Art. XVI.—Proverbia Communia Syriaca

Extract

A writer remarks, “If men at the lowest as well as the highest stage of civilization enunciate the same truths, the fact goes to prove that these truths are unimportant.” I can hardly assent to the conclusion, even were the premiss correct, whereas it is not. Those familiar with proverbial literature have remarked that some aphorisms are common in matter, and a few even in actual manner and form, to almost all nations and languages. The Syrian, for instance, will say, “The egg of to-day, not the hen of to-morrow;” and “A live dog is better than a dead lion.” On the other hand, the points of difference are far more important. Setting aside the sayings which “bear the stamp of their birthplaces, and which wear the colouring and the imagery of their native climes,” we find that there are proverbs peculiar to every race—proper to it, as are its syntax and its idiom; that each people speaks out the truth or the half truth which is in it, and, consequently, that for the most part neither the idea nor the wording bear comparison. Moreover, were it a fact that all enunciate the same truth, it by no means proves the latter to be unimportant, except to the few.