Part 10

The last two are taunts addressed to persons who sound their own praises.

=A man may love his house weel, and no ride on the riggen o't.=--_Scotch._

A man does not prove the depth and sincerity of his sentiments by an ostentatious display of them.

=Good wine needs no bush.=

=Gude ale needs nae wisp.=--_Scotch._

A bunch of twigs, or a wisp of hay or straw hung up at a roadside house, is a sign that drink is sold within. This custom, which still lingers in the cider-making counties of the west of England, and prevails more generally in France, is derived from the Romans, among whom a bunch of ivy, the plant sacred to Bacchus, was appropriately used as the sign of a wine-shop. They, too, used to say, "Vendible wine needs no ivy hung up."[674] "Good wine needs no crier" (Spanish).[675] "It sells itself" (Spanish).[676] "Bosky" is one of the innumerable euphemisms for "drunk." Probably the phrase, "he is bosky," originally conveyed an allusion to the symbolical use of the bush, with which all good fellows were familiar in the olden time.

FOOTNOTES:

[645] Apud Bactryanos vulgo usurpabant canem timidum vehementius latrare quam mordere.

[646] Was schadet das Hundes Bellen der nicht beisst?

[647] Cave tibi cane muto et aqua silente.

[648] Schweigender Hund beisst am ersten.

[649] Vive più il minacciato che l'impiccato.

[650] Mas son los amenazados que los acuchillados.

[651] Tambem os ameaçados comem paō.

[652] Ekks Davith Goliat med ordum drap.

[653] Van dreigen sterft men niet.

[654] Alle dreigers vechten niet.

[655] Tel menace qui a peur.

[656] Bande bider ei Öie ud, uden Næven fölger med.

[657] Schiaffo minacciato, mai ben dato. Bofetón amagado, nunca bien dado.

[658] Gato maullador nunca buen caçador.

[659] Wer droht, warnt.

[660] Quem ameaça, su ira gasta.

[661] El amenazador hace perder el lugar de venganza.

[662] Le minaccie son arme del minacciato.

[663] On ne prend pas le lèvre au tambour.

[664] Credi al vantatore come al mentitore.

[665] Grands vanteurs, petits faiseurs.

[666] Het hoen, dat het meest kakelt, geeft de meeste eijers niet.

[667] La lengua luenga es señal de mano corta.

[668] Du dire au fait il y a grand trait.

[669] Le parole son femmine, e i fatti son maschi.

[670] No son palabras para mi tia, que aun de las obras no se fia.

[671] A moro muerto gran lanzada.

[672] E facile far paura al toro dalla fenestra.

[673] Molli son bravi quando l'inimico frigge.

[674] Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non est opus.

[675] El vino bueno no ha menester pregonero.

[676] El buen vino la venta trae consigo.

SECRETS.

=No secrets but between two.=

"Where could you have heard that?" said a friend to Grattan. "Why, it is a profound secret." "I heard it," said Grattan, "where secrets are kept--in the street." Napoleon I. used to say, "Secrets travel fast in Paris."[677]

=Three may keep counsel if two be away.=

We are told in several languages "That the secret of two is God's secret--the secret of three is all the world's;"[678] and the Spaniards hold that "What three know every creature knows."[679] The surest plan is, of course, not to trust to anybody; and this was the plan pursued by Alva and by Q. Metellus Macedonicus, whose maxim, "If my tunic knew my secret I would burn it forthwith," has been turned by the French into a rhyming proverb of their own: "Let the shirt next your skin not know what's within."[680] The Chinese say, "What is whispered in the ear is often heard a hundred miles off." Truly "Nothing is so burdensome as a secret" (French).[681] The Livonians have this humorous hyperbole, "Confide a secret to a dumb man and it will make him speak." King Midas's barber scraped a hole in the earth, and, lying down, poured into it the tremendous secret that oppressed him; but the earth did not keep it close, for it sprouted up with the growing corn, which proclaimed with articulate rustlings, "King Midas hath the ears of an ass."

=Tom Noddy's secret.=

Or, "The secret of Polichinelle" (French);[682] that is to say, one which is known to everybody. This is what the Spaniards call "The secret of Anchuelos."[683] The town of that name lies in a gorge between two steep hills, on one of which a shepherd tended his flock, on the other a shepherdess. This pair kept up an amorous converse by bawling from hill to hill, but always with many mutual injunctions of secrecy.

=Murder will out.=

"And a man's child cannot be hid," adds Lancelot Gobbo. The English proverb is used jocosely, though derived from an awful sense of the fatality, as it were, with which bloody secrets are almost always brought to light. It seems to us as though the order of nature were inverted when the perpetrator of a murder escapes detection. This faith in Nemesis was expressed in the ancient Greek proverb, "The cranes of Ibycus," of which this is the story. The lyric poet Ibycus was murdered by robbers on his way to Corinth, and with his last breath committed the task of avenging him to a flock of cranes, the only living things in sight besides himself and his murderers. The latter, some time after, sitting in the theatre at Corinth, saw a flock of cranes overhead, and one of them said scoffingly, "Lo, there the avengers of Ibycus!" These words were caught up by some near them, for already the poet's disappearance had excited alarm. The men being questioned betrayed themselves, and were led to their doom, and "The cranes of Ibycus" passed into a proverb. This story may serve to show how

=Daylight will peep through a small hole.=

"Eggs are close things," say the Chinese, "but the chicks come out at last." "A secret fire is discovered by the smoke" (Catalan).[684]

=To let the cat out of the bag.=

To betray a secret inadvertently. I cannot tell what is the origin of this phrase. Can it be that it alludes to the practice of selling cats for hares? A fraudulent vendor, while pressing a customer "to buy a cat in a bag," (see p. 61,) might in an unguarded moment let him see enough to detect the imposition.

=When rogues fall out honest men come by their own.=

They peach upon each other. "Thieves quarrel, and thefts are discovered" (Spanish).[685] "Gossips fall out, and tell each other truths" (Spanish).[686] "When the cook and the butler fall out we shall know what is become of the butter" (Dutch).

=Tell your secret to your servant, and you make him your master=.

Juvenal notes the policy of the Greek adventurers in Rome to worm out the secrets of the house, and so make themselves feared. "To whom you tell your secret you surrender your freedom" (Spanish).[687] "Tell your friend your secret, and he will set his foot on your throat" (Spanish).[688]

=Walls have ears.=

"Hills see, walls hear" (Spanish).[689] "The forest has ears, the field has eyes" (German).[690]

=What soberness conceals drunkenness reveals.=

"What is in the heart of the sober man is on the tongue of the drunken man" (Latin).[691] "In wine is truth" (Latin).[692] "Wine wears no breeches" (Spanish).[693]

=When wine sinks, words swim.=[694]

=When the wine is in the wit is out.=

FOOTNOTES:

[677] Les confidences vont vite à Paris.

[678] Secret de deux, secret de Dieu; secret de trois, secret de tous.

[679] Lo que saben tres, sabe toda res.

[680] Que ta chemise ne sache ta guise.

[681] Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret.

[682] Le secret de Polichinelle.

[683] El secreto de Anchuelos.

[684] For secreto, lo fumo lo descovre.

[685] Pelean los ladrones, y descubriense los hurtos.

[686] Riñen las comadres, y duense las verdades.

[687] A quien dices tu puridad, á ese das tu libertad.

[688] Di á tu amigo tu secreto, y tenerte ha el pie en el pescuezo.

[689] Montes veen, paredes oyen.

[690] Der Wald hat Ohren, das Feld hat Augen.

[691] Quod est in corde sobrii est in ore ebrii.

[692] In vino veritas.

[693] El vino anda sin calças.

[694] This is in Herodotus: Ὄινου κατίοντοϛ ἔπιπλεουσιν ἐπῆ.

RETRIBUTION. PENAL JUSTICE.

=He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.=

=The water will ne'er waur the woodie.=--_Scotch._

That is, the water will never defraud the gallows of its due. Gonzago, in _The Tempest_, says of the boatswain, "I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged our case is miserable."

The Danes say, "He that is to be hanged will never be drowned, unless the water goes over the gallows."[695] Such punctilious accuracy in fixing the limits of the proposition considerably enhances its grim humour. There is a fine touch of ghastly horror in its Dutch equivalent, "What belongs to the raven does not drown."[696] The platform on which criminals were executed and gibbeted was called, in the picturesque language of the middle ages, the "ravenstone." "He that is to die by the gallows may dance on the river" (Italian).[697]

"He'll be hang'd yet, Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut him."

=Give a thief rope enough and he'll hang himself.=

=Every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer.=

=Air day or late day, the tod's [fox's] hide finds aye the flaying knife.=--_Scotch._

In spite of all his cunning the rogue will soon or late come to a bad end. "Foxes find themselves at last at the furrier's" (French).[698] "No mad dog runs seven years" (Dutch).[699]

=Hanging goes by hap.=

If a man is hanged it is a sign that he was pre-destined to that end. "The gallows was made for the unlucky" (Spanish).[700] It is not always a man's fault so much as his misfortune that he dies of a hempen fever. As Captain Macheath sings,--

"Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others as well as in me, I wonder we ha'n't better company Upon Tyburn tree."

But "Money does not get hanged" (German).[701] It sits on the judgment-seat, and sends poor rogues to the hulks or to Jack Ketch. As it was in the days of Diogenes the cynic, so it is now: "Great thieves hang petty thieves" (French);[702] and, whilst "Petty thieves are hanged, people take off their hats to great ones" (German).[703]

=First hang and draw, Then hear the cause by Lidford law.=

Ray informs us that "Lidford is a little and poor but ancient corporation in Devonshire, with very large privileges, where a Court of Stannaries was formerly kept." The same sort of expeditious justice was practised in Scotland and in Spain, as testified by proverbs of both countries. At Peralvillo the Holy Brotherhood used to execute in this manner robbers taken in the fact, or "red-hand," as the Scotch forcibly expressed it. Hence the Spanish saying, "Peralvillo justice: after the man is hanged try him."[704] The Scotch equivalent for this figures with dramatic effect in that scene of _The Fair Maid of Perth_ where Black Douglas has just discovered the murder of the Prince of Rothsay, and exclaims,--

"'Away with the murderers! hang them over the battlements!'

"'But, my lord, some trial may be fitting,' answered Balveny.

"'To what purpose?' answered Douglas. 'I have taken them red-hand; my authority will stretch to instant execution. Yet stay: have we not some Jedwood men in our troop?'

"'Plenty of Turnbulls, Rutherfords, Ainslies, and so forth,' said Balveny.

"'Call me an inquest of these together; they are all good men and true, save a little shifting for their living. Do you see to the execution of these felons, while I hold a court in the great hall, and we'll try whether the jury or the provost-martial shall do their work first: we will have

=Jedwood justice--hang in haste, and try at leisure.'"=

=He that invented the "maiden" first hanselled it.=--_Scotch._

This was the Regent Morton, who was the first man beheaded by an instrument of his own invention, called the "maiden." His enemies thought it was

"Sport To see the engineer hoist by his own petard;"

and even those who pitied him felt that "no law was juster than that the artificers of death should perish by their own art."[705]

=If he has no gear to tine, he has shins to pine.=--_Scotch._

That is, if he has not wealth to lose, or means to pay a fine, he must be clapped in the stocks or in fetters. "He that has no money must pay with his skin" (German).[706] "Where there is no money there is no forgiveness of sins" (German).[707]

FOOTNOTES:

[695] Han drukner ikke som henge skal, uden Vandet gaaer over Galgen.

[696] Wat den raven toebehoort verdrinkt niet.

[697] Chi ha da morir di forca, può ballar sul fiume.

[698] Enfin les renards se trouvent chez le pelletier.

[699] Er liep geen dolle hond zeven jaar.

[700] Para los desdichados se hizo la horca.

[701] Geld wird nicht gehenkt.

[702] Les grands voleurs font pendre les petits.

[703] Kleine Diebe henkt man, vor grossen zieht man den Hut ab.

[704] La justicia de Peralvillo, que ahorcado el hombre le hace la perquisa.

[705]

Nec lex est justior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.

[706] Wer kein Geld hat, mussmit der Haut bezahlen.

[707] Wo kein Geld ist, da ist auch keine Vergebung der Sünden.

WEALTH. POVERTY. PLENTY. WANT.

=Happy is the son whose father went to the devil.=

On the other hand, the Portuguese say, "Alas for the son whose father goes to heaven!"[708] the presumption being that a man does not go that way whilst amassing great wealth; for "He that is afraid of the devil does not grow rich" (Italian).[709] "To do so one has only to turn one's back on God" (French).[710] Audley, a noted lawyer and usurer in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was asked what might be the value of his newly-obtained office in the Court of Wards. He replied, "It may be worth some thousands of pounds to him who after his death would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows how much to him who would adventure to go to hell." Audley's biographer hints that he did adventure that way for the four hundred thousand pounds he left behind him at his departure. "The river does not become swollen with clear water" (Italian).[711] According to a Latin proverb, quoted with approval by St. Jerome, "A rich man is either a rogue or a rogue's heir."[712] "To be rich one must have a relation at home with the devil" (Italian).[713] "Gold goes to the Moor;" _i. e._, to the man without a conscience (Portuguese).[714]

"The poets feign," says Bacon, "that when Plutus, which is riches, is sent from Jupiter, he limps and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto he runs and is swift of foot; meaning that riches gotten by good means and just labour pace slowly, but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man. But it might be applied likewise to Pluto, taking him for the devil; for when riches come from the devil (as by fraud and oppression and unjust means) they come upon speed. The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul."

"He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent" (Proverbs xxviii. 22). "Who would be rich in a year gets hanged in half a year" (Spanish).[715]

=Plenty makes dainty.=[716]

=As the sow fills the draught sours.=

=Hunger is the best sauce.=

"Hunger makes raw beans sweet" (German). "Hunger is the best cook" (German). "The full stomach loatheth the honeycomb, but to the hungry every bitter thing is sweet" (Proverbs). "Brackish water is sweet in a dry land" (Portuguese).[717]

=A hungry horse makes a clean manger.=

=Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings.=

=A hungry man sees far.=

"A hungry man discovers more than a hundred lawyers" (Spanish).[718] Want sharpens industry and invention. "He thinks of everything who wants bread" (French).[719] "A poor man is all schemes" (Spanish).[720]

"Lorgitor artium, ingeniique magister Venter."

"Poverty and hunger have many learned disciples" (German).[721] "Poverty is the sixth sense."[722] "It is cunning: it catches even a fox" (German).[723]

=Need makes the old wife trot.=[724]

=Need makes the naked man run.=

=Need makes the naked quean spin.=

"Hunger sets the dog a-hunting" (Italian).[725] "Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood" (Italian).[726]

=Hunger will break through stone walls.=

"A hungry dog fears not the stick" (Italian);[727] whereas "The full-fed sheep is frightened at her own tail" (Spanish).[728]

=Poverty parteth good fellowship.=

An old Scotch song says:--

"When I hae saxpence under my thumb, Then I get credit in ilka town; But when I hae naethin they bid me gang by: Hech! poverty parts gude company."

=Poverty is no crime.=

Some say it is worse. "Poverty is no vice, but it is a sort of leprosy" (French).[729]

FOOTNOTES:

[708] Guay do filho que o pai vai a paraiso.

[709] Chi ha paura del diavolo non fa roba.

[710] Il ne faut que tourner le dos à Dieu pour devenir riche.

[711] Il fiume non s'ingrossa d'acqua chiara.

[712] Dives aut iniquus aut iniqui hæres.

[713] Por esser riceo bisogna avere un parente a casa al diavolo.

[714] Vaise o ouro ao mouro.

[715] Quien en un año quiere ser rico, al medio le ahorcan.

[716] Abondance engendre fâcherie.

[717] Agoa salobra na terra seca he doce.

[718] Mas descubre un hambriento que cien letrados.

[719] De tout s'avise à qui pain faut.

[720] Hombre pobre todo es trazas.

[721] Armuth und Hunger haben viel gelehrte Jünger.

[722] Armuth ist der sechste Sinn.

[723] Armuth ist listig, sie fängt auch einen Fuchs.

[724] The same in Italian, Bisogna fa trottar la vecchia; and in French, Besoin fait vieille trotter.

[725] Fa forame il can per fame.

[726] La fame caccia il lupo fuor del bosco.

[727] Can affamato non ha paura del bastone.

[728] Carnero harto de su rabo se espanta.

[729] Pauvreté n'est pas vice, mais c'est une espèce de laiderie.

BEGINNING AND END.

=A good beginning makes a good ending.=

=Well begun is half done.=

Tersely translated from the Latin, _Dimidium facti qui bene cœpit habet_. "A beard lathered is half shaved," say the Spaniards.[730] In an article on the "Philosophy of Proverbs" the author of the "Curiosities of Literature" gives an example from the Italian, which he deems of peculiar interest, "for it is perpetuated by Dante, and is connected with the character of Milton." Besides these distinctions it has a third (not surmised by Disraeli), as a linguistic curiosity; for though it consists of but four words, and those among the commonest in the language, its literal meaning is undetermined, and diametrically opposite interpretations have been given of it even by native authorities. _Cosa fatta capo ha_ is the proverb in question, which some understand as signifying, "A deed done has an end;" or, as the Scotch say, "A thing done is no to do." It is thus rendered by Torriano in 1666; whilst Giusti, in 1853, explains it as meaning, "A deed done has a beginning;" or, in other words, if you would accomplish anything, you must not content yourself with pondering over it for ever, but must proceed to action. Such another instance of divided opinion respecting the import of four familiar words in a simply-constructed sentence is probably not to be found in the history of modern languages.

This proverb is the "bad word" to which tradition ascribes the origin of the civil wars that long desolated Tuscany. When Buondelmonte broke his engagement with a lady of the Amadei family, and married another, the kinsmen of the injured lady assembled to consider how they should deal with the offender. They inclined to pass sentence of death upon him; but their fear of the evils that might ensue from that decision long held them in suspense. At last Mosca Lamberti cried out that "those who talk of many things effect nothing," quoting, says Macchiavelli, "that trite and common adage, _Cosa fatta capo ha_." This decided the question. Buondelmonte was murdered; and the deed immediately involved Florence in those miserable conflicts of Guelphs and Ghibellines, from which she had stood aloof until then. The "bad word" uttered by Mosca has been immortalised by Dante (_Inferno_, xxviii.), and variously rendered by his English translators. Cary presents the passage thus:--

"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.'"

Wright's version is,--

"Then one deprived of both his hands, who stood Lifting the bleeding stumps amid the dim Dense air, so that his face was stain'd with blood, Cried, 'In thy mind let Mosca bear a place, Who said, alas! Deed done is well begun-- Words fraught with evil to the Tuscan race.'"

Disraeli adopts Cary's interpretation of the proverb, and does not seem to suspect that it can have any other. Milton appears to have used it in the same sense. "When deeply engaged," says Disraeli, "in writing 'The Defence of the People,' and warned that it might terminate in his blindness, he resolutely concluded his work, exclaiming with great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished, _Cosa fatta capo ha!_ Did this proverb also influence his decision on that great national event, when the most honest-minded fluctuated between doubts and fears?"

=The first blow is half the battle.=

It is as good as two according to the Italians.

=The hardest step is over the threshold.=

"The first step is all the difficulty" (French).[731] It is well known that after St. Denis was decapitated he picked up his head, and walked a league with it in his hand to the spot where his church was afterwards erected. Recounting this miracle one day in a private circle, Cardinal de Polignac laid great stress on the length of the way traversed in that manner by the martyred saint; whereupon Madame du Deffaut remarked that this was not the most surprising part of the miracle, for in such cases "the first step was all the difficulty."

=Everything has a beginning.=

=A child must creep ere it can go.=

"Every beginning is feeble" (Latin).[732] "'Every beginning is hard,' as the thief said when he began by stealing an anvil" (German).[733]

=Rome was not built in a day.=

FOOTNOTES:

[730] Barba remojada, medio rapada.

[731] Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte.

[732] Omne principium est debile.

[733] Aller Anfang ist schwer, sprach der Dieb, und stahl zuerst einen Ambos.

OFFICE.

=The office shows the man.=

='Tis the place shows the man.=

It tries his capacity, and shows what stuff he is made of. But it also forms the man; it teaches him (German)[734] if he has the faculty to be taught, so that it may be said with some truth, "To whom God gives an office he gives understanding also" (German).[735] "A great place strangely qualifies," saith Selden. "John Read was groom of the chamber to my lord of Kent. Attorney-General Roy being dead, some were saying, how would the king do for a fit man? 'Why, any man,' says John Read, 'may execute the place.' 'I warrant,' says my lord, 'thou thinkest thou understand'st enough to perform it.' 'Yes,' quoth John; 'let the king make me attorney, and I would fain see that man that durst tell me there's anything I understand not.'" The proverb at the head of this paragraph is literally translated from a Greek maxim, attributed by Sophocles to Solon, and to Bias by Aristotle.

=He is a poor cook that cannot lick his own fingers.=