Читать книгу Proverbs of All Nations, Compared, Explained, and Illustrated - Walter K. Kelly - Страница 5

"Two good days for a man in this life:

When he weds and when he buries his wife."[82]

Nor do the wives of Provence appear to be delighted with their conjugal lot. Having lost their youthful plumpness through the cares and toils of wedlock, they oddly declare that "If a stockfish became a widow it would fatten."[83] A Spanish woman's opinion of matrimony is thus expressed: "'Mother, what sort of a thing is marriage?' 'Daughter, it is spinning, bearing children, and weeping.'"[84]

Better a tocher [dower] in her than wi' her.—Scotch.

A man's best fortune or his worst is his wife.

"The day you marry you kill or cure yourself" (Spanish).[85] "Use great prudence and circumspection," says Lord Burleigh to his son, "in choosing thy wife, for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once."

The gude or ill hap o' a gude or ill life

Is the gude or ill choice o' a gude or ill wife.—Scotch.

There is a Spanish rhyme much to the same effect:—

"Him that has a good wife no evil in life that may not be borne, can befall.

Him that has a bad wife no good thing in life can chance to, that good you may call."[86]

Put your hand in the creel, and take out either an adder or an eel.

That's matrimony. "In buying horses and taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to God" (Italian).[87] "Marriages are not as they are made, but as they turn out" (Italian).[88]

There's but ae gude wife in the country, and ilka man thinks he's got her.—Scotch.

It is a pleasant delusion while it lasts, and it is not incurable. Instances of complete recovery from it are not rare.

A man may woo where he will, but must wed where he's weird.—Scotch.

That is, where he is fated to wed. This is exactly equivalent to the English saying,—

Marriages are made in heaven,

the meaning of which Dean Trench appears to me to mistake, when he speaks with admiration of its "religious depth and beauty." I cannot find in it a shadow of religious sentiment. It simply implies that it is not forethought, inclination, or mutual fitness that has the largest share in bringing man and wife together. More efficient than all these is the force of circumstances, or what people vaguely call chance, fate, fortune, and so forth. In the French version of the adage, "Marriages are written in heaven,"[89] we find the special formula of Oriental fatalism; and fatalism is everywhere the popular creed respecting marriage. Hence, as Shakspeare says,—

"The ancient saying is no heresy—

Hanging and wiving go by destiny."

"But now consider the old proverbs to be true y saieth: that marriage is destinie."—Hall's Chronicles.

If marriages be made in heaven some had few friends there.—Scotch.

Ne'er seek a wife till ye hae a house and a fire burning.—Scotch.

More belongs to a bed than four bare legs.

Marriage is honourable, but housekeeping is a shrew.

Sweetheart and honey-bird keeps no house.

"Marry, marry, and what about the housekeeping?" (Portuguese).[90] "Remember," said a French lady to her son, who was about to make an imprudent match, "remember that in wedded life there is only one thing which continues every day the same, and that is the necessity of making the pot boil." "He that marries for love has good nights and bad days" (French).[91] "Before you marry have where to tarry," (Italian);[92] and remember that

A wee house has a wide throat.

It costs something to support a family, however small; and "It is easier to build two hearths than always to have a fire on one" (German).[93]

'Tis hard to wive and thrive both in a year.

Who weds ere he be wise shall die ere he thrive.

Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing.

This is so far true as it discommends long engagements.

'Tis time to yoke when the cart comes to the capples [i.e., horses].—Cheshire.

That is, it is time to marry when the woman wooes the man. This provincial word "capple" is Irish also, and is allied to, but not derived from, the Latin caballus. It is probably one of the few words of the ancient Celtic tongue of Britain which were adopted into the language of the Saxon conquerors.

Husbands are in heaven whose wives chide not.

Whether or not that heaven is ever found on earth is a question which each man must decide from his own experience. "He that has a wife has strife,"[94] say the French, and the Italian proverb-mongers take an unhandsome advantage of the fact that in their language the words "wife" and "woes" differ only by a letter.[95] St. Jerome declares that "Whoever is free from wrangling is a bachelor."[96]

A smoky chimney and a scolding wife are two bad companions.

The Scotch couple together "A leaky house and a scolding wife," in which they follow Solomon: "A continual dropping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."[97] "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house."[98]

A house wi' a reek and a wife wi' a reerd [scolding noise] will sune mak a man run to the door.—Scotch.

Of the continental versions of this proverb the Spanish[99] seems to me the best, and next to it the Dutch.[100]

It's a sair reek where the gude wife dings the gude man.—Scotch.

"A man in my country," says James Kelly, "coming out of his house with tears on his cheeks, was asked the occasion. He said 'there was a sair reek in the house;' but, upon further inquiry, it was found that his wife had beaten him." "It is a sad house where the hen crows and the cock is mute" (Spanish).[101] Though we have not this proverb in English, we have its spirit embodied in one word, HENPECKED, which is peculiar to ourselves.

The grey mare is the better horse.

The wife wears the breeches. "A hawk's marriage: the hen is the better bird" (French).[102]

Marry above your match and you get a master.

"In the rich woman's house she commands always, and he never" (Spanish).[103] "Who takes a wife for her dower turns his back on freedom" (French).[104] But every married man is in this plight, for

"He that has a wife has a master."[105]

"He that's not sensible of the truth of this proverb," says James Kelly, "may blot it out or pass it over."

"As the good man saith, so say we;

But as the good woman saith, so it must be."

Wedding and ill wintering tame both man and beast.

"You will marry and grow tame" (Spanish).[106]

He that marries a widow and two daughters marries three stark thieves.

He that marries a widow and two daughters has three back doors to his house.

And "The back door is the one that robs the house" (Italian).[107]

Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged.

Else the burden of an old Scotch song, "Ye'll never be like mine auld gudeman," will be dinned in your ears day and night.

He that marries a widow will have a dead man's head cast in his dish.

Happy is the wife who is married to a motherless son.

"Uno animo omnes socrus oderunt nurus," says Terence; and this is the common testimony of experience in all ages and countries. "The husband's mother is the wife's devil" (German, Dutch).[108] "As long as I was a daughter-in-law I never had a good mother-in-law, and as long as I was a mother-in-law I never had a good daughter-in-law" (Spanish).[109] "The mother-in-law forgets that she was a daughter-in-law" (Spanish).[110] "She is well married who has neither mother-in-law nor sister-in-law" (Spanish).[111] Men, too, do not always regard their wives' mothers with tender affection, and some of the many bitter sayings against mothers-in-law seem to be common to both sexes. Such is this queer Ulster rhyme:—

"Of all the ould women that ever I saw,

Sweet bad luck to my mother in-law."

Also these Low German:—"There is no good mother-in-law but she that wears a green gown;"[112] i.e., that is covered with the turf of the churchyard;—"The best mother-in-law is she on whose gown the geese feed;"[113] and this Portuguese, "If my mother-in-law dies, I will fetch somebody to flay her."[114]