more business than English ovens at Christmas." Our pie-loving
gentry were notorious, and Shakspeare's folio was usually laid open in
the great halls of our nobility to entertain their attendants, who
devoured at once Shakspeare and their pasty. Some of those volumes have
come down to us, not only with the stains, but inclosing even the
identical piecrusts of the Elizabethan age.
I have thus attempted to develope THE ART OF READING PROVERBS; but have
done little more than indicate the theory, and must leave the skilful
student to the delicacy of the practice. I am anxious to rescue from
prevailing prejudices these neglected stores of curious amusement, and
of deep insight into the ways of man, and to point out the bold and
concealed truths which are scattered in these collections. There seems
to be no occurrence in human affairs to which some proverb may not be
applied. All knowledge was long aphoristical and traditional, pithily
contracting the discoveries which were to be instantly comprehended and
easily retained. Whatever be the revolutionary state of man, similar
principles and like occurrences are returning on us; and antiquity,
whenever it is justly applicable to our times, loses its denomination,
and becomes the truth of our own age. A proverb will often cut the knot
which others in vain are attempting to untie. Johnson, palled with the
redundant elegancies of modern composition, once said, "I fancy mankind
may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow
weary of preparation, and connexion, and illustration, and all those
arts by which a big book is made." Many a volume indeed has often been
written to demonstrate what a lover of proverbs could show had long been
ascertained by a single one in his favourite collections.
An insurmountable difficulty, which every paraemiographer has
encountered, is that of forming an apt, a ready, and a systematic
classification: the moral Linnaeus of such a "systema naturae" has not yet
appeared. Each discovered his predecessor's mode imperfect, but each was
doomed to meet the same fate.[40] The arrangement of proverbs has
baffled the ingenuity of every one of their collectors. Our Ray, after
long premeditation, has chosen a system with the appearance of an
alphabetical order; but, as it turns out, his system is no system, and
his alphabet is no alphabet. After ten years' labour, the good man could
only arrange his proverbs by commonplaces--by complete sentences--by
phrases or forms of speech--by proverbial similes--and so on. All these
are pursued in alphabetical order, "by the first letter of the most
'material word,' or if there be more words '_equally material_,' by that
which usually stands foremost." The most patient examiner will usually
find that he wants the sagacity of the collector to discover that word
which is "the most material," or, "the words equally material." We have
to search through all that multiplicity of divisions, or conjuring
boxes, in which this juggler of proverbs pretends to hide the ball.[41]
A still more formidable objection against a collection of proverbs, for
the impatient reader, is their unreadableness. Taking in succession a
multitude of insulated proverbs, their slippery nature resists all hope
of retaining one in a hundred; the study of proverbs must be a frequent
recurrence to a gradual collection of favourite ones, which we ourselves
must form. The experience of life will throw a perpetual freshness over
these short and simple texts; every day may furnish a new commentary;
and we may grow old, and find novelty in proverbs by their perpetual
application.
There are, perhaps, about twenty thousand proverbs among the nations of
Europe: many of these have spread in their common intercourse; many are
borrowed from the ancients, chiefly the Greeks, who themselves largely
took them from the eastern nations. Our own proverbs are too often
deficient in that elegance and ingenuity which are often found in the
Spanish and the Italian. Proverbs frequently enliven conversation, or
enter into the business of life in those countries, without any feeling
of vulgarity being associated with them: they are too numerous, too
witty, and too wise to cease to please by their poignancy and their
aptitude. I have heard them fall from the lips of men of letters and of
statesmen. When recently the disorderly state of the manufacturers of
Manchester menaced an insurrection, a profound Italian politician
observed to me, that it was not of a nature to alarm a great nation; for
that the remedy was at hand, in the proverb of the Lazzaroni of Naples,
_Meta consiglio, meta esempio, meta denaro!_ "Half advice, half example,
half money!" The result confirmed the truth of the proverb, which, had
it been known at the time, might have quieted the honest fears of a
great part of the nation.
Proverbs have ceased to be studied or employed in conversation since
the time we have derived our knowledge from books; but in a
philosophical age they appear to offer infinite subjects for speculative
curiosity. Originating in various eras, these memorials of manners, of
events, and of modes of thinking, for historical as well as for moral
purposes, still retain a strong hold on our attention. The collected
knowledge of successive ages, and of different people, must always enter
into some part of our own! Truth and nature can never be obsolete.
Proverbs embrace the wide sphere of human existence, they take all the
colours of life, they are often exquisite strokes of genius, they
delight by their airy sarcasm or their caustic satire, the luxuriance of
their humour, the playfulness of their turn, and even by the elegance of
their imagery, and the tenderness of their sentiment. They give a deep
insight into domestic life, and open for us the heart of man, in all the
various states which he may occupy--a frequent review of proverbs should
enter into our readings; and although they are no longer the ornaments
of conversation, they have not ceased to be the treasuries of Thought!