Persia viewed through its Proverbs and Apologues

Extract

Parodies of oriental speech and writing often consist merely of truisms, half-truths, and platitudes strung together in a fashion which appears to western ideas to reflect, with only a little conscious distortion, the working of the eastern mind. The grain of truth among the chaff is the fact that there undoubtedly exists a large body of proverbial wisdom that has for centuries been current amongst the peoples inhabiting the lands stretching between the Indus and the Atlantic, if not also amongst those living further to the east. Specimens of this gnomic currency occur as early as in ancient Egyptian, as well, of course, as in Biblical literature, while a distinct family group is to be found in the writings of Muslim peoples.