Proverbs and Common Sense

Like slick fish, proverbs have managed to slide through the nets of scholars who set out to catch them in a definition. One thing is certain, however: A proverb is a common saying that makes eminent sense to those who use it. The natural habitat of proverbs is in the waters of common sense. They swim with equal ease in the different strata of a given society: “Whoever has a proverb is worthy of attention,” the Chinese say, “be it a mandarin or a coolie.” They are common to far distant geographic areas, migrating from country to country and from language to language. Not even the waterfalls that separate period from period in history can stop proverbs, and some of them have remained common throughout vastly different eras, retaining their wiggling vitality for thousands of years.

More than two thousand years ago, the Roman scholar Varro wrote, “Non omnes, qui habent citharam, sunt citharaoes” (They are not all harpists who own a harp). He may have created a proverb, or — more likely — recorded one that was already an old saw. At any rate, through Varro it became popular, and its popularity was still so strong a thousand years later that many new proverbs were created on its pattern. “They are not all hunters who blow horns.” “They are not all cooks who carry long knives.” And, “They are not all friends who laugh at you.” The Dutch people were particularly fond of this last one (“Zijn niet alle frienden, die hem toelachen”) and seemed to have brought it to the West Indies. There it survives today— another thousand years later — in an African American version: “They are not all friends who grin showing their teeth.” Other proverbs have had a long life, too. Some fifteen hundred years ago, Plutarch had already quoted, “The wearer knows best where the shoe pinches.” His contemporary, St. Jerome, called “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” an old saw. He had fished it up from the vernacular, the language of common people, the language into which he was translating the Bible.

When it comes to proverbs, I am a passionate fisherman. Since the waters of common sense flow in every part of the world, we may be lucky and catch the same proverb in streams thousands of miles apart — or rather, find the same insight turned into a proverb by an altogether different culture. In New York, they say “Every family has a skeleton in the closet.” In the West Indies, it becomes “Every house have him dirty corner,” and in the southern United States, “Every cabin has its mosquito.” For the Haya in East Africa, it is “Every hill has its leopard,” and the Jabo give a special twist to that skeleton in the closet: “Chicken says, ‘If you scratch too hard, you come upon the bones of your mother.’”To find the same with a difference is always a thrill.

Even within the same culture, you may find a delightful variety of images to get the same idea across. Which of these four proverbs would you choose to tell someone “You had it coming”? “If you won’t stand blow, no play with stick.” “One that carries straw mustn’t fool with fire.” “If you lay with the puppy, you get bitten by the fleas.” “One who swims with fish must eat worms.” All four of them come out of African American

culture with its colorful imagery. There is no better way for coming to know a given culture than to savor its oral tradition of proverbs. Unfortunately, the media tend to make language sterile and proverbs are becoming an endangered species.

In the Austria of my childhood, everyone seemed to agree with the Basque proverb “Old words: wise words,” or with the English, “All good sense of the world runs into proverbs.” Besides, as the Arabs know, “A proverb is to speech what salt is to food.” Cicero had already spoken of “salting” his elegant Latin prose with proverbs, and my Great Aunt Jenny, who liked lots of salt on her potatoes, salted the advice she gave us children with proverbs too.The mailman, the gypsies, and the tinker who came to the door used proverbs. So did the pastor, the butcher, and above all our tutor. None of them knew that unimaginably far away, in the Sudan, the Ojai said, “For every occasion there is a proverb.” But they would all have agreed that proverbs were “the wisdom of the common people.” Everyone believed in the proverb of all proverbs, which was still current among us in its Latin form, “Vox populi, vox Dei” (“The voice of the people: God’s voice”).

Not always, however, does the voice of the people rise from the depths we all have in common. Some proverbs spring rather from provincial prejudice. Every country tends to put mocking labels on its neighbors and often does so in proverbs. One of them has even found its way into the Bible, “Cretans: always liars” (Titus 1:12). Village may taunt village in proverbs, handing on prejudice from generation to generation and perpetuating discord. There are also proverbs that taunt certain professions, say tailors for cheating—“A tailor cuts three sleeves for every gown”—or physicians for malpractice—“ Only a doctor can kill you and go scot-free.” Prejudice may also target physical traits or women. “Never trust a red beard.” “Get near women: get near trouble.” Or worse, “Women are the snares of Satan.” Fortunately, these narrow-minded proverbs are vastly outnumbered by those which speak for the entire human community. Surprisingly often, proverbs do spring from that depth in which all communicate with all and with the divine source of all. Then we can truly hear in this voice of the people overtones of a divine voice.

For a long time now, I have been collecting proverbs, not only for their content, but also for sheer pleasure in their language. I pick them up with the same enjoyment with which I collect pebbles when I walk along the shore. Just as the tides smooth and polish pebbles, daily use shapes proverbs until not one excess word is left. One proverb, for instance, uses only two syllables to conjure up the image of ploughshares gathering rust while the plough lies idle in the barnyard: “Rest: rust.” Pebbles I pick have other delightful qualities besides being smooth to the touch.Their polish brings out the design in the rock. Thus, many proverbs have obviously been shaped and reshaped as they went from mouth to mouth through the centuries, until language has found the perfect design. Parallelism is a favorite pattern. “Barking saves biting.” “Like father, like son.” Or this one from the African Ila, “Honor a child and it will honor you.” Sometimes alliteration is added. “Many men, many minds.” “Live and learn.” Some proverbs use rhyme. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Or the African American “Buy beef, you buy bone; buy land, you buy rock stone.” In Friesland they say, “Calf love: half love; old love: cold love.”

When the pebbles collected wet from the shore dry out, they lose their luster. Similarly, proverbs collected in books tend to be dull. It is in the living flow of speech that they sparkle. Sometimes, though, their imagery is so unmistakably part of a culture in which the flow of conversation glitters with proverbs that they seem to retain their freshness. For instance, two African American ones: “Bull old, take wis-wis [straw] tie him” and “When you go to a donkey house, don’t talk about ears.” African culture comes alive in proverbs like the following: “While the hyena is drinking, the dog can only watch.” “One small straw suffices to suck honey from the hive.” “When you have but one garment, you don’t wash it on a rainy day.” Here’s an East African version of “Forewarned is forearmed”: “The hippopotamus that shows itself doesn’t upset the boat.” What could be more typically Swiss than “Everything may be bought, but time”? And finally a proverb that is as Dutch as tulips or wooden shoes: “Who wants the last drop out of the can, gets the lid on the nose.”

homespun — like many great things. In fact, “homespun” is a good word to describe them if we give to “home” its deepest meaning. Common sense is the thinking and feeling and willing that we share with the whole Earth Household. There is our true home, and there the proverbs of this kind have been “spun.” They do not philosophize or moralize; they simply hold up one image, as if to say “Look!” And the more we look, the more we see. “Under trees it rains twice” (Swiss). “A tiny needle goes through coarse cloth” (Sudan). “Dead twig shows itself when the buds come out” (African American). “Drop by drop carves the stone” (ancient Rome).These images are spun by the great Mother-of-All on the same spinning wheel on which the threads of the world itself are being spun. This is why these proverbs shine so brightly and yield ever new insights. We find images of this kind throughout the parables of Jesus.