Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/130

104 be taken as absolutely correct or not, it must be allowed that a goodly crop of eastern wisdom is harvested in its pages, and that the sayings which it contains are quite as much to the point as their western analogues.

A fair number of the proverbs are, as was to be expected, almost identical with traditional phrases of our own, and many others are worthy of becoming current among us. "A diamond, though men throw it in the mud, is still a diamond," "Justice is the half of religion," "Mercy is religion," and "A thousand regrets do not pay one debt," are all maxims worth remembrance. The proverbs connected with notions of deity are also expressive. "God makes a delay, but no neglect," "When once Allah hath given he saith not 'Whose son? appeal alike to Christian and Moslem. "The camel's kick is soft, but it takes away life," has a meaning not unlike our "A hand of steel in a velvet glove," and refers to the natural pads, or cushions, with which the animal's feet are provided to maintain a firm hold on shifting sand. "A chimney takes fires from the inside," an adage alluding to the treachery of one's own partisans, must be of frequent application in the land where it was coined. The proverbs relating to love refer to extra-matrimonial passion rather than to such affection as developes between two persons bound together by the ancient mariage de convenance, which, though beginning to decay in occidental Europe, yet holds its own among the adherents of Islamism. "Love and a king accept no partnership," "Passionate love is a command, (and) the heart is emperor," scarcely sound oriental according to western ideas of the polygamous east; but every collection of dictons shows how closely the thoughts of men resemble each other in all parts of the world, notwithstanding apparent diversities. The Chinese "If you kill a pig kill it thoroughly," addresses itself to the common sense of humanity at large, as do hundreds of other aphorisms reaching us from the most distant nations of the earth.

original work of which this is a translation appeared no less than seven years ago. From its importance and from the number