- mas (such as lie at the root of the so-called 'numerical
proverbs' in xxx. 15, 18, 21, 24, 29; comp. vi. 16); but a still more important discipline than the battle of wits was the habit of keen observation. We cannot reduce all the proverbs involving comparison to the form of riddles, any more than we can do this with the following Buddhist sayings, equal to the more refined specimens of the Hebrew proverb:?—[1]
As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion will
break through an unreflecting mind.
Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.
A tamed elephant they lead to battle; the king mounts a tamed elephant; the tamed is the best among men, he who silently endures abuse.
Well-makers lead the water; fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; wise people fashion themselves.
Another plausible hypothesis similar to that of Dr. Oort
is that some of our proverbs are based on popular fables, as is
the case according to Dr. Back with many of the proverbs in
the Talmud and Midrash.[2] The Jewish scholar referred to
applies this key to Prov. vi. 6-11 (comp. the Aramaic fable of
the ant and the grasshopper—see Delitzsch's note), to the numerical
proverbs in chap. xxx. ('skeletons of fables' he calls
them), and to Eccles. ix. 4 and x. 11. Both proverbs and fables
indeed are common in later Jewish literature. Fables, especially
animal fables, were not perhaps appropriate vehicles of
moral instruction according to the O.T. writers. But the
later Jewish teachers do not seem to have felt this objection.
Rabbi Meir (2nd cent. A.D.) was the writer of animal fables
par excellence; Rabbi Hillel (B.C. 30), however, so noted for his
versatility, was also a copious fabulist.[3]
- ↑ From Max Müller's translation of the Dhammapada, or 'Path of Virtue' (1870)
- ↑ Dr. Back gives a list of these in Grätz's Monatsschrift, 1854, pp. 265-7.
- ↑ In the Talmudic treatise Soferim xvi. 9, a list of Hillel's acquirements is given, including the conversations of the mountains, the trees, the animals, the demons &c. On the Jewish fable literature, the wealth of which seems unparalleled, see Back, Die Fabel in Talmud und Midrash, in Gratz's Monatsschrift, 1875-1884. Curiously enough the two oldest Jewish fables are similar in character to those of the Old Test.
