{npm22: 20 ~ book-learnin’}

Somewhere, college-aged me is face-palming in dismay.

My junior year we were required to read Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism. To say that it was a slog is an understatement; I could not STAND his know-it-all tone and his insistence that all the great minds had to make their way through the Greeks and other classical writers, and that good poets must write in a prescribed way – prescribed by him, of course. Add to that, it was written in verse so there was this overarching sense of self-superiority AND rhymed couplets. Gah! Imagine my disgust to learn that he was, at the time of his publication, all of twenty-three — nearly the same age as I was — and yet he pontificated as if he knew EVERYTHING.

Granted, he knew more than I did, but STILL.

Despite how annoying Pope was, we get tons of witty sayings from him — “To err is human, to forgive, divine,” and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” among the most notable. His declaiming today’s proverb wasn’t really original, writing, as he did, during the Age of Enlightenment where the publication of works became more commonly accessible. Suddenly anyone – gasp! – who could read had access to learned discourse, not just those who had been classically educated at the best schools. On that more level playing field, English politician/philosopher Sir Francis Bacon published a 1601 essay on atheism. In it he argued, “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” That train of thought is a cousin of our proverb:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;”

drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.
– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711


the risk
the uncertain swimmer, it’s said
must jump, lest they give in to dread.
can’t dip in a toe
and say that you know
dive! perceive the depth then as read

Is a little learning is a dangerous thing? Perhaps, although maybe knowing even a little can alert you to the vast seas of ignorance in which you’ve previously been content to swim. At least one can hope so.

{npm22: 19 ~ float}

Since yesterday’s proverb was so old, I thought I’d find one that’s newer. This one is very much considered an American proverb, as it came into common usage in 1963, in a presidential speech by former President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy claimed that it was a saying from Cape Cod, and indeed it had been a slogan of The New England Council for thirteen years at that point. However, it had an earlier provenance in a New Jersey newspaper, referring to a fundraising scheme for missionary work in 1910.

…and before that Wikipedia claims it was a common phrase in China, and was first published around 1894-ish in a novel called The Gallant Maid. How I wish I had a solid reference for that phrase in the novel, but… it’s from the Qing Dynasty and it’s in Chinese, so no luck. Regardless, so much for this proverb being a “new” one!

This proverb has been used to support theories of rising economies trickling down from the deepest to the shallowest cups. While that may or may not be a political taradiddle, I have always loved the imagery of a sudden swell making all the little boats bob and sway.

“A rising tide raises all boats.”


incoming
the pull of the moon
gathers with chill clarity
dancers from the deep

Did you know that the best fishing is on an incoming or rising tide? Yet another Random Thing I Learned looking at this proverb. Happy Tuesday.

{npm22: 18 ~ bedmates}

Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) is credited with saying that ‘a proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.’ That speaks to today’s little proverb nicely. I have to admit that this is one of my favorites simply because of its sheer effrontery. I would go so far as to say its intended use is to prod, pique and annoy. The levels of insult are myriad – hey, who are you calling a dog?! As for getting up with fleas – those blood-sucking parasites are viewed with the distaste reserved only for other shameless thieves like leeches, ticks, mosquitos, …and vampires.

(Does it surprise anyone that the common variation of this was ALSO a favorite proverb of my sixth-grade teacher?)

This proverb is VERY old. The Latin “qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent” is allegedly a quote from the Roman philosopher Seneca, but that isn’t found in his works. Its first sighting in English is in James J. Sanforde’s Garden of Pleasure, published 1573:

“He that goeth to bedde wyth Dogges, aryseth with fleas.”


three dog night
swaddled soft in fur
(never mind the wet noses)
let sleeping dogs lie.

PS – I had no idea this was a random 70’s Alan Parsons Project song. Thanks, Internet!

{npm22: 17~wake}

Welcome to the one day of the year when it’s safe to put all your eggs… in… Right, sorry. It won’t happen again.

Today’s proverb is very old indeed, though finding the actual date it first came into use seems impossible. The oldest sighting came from Giovanni Torriani’s 1666 piazza universale di proverbi Italiani a collection of some ten thousand Italian proverbs. Using one proverb to define another he says, ‘Venture not all in one bottom.’ ‘To put all ones Eggs in a Paniard, viz., to hazard all in one bottom.” (Here “bottom” is another name for a ship’s hold, while a pannier is what baskets strapped to donkeys and oxen were called.) Don Quixote used the phrase as we’re familiar with it (“‘Tis the part of wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket”) and though it was likely in use well before then, it wasn’t until 1894 that it was printed in America:

Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket” — which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter you money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and — watch that basket.” – Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

I don’t know; I get that the proverb is trying to teach prudence, but what if we threw all the eggs into every effort? Sometimes holding back doesn’t get you want you want…

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”


bet the house
don’t miss your shot
return every jab life throws
sling back its arrows

{npm22: 16~dark}

Okay: quick question – when is it full night? After sundown, right? The weather guide on my phone has all of these handy little bits of information based on latitude and longitude and standard time zones… there’s Twilight Starting and Twilight ending, there’s Solar Noon and then the usual Sunrise and Sunset. There’s this whole thing about solar declination and ACTUAL Sunset vs. Apparent Sunset. It’s great – and way overdone for our uses today. All we need is …Dawn.

Thomas Fuller, an English theologian, in the year 1650, is actually who we believe coined this phrase. It appeared in his work titled A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine and the Confines Thereof. (Yet another guy who really needed to work on his titles.) Possibly because it fit his sermon, he seemed to imply that this phrase was literal — that it’s utter pitch black dark right before sunrise — ergo, it’s always darkest just before dawn, since just before then is the darkest time.

Dear Rev. Fuller,

We regretfully inform you that a whole ball of solar fire doesn’t just pop up and the world is flooded with light like a switch… As the Earth turns, the light of that solar ball rises gradually. So, it’s actually darkest? Probably just after midnight. But, good job for getting us thinking about metaphors and such.

Love, Random People on the Internet.

“It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.” – Rev. Fuller


before dawn
tick: the clock’s hand jerks
closing the circle of day
today, tomorrow
and round again it takes you
another day won’t break you.

{npm22: 15~ prove me now}

I love how the various bits of language I’m studying line up: in Spanish, commanding someone to produce proof (Prove it!) is pruébalo. That’s also the same word that’s used when you want someone to TRY something. (As a matter of fact there’s a very colorful travelogue/cooking show on YouTube by the same name.) In Dutch, the meanings don’t overlap; to try is probeer, and the old Latin word is probare, which has a bit in common with the English word “probation.” From Merriam-Webster:

“Proof is an alteration of Middle English prove, which itself is from Anglo-French preove, meaning “evidence,” based on an Old French word meaning “test.” … In Middle English, proof had meanings relating to both the presenting of evidence that demonstrates a truth and the establishment of fact or truth through testing.

As you’ll recall, pudding in history has been savory – think haggis. Minced meat, spices, cereals and blood stuffed into guts and boiled. And whether or not that minced, spiced meat the cook used was spoiled, or any good? Well, you had to prove it.

(Americans use a shortened version, simply “the proof is in the pudding,” which author Henry Dircks first used in his 1863 novel Joseph Anstey, and which appeared again in an 1867 issue of The Farmer’s Magazine. No one knows when it arrived on these shores).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating


hatching
life’s greatest card trick
now we see it, now we don’t
breath held with applause.

Poetry Friday today is hosted today at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

{npm22: 14~ unknown devils}

Lately the rabbit hole I’ve fallen into with these poems has turned out to be less about the poetry, and much, much more about the Way Cool Things I Can Know About Random and Forgotten Proverbs. So much for my idea of doing a quick, SHORT poem every day – the research looks to be just a ten minute job, and then an hour later I’m still reading. ::sigh:: Sometimes, I’m just… so me.

ANYWAY.

According to what scant information I can find, today’s proverb hails from the Netherlands, or at least it was first recorded in 1539 in Proverbs or Adages by Desiderius Erasmus Gathered out of the Chiliades and Englished, a translation of the Dutch philosopher Erasmus’s book of proverbs by Richard Tavener, whose other biggest claim to fame was a translation of the Bible that same year. For a translator who lived under both Queen Mary AND Queen Elizabeth, this phrase might have proved especially apt. Indeed, better the devil you know, poor guy … but, how about NO devils, hm? I’ll buy that option for $500, Alex.

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” – Possibly Desiderius Erasmus, But Probably Not


bad to worse
for rocks or heartache
an equal number exists
of bruised bits (or swears)

{npm22: 13~ free labor}

Darby and Joan were the original…um, John and Mary? They were a traditional “old married couple,” and they stood in for that metaphor from the 1700’s, through Byron’s writing, to Robert Louis Stevenson’s and beyond. In WWII, Darby & Joan Clubs were set up by the Women’s Volunteer Service where people could just get together and hang out for tea and a game of cards, and even Oscar Hammerstein mentioned Darby and Joan – who used to be Jack and Jill, “The Folks Who Lived on the Hill.” In poetry, stories, and songs, Darby and Joan were a comfortable, settled, worn idea – so it’s a bit ironic to me that today’s proverb stems from the same — only rather uncomfortably.

It was 1827 when a Victorian era couplet about this proverbial couple first made its way to American, with no author or reference:

“Man works from sun to sun
But woman’s work is never done.”

Poor Joan. We know nothing about her except a.) she represented marriage, and b.) being a married woman represented endless work. Great. Marvelous. Sign me up.


unequal division
“unpaid domestic labor”
such fancy wording
to define being the glue

{npm22: 12~fair winds}

Does weather ever inspire you into a mood? It is absolutely scouring out, blowing a storm out and another system in, and it’s crystal blue freezing and ragged clouds are everywhere and there’s leftover rain spattering… and it reminds me of the UK, so I’ve been listening to Howard Gooddall’s 23rd Psalm on repeat, because… it goes with the weather? I don’t know. At the very least, the wind blew today’s proverb into my mind, one of those odd ones with which I’m less familiar.

First recorded in John Heywood’s Dialogue in 1546, it was part of a clever poem that implied that a day that boded ill for one person would undoubtedly bring good fortune to someone else. He said:

“As you be muche the worse. and I cast awaie.
An yll wynde, that blowth no man to good, men saie.
Wel (quoth he) euery wind blowth not down the corn
I hope (I saie) good hap [luck] be not all out worn.”

The same phrase later took on a subtly different meaning as seen in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy, that it is indeed an awful wind that blows no one any good.

“It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.”


Spring Scour
Look what’s blowin in –
the rising wind still whistles
shrilling calls to heel
a piper skirling dances
whirling petals down the street

When I was first dating Himself, he tended to call my attention – generally across campus or a crowded store – by sticking his fingers in his mouth and blowing a shrill whistle. I kind of hated it… it caught everyone’s attention, and I dislike that kind of profile. Also, it sounded to me like he was calling his dog. Objections were met with blank confusion, to him it was just getting my attention. Perceptions are always so different…

{npm22: 10~ roar}

Though I know they make some people super-squeamish, I’m not too threatened by the Annelid set. The phylum’s main characteristic is that they’re segmented… and they’re either worms, or leeches, or some kind of leech worms. That’s it, nothing to see here. Except… I always wondered about the sort of menacing nature of the proverb dealing with worms.

The worm proverb was first found in John Heywood’s 1546 glossary A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue. And while he did not corner the market on short titles, Heywood nevertheless did warn, “Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne.” (Good luck figuring out which end of the worm contains the “tayle” for you to tread on.) Shakespeare borrowed the phrase in Henry VI, in 1592:

Who ‘scapes the lurking serpent’s mortal sting?
Not he that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

In medieval England, serpents and worms were sometimes used interchangeably (showing clearly that England didn’t really get snakes)… but the point is that even a mostly eyeless, toothless, legless and essentially harmless creature will still turn and do… something if you step on it. Even the most meek and biddable will not go entirely quietly, as many bullies have discovered…

“Even a worm will turn.” – English Proverb


the turn
no crowd. no spotlight.
the playground an empty stage
where you find your voice:
NO! Leave me alone! Stop! NOW!
… sometimes even mice can R O A R.