The proverb offers very convenient illustrations of
problems that arise in every genre of folklore, but I shall
not extend these remarks by drawing obvious comparisons and
leave that task to the reader. It is a very convenient basis
for discussion because the texts are familiar to everyone
or, if they are not, they can be easily quoted. The
following remarks concern what have been called proverbs by
good authority and are couched in a proverbial pattern. In
order to write a good newspaper article, we are told that a
reporter is advised to discover and report the answers to
the questions, "Who, What, When, Where and Why?" From one
version to another of this advice the questions and their
order vary somewhat, and such variations imply oral currency
of the formula.[1] In the
Middle Ages this series of questions was used in schools to
teach pupils how to write. The schoolmaster gave them a
proverb and required them to answer the questions "Quis?
Quid? Quomodo? Cur? Quibus auxiliis?" and so on. Ultimately
these questions are Aristotle's categories of the accidents
or aspects of matter. For convenience I begin with
"What?"
What is a proverb? In folklore the names of such genres
as the proverb, riddle, tale, or ballad have a wide range of
meanings in a single language, country, or age and precise
definitions, if they are possible, have been the occasion of
much dispute. Identification of these meanings and
discussion of them must rest on a generally accepted basis,
in other words, on a collection. Our first question has
immediately brought another in its train or, as the proverb
says, "One thing leads to another." I cannot readily cite
this from a collection. This inability to cite parallels is
in itself an attractive aspect of proverb studies: we can
easily add to and improve our resources. Let the
Wellerism--I shall define the term later--"'One thing leads
to another,' as the actress tried to warn the bishop when he
tried to help her with her galoshes" suffice to show the
traditional quality of the proverb.[2]
The question "Where?" is not very different from such
questions as "Where are proverbs used?" or "Who collects
them?" As early as Sumerian times men made collections for
didactic purposes and especially for the schoolroom. In the
Middle Ages and even in our own time this is still a typical
stimulus. Men buy and read collections to awaken and enlarge
reflections on the world and the nature of man, to suggest
subjects for conversation, or to provide themselves with
comment appropriate to situations in daily life. Such
purposes are obviously closely allied to the essence of the
moralizing proverb. Probably the collections give a fairly
adequate idea of such proverbs. Proverbs expressing ideas
that cannot be readily brought into line with sober
moralizing or that employ a whimsical manner are likely to
be recorded less frequently than platitudes. In literature
proverbs are often used to characterize country people and
the vulgar generally, but they may on occasion be used in
sophisticated writing for special reasons. Children's books
allude to the most familiar proverbs and thus offer useful
evidence of their currency. ODEP quotes Goody Two-Shoes of the eighteenth and somebody's Field Full of Furry
Folk, Charles Kingsley's Water Babies, and Lewis
Carroll of the nineteenth century. Evidence from such
sources is a reliable guide to what was traditionally
current. Jan Brunvand's collection of proverbs used by
Indiana authors before 1890--many of them writers of
children's books-- gives a good idea of the conventional
moralizing of a frontier population.
And now the question, "To what end?" Why do men use
proverbs? An ingenious writer pointed out a generation ago
that each genre of folklore has its own characteristic
special purpose. As a guide to life's problems, the proverb
summarizes a situation, passes a judgment, or offers a
course of action. It is a consolation in difficulties large
and small and a guide when a choice must be made. It
expresses a morality suited to the common man. It is
cautious and conservative in recommending the middle way:
"Virtus in medio, Nequid nimis." It is not a call to high
adventure. In the Renaissance men made collections entitled
"The Crossing of Proverbs", that is to say, collections
setting one proverb against another. I cite examples to show
how typical of proverbs this contrast that marks the middle
way is. "Hew to the line" calls for adherence to principle
and is moderated by "You never miss a slice from a cut
loaf." "Hitch your wagon to a star" appears also as "Don't
hitch your wagon to a star", an equivalent of "Discretion is
the better part of valor". "A fool may sometimes give a wise
man counsel" is the opposite of "A fool can ask more
questions than a wise man can answer". The advice is
commonplace: "You can't eat your cake and have it, too;
You've made your bed. Now lie in it; Listeners never hear
good of themselves; Sweep before your own door; Opportunity
makes the thief; First come, first served; Self-praise is no
recommendation." Comparisons are often sharply drawn and
summarize a situation cogently: "The field is always greener
over the fence; The grey mare is the better horse; There is
no smoke without fire; Honey catches more flies than gall;
There's no help in crying over spilled milk; Praise the
bridge when you have crossed it."
Proverbs are easily used in passing judgment and can
therefore appear in legal contexts: "Two wrongs don't make a
right; An Englishman's house is his castle; Let the buyer
beware (Caveat emptor)". In the Renaissance instruction in
law was often given by stating and interpreting maxims and
for this purpose men made collections. Law schools do not
now look with favor on this way of teaching the law. Since
the interpretation of a proverb for legal purposes may
resemble the explanation of a riddle, proverbs and riddles
are at times, especially in African tradition, likely to be
grouped together. Over the centuries the use of proverbs in
literature has varied in many different ways, and
generalizations are difficult. Medieval and Renaissance
authors seem to have preferred to cite proverbs with little
alteration; sophisticated modern authors make allusive
reference that may pass unnoticed or gain interest from
their obscurity. In saying "The grimly cynical night that
makes all cats gray", Robert Louis Stevenson was hinting at
the proverb "At night all cats are gray". And proverbs or
proverbial phrases may be present, although they are no
longer often used and are not immediately understood. For
example, in the riddle "Robbers came to our house / And we
were all in. / The house leaped out at the windows / And we
were all ta'en (i.e., taken).--Fish in net" the reference to
the house leaping out the windows means that the water
flowed through the meshes of the net and also that great
disorder prevailed. This idiomatic meaning of the proverbial
phrase is now rarely used, but only a little more than a
century ago Charles Dickens could write in Sketches by
Boz:
The whole family was infected with the mania for
private theatricals; the house, usually so clean and
tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattleton's expressive description,
"regularly turned out o'windows".
Dictionaries of English proverbs include many varieties
of proverbs and proverbial sayings. I select three of them
that have received less attention than they deserve: the
Wellerism, the proverbial phrase, and the proverbial
comparison and comment on them in this order.
There is an old story that John Heywood presented a
collection of proverbs to Queen Elizabeth I with pride and
assured her that it was complete. She asked whether he had
noted "'Bate me an ace', quoth Bolton" and he had not. We no
longer know what this Wellerism means and cannot explain the
allusion. Wellerisms take their name from Sam Weller in the Pickwick Papers because he had a special liking for
them. They are quotations accompanied by mention of the
speaker (often with his name) and an allusion to the scene:
"'Sour grapes', said the fox and could not reach them." This
is obviously enough an allusion to a familiar Aesopic fable
that has been converted into a Wellerism in post- classical
times. There are half a dozen or more classical Wellerisms
and at least one much older Sumerian example.
Wellerisms in which an animal speaks are usually
allusions to fables, although I am not sure that there is
one underlying "'What a dust I raise,' said the fly as it
sat on the wheel". Wellerisms in which a man or woman speaks
may be actual remarks that caught popular fancy and became
traditional: "'That I would fain see,' said blind Hugh",
which was current in the sixteenth century, may be such a
quotation, for there was then a famous wit called Blind
Hugh. A Swedish scholar has conjectured that generic names
replaced specific names when the appropriateness of the
specific names was forgotten. Thus we may have, although he
does not cite this example, "'I see' said the blind man" and
with a further development involving a pun, "'I see,' said
the blind man and picked up his hammer and saw".
This account of proverbs and kindred forms has been
brief. I could wish that one might apply to it the saying
"Good things come in small packages." (the record of this
proverb is all too scanty). However that may be, "There is
an end to everything."
Notes
*Reprinted from Wolfgang Mieder (ed.) Selected Writings on Proverbs by Archer Taylor, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 1975, pp.
74-83
The most recent instance I have noted
is Samuel Beckett, Murphy (New York,
[1957]), p. 17: "He . . . wanted to know the who,
what, where, by what means, why, in what way and when.
Scratch an old man and find a Quintilian." The novel was
published in 1938. In TheCrime at Black Dudley (1929), ch. xxiv, Margery Allingham gives a somewhat
different version: "Are you sleuthing a bit in your own
inimitable way? Is the old cerebral machine ticking over?
Who and what and why and wherefore, so to speak?"
Quoted from Leslie Charteris, "The
Ever-Loving Spouse."
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