Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-25
SOME TALMUDIC PROVERBS.

plenty of money, was enthusiastic politically and pulled powerful oar in his class crew. SOME TALMUDIC PROVERBS.
 
 Striking Illustrations of the Popular Wisdom of the Hebrews.
 From the London Spectatorl
 Scattered here and there throughout the tractates of the Talmud are goodly number of those pithy and popular sayings which, in contradistinction to the dicta of individual rabbins, may properly claim to come under the heading of proverbs. They were, for the most part, current among the Jews before the sixth century, and may safely be accept ed as genuine remanets of the popular wis dom of the Hebrews. In several instances it is even possible to localize such adages, ! owing to the formula with which they are introduced in the text of the rabbinical books, as ''The Jews say" "'The Gallileans say" fIn the West G. e., in Palestine) people say," and so forth Many of the Talmudic maxims will readily be recognized as old friends, a fact of importance to the collator; | others differ so little from familiar sayings of our own to suggest some curious ques- tions about the pedigree of proverbs general | ly There is no collection extant of Jewish | proverbs, and most of those given below ! have been gleaued in the course of cursory | reading of Ta1niud and Medrash.
 \ Among the scraps of popular wisdom pre- | served in the Talmud which need no intro duction when presented in Saxon garb l must be reckoned 'Walls have ears'-a warning more emphatically conveyed in | 'sEven unfenced fields tell tales" f'The l strongest rules" is the Jewish variant of ! Might is right" and ''King's knight, Kings I right,'' is about as close to the original He I brew as it is possible to keep. "A bird in \ the cage is worth hundred on the tree" is ' the Talmudic prototype of our bird in the ! hand The moral is the same in "Better 8 yard of ground than an acre of roof'' and ! fsThe berry have got tastes better than the | melon am promised The last is the most expressive; it smacks of the fresfde. "Wine | in secret out;; Sufficient the pain when it comes," 'SFodder for one, fodder for more" "Pride is the sign of poverty" and Don't ! throw stone into the Wsh from which you
 have drunk" suggest their obvious English parallels, while Flight for one, light for hundred;" 'tDrop by drop the cistern is ! filled, :" "A hundred fiatterers, and not one to | tell the truth" ''The ass is cold in midsum- mer," sCare kills half the man." 'sWho goes \ to the wars must be prepared to lose," and "Buying and selling don't make a merchant" | are Talmudic gems of which the setting will be more or less familiar. The common say \ ing about silence being gold finds parallel ! in the Jewish "Speech is worth 8 selah but ! silence two.r 'fBetter one's own tub than 1 another's cistern" is almost Saxon in it's homeliness, like "Better the grain one has | sown than the bushel one has bought" :" "The camel wanted horns and lost his ears" ap- ! pears in every European collection of prov | erbs, and our vulgar adage, eff you want to I hang yourself choose high tree, D is another \ piece of popular wisdom we can trace back, \ if not home, to the pages of Talmud.
 ue1ft1 Ina Ta1xy in the popular sayings of the Taln1ud, is oft en on all fours with our own. "Make the peasant king and he'll shoulder the basket" ' and 'tPut the ass in the lions skin and he'll brayn both illustrate the proverbial difficulty | of making 8 silk purse out O. sew's ear. \ 'sWhile the oven is hot bake your meat" and ! "When the dates are in the press prepai 2 your wine" bid the Hebrew Make hay while the sun shines" ''The crooked cedar walks \ among the stunted shrubs' and "The barren palm finds friends among the unfruitful \ trees'' convey the same moral as our adage ! about birds of feather. t'The plant is in \ the seed and already shows priekles," like
 ''In the opening bud you see the youthful ! thorns, {" reminds us that the boy is father to the man. t'He forged the iron that letters
 his legs'' and ''He sharpened the arrow that ! tore his flesh" have reference to that species l of retributive justice which we term being l hoist with ones own petard. In this con- nection may also be quoted ''The raven took fire to warm himself and burnt his nest. J I "If two call you 'ass' go and put on the sad dle' and s'If three say drunk lie down and
 sleep" tell us what all the world says must ! be true. "When one rope breaks the other ! soon follows" is reminder that misfortunes | never come singly. "When the ox's head is in the manager look out for his kicks" sug- | gests the insolenee of prosperity, and "Be- tween two dry sticks the damp soon
 learns to burnt the facility with which, in | evil company, bad manners can be acquitted.
 ''When the thief cannot steal he takes to
 honest ways' tells of making virtue of ne- I cessity; "When weeds are uprooted many 8 good plant perishes" teaches the old truth about the innocent suffering with the guilty
 and s:Who undertakes much has undertaken 1 nothing," with the converse, "Who under ! takes one thing has undertaken something. is distinct warning against having too many irons in the fire. On the other hand, the
 popular wisdom of the Talmud is sometimes ! at issue with our own. sfThe myrtle among
 the thorns is still a myrtle" and Among the
 thorns the rose @ blooms" caution us against judging man by his associates, and are,
 therefore, hardly in harmony with sundry \ wise saws of our own. Nor Is the INlmud | opposed to the proceeding we ridieule as talk ing coals to Newcastle. On the contrary, it is recommended. ''Take straw to Es-rayim , ! (where straw is exceedingly plentifuD, is one | of the oldest Jewish proverbs extant, and | I them to market" {" is later maxim to the
 self same tenor and effect.
 Woman, according to Talmudic adage, is {
 somewhat doubtful blessing She talks toe l much for Jewish wiseacres. ''Ten measures | of talk were sent down from heaven, ano I woman took nine" She is meddlesome ane | is told-"A woman's wisdom is in tht
 1 spindle" She will not do one thing at { time-'tA woman spins and talks" She i ! vain-"With her foot in the grave, woman clings to vanity" She is bold and immodes
 IA woman would sooner have one measur , of forwardness than forty of modesty.' Ane ! worse; she likes dancing-'tAt sixty her fee
 \ jingle when she hears the cymbals." He
 ! power is, nevertheless, admitted. ''Woma1 is mass of corruption, yet all men pursue
 | the original has stronger word than cor
 ruption though. Despite all this woman i
 desirable as companion, for "He who ha no wife is no man." Apropos of marriag
 there is word of advice in t'Take wifi
 from beneath a friend from above you.
 | Good looks are not of much account in tn
 choice of 8 partner, nor indeed in any othe
 transaction-''Be the goat white, be the goa
 black, so she give good milk" Difference t
 wife is recommended, If your wife is lit
 tie, bend down to her," and if things g
 wrong in the house the husband is told t. look at home for the cause, since "Ever
 man gets the wife he deserves" Next t
 marriage, friends are considered desirable 1 "Haye friends or die" says much in little
 and is impressive in it's simplicity. o course, sincere friends only meant, fo } ''If your friend be deaf when you call, turl your back on him.
 Many of the popular aud proverbial locu ! tions preserved in the Talmud are among tn best and most expressive of their kind 'evinegar, the son of Wine," for instance
 described the unpopular son of a popula i; father; "A box full of books" a learne , man, from whose learning the world ha derived no advantage. Grapes with grap } sauce," a discourse where the matter wa neither much nor to the point. "He ha 7 | words in his backbone" applied to a talks t tive bore; ssHe scalds himself with luke warm water" to the man who made mut
 de of the simplest matter intrusted to h 7 | management; and ''He will make the ocea E sweet to one whose pretensions were as e, e travagant as ill-founded. .'He loses what l ,, has and what he has not was said of an ul d fortunate man; 'tHe puts his money on u
 horns of deer," of an imprudent one; a1
 "His cheeks grow grass" of a cunning al
 imprudent fellow. Exaggeration, for whi'
 | be Medians seem to have been uotoyiou