SPANISH PROVERBS

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 December 1933, Page 10

SPANISH PROVERBS

WEATHER AND WIVES The Spanish proverbs are of a more grandiose style than homely English phrases. There is much wisdom as well as sublimity in these first two of the following: “He is a rich man who has God for his friend.” “He is the best scholar who has learned to live well.” Severity; not undeserved by the English, is in the following: “Change of weather finds discourse for fools.” “When all men say you are an ass, ’tis time to bray” is good advice of its kind. “Leave a dog and a great talker in the middle of the street.” “A good wife is the workmanship of a good husband,” and “Between two own brothers, two witnesses, and a notary,” are domestic proverbs, almost always realised not only in Spain but everywhere else.

“God doth the cure, and the doctor takes the money.” “Good courage breaks ill luck to pieces,” “Make the night night and the day day, and you will be merry and wise,” and “Afflictions teach much, but they are a hard, cruel master,” are three worth remembering. Thomas Carlyle has taken the last proverb and amended it. “Experience,” says he, “doth take dreadfully high wages, but she teacheth like none other.” To teach one to help oneself, the

Spaniards say, drawing the simile from hot porridge, “He who hath a mouth of his own should not bid any- j one else blow.” Of short and tall peo--1 pie they say, "Whilst the tall maid is .'stooping, the little one hath swept the house,” and that little people are quicker than others we have this English witness in a jingling rhyme: — Long and lazy, little and loud; . Fair and foolish, dark and proud. To console ugly people, they are told that “A very great beauty is either a fool or proud.” Generosity is reminded that “A covetous man made a halfpenny of a farthing, a liberal

1 man made sixpence of it.” By the folj lowing pithy sentence, gluttons are | warned that their lives will be short: i “He who eats most eats least,” whilst !on the same subject we say that ■ j "More graves are dug with the teeth i than with a shovel.” “He who marj ries a widow,” say the Spaniards “will : often have a dead man’s head thrown. in his dish.” The monks, who always’ , quoted the Fathers, are told of it ithus: “No pottage is good without ba!con: no sermon without St. _ Augustin.” People are told to resist evil thus: “Away goes the devil when he

finds the door is shut against him.” And the folly of blasphemy and wickedness is thus reproved: “He who spits against heaven, it falls in his face.” Many of these are of Sanskrit and Tamul —hence Moorish origin in Spanish; here is one: "I wept when I was born, and every day shows why.” Parallel to this is a beautiful epigram from the Persian of Hafiz, translated by Sir William Jones in an equally beautiful spirit: —

On parent knees, a naked newborn child; Weeping thou sat’st, while all around thee smiled. So live, that, sinking in life’s last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.