What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
This is an Englishwoman's proverb. The Italian sisterhood complain that "In men every mortal sin is venial; in women every venial sin is mortal."[1] These are almost the only proverbs relating to women in which justice is done to them, all the rest being manifestly the work of the unfair sex.
If a woman were as little as she is good,
A peascod would make her a gown and a hood.
This is Ray's version of an Italian slander.[2] The Germans say, "Every woman would rather be handsome than good;"[3] and that, indeed, "There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found."[4] The French, in spite of their pretended gallantry, have the coarseness to declare that "A man of straw is worth a woman of gold;"[5] and even the Spaniard, who sometimes speaks words of stately courtesy towards the female sex, advises you to "Beware of a bad woman, and put no trust in a good one."[6]
"The crab of the wood is sauce very good
For the crab of the sea;
But the wood of the crab is sauce for a drab,
That will not her husband obey."
A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree,
The more they're beaten the better they be.
There is Latin authority for this barbarous distich.[7] The Italians say, "Women, asses, and nuts require rough hands."[8] Much wiser is the Scotch adage,—
Ye may ding the deil into a wife, but ye'll ne'er ding him out o' her.
Take your wife's first advice, and not her second.
The French make the rule more general—"Take a woman's first advice, &c."[9] There is good reason for this if the Italian proverb is true, "Women are wise offhand, and fools on reflection."[10] They have less logical minds than men, but surpass them in quickness of intuition, having, says Dean Trench, "what Montaigne ascribes to them in a remarkable word, l'esprit prime-sautier—the leopard's spring, which takes its prey, if it be to take it at all, at the first bound." "Summer-sown corn and women's advice turn out well once in seven years,"[11] say the Germans; and the Spaniards hold that "A woman's counsel is no great thing, but he who does not take it is a fool."[12] In Servia they say, "It is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife;" and they tell this story in elucidation of the proverb. A Herzegovinian once asked a Kadi whether a man ought to obey his wife, whereupon the Kadi answered that he needed not to do so. The Herzegovinian then continued, "My wife pressed me this morning to bring thee a pot of beef suet, so I have done well in not obeying her." Then said the Kadi, "Verily, it is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife."
It's nae mair ferlie to see a woman greet than to see a guse gang barefit.—Scotch.
That is, it is no more wonder to see a woman cry than to see a goose go barefoot. "Women laugh when they can, and weep when they will."[13] This is a French proverb, translated by Ray. Its want of rhyme makes it probable that it was never naturalised in England. The Italians say, "A woman complains, a woman's in woe, a woman is sick, when she likes to be so,"[14] and that "A woman's tears are a fountain of craft."[15]
A woman's mind and winter wind change oft.
"Women are variable as April weather" (German).[16] "Women, wind, and fortune soon change" (Spanish).[17] Francis I. of France wrote one day with a diamond on a window of the chÂteau of Chambord,—
"Souvent femme varie:
Bien fou qui s'y fie."
"A woman changes oft:
Who trusts her is right soft."
His sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, entered the room as he was writing the ungallant couplet, and, protesting against such a slander on her sex, she declared that she could quote twenty instances of man's fickleness. Francis retorted that her reply was not to the point, and that he would rather hear one instance of woman's constancy. "Can you mention a single instance of her inconstancy?" asked the Queen of Navarre. It happened that a few weeks before this conversation a gentleman of the court had been thrown into prison upon a serious charge; and his wife, who was one of the queen's ladies in waiting, was reported to have eloped with his page. Certain it was that the page and the lady had fled, no one could tell whither. Francis triumphantly cited this case; but Margaret warmly defended the lady, and said that time would prove her innocence. The king shook his head, but promised that if, within a month, her character should be re-established, he would break the pane on which the couplet was written, and grant his sister whatever boon she might ask. Many days had not elapsed after this, when it was discovered that it was not the lady who had fled with the page, but her husband. During one of her visits to him in prison they had exchanged clothes, and he was thus enabled to deceive the jailer, and effect his escape, while the devoted wife remained in his place. Margaret claimed his pardon at the king's hand, who not only granted it, but gave a grand fÊte and tournament to celebrate this instance of conjugal affection. He also destroyed the pane of glass, but the calumnious saying inscribed on it has unfortunately survived.
A woman's tongue wags like a lamb's tail.
A woman's strength is in her tongue.—Welsh.
Arthur could not tame a woman's tongue.—Welsh.
"Three women and three geese make a market,"[18] according to the Italians. "Foxes are all tail, and women are all tongue;" at least, it is so in Auvergne.[19] "All women are good Lutherans," say the Danes; "they would rather preach than hear mass."[20] "A woman's tongue is her sword, and she does not let it rust," is a saying of the Chinese.
Swine, women, and bees are not to be turned.
"Because" is a woman's answer.
And not so unmeaning an answer as flippant critics imagine. It is an example of that much-admired figure of speech, aposiopesis, and means—because I will have it so. "What a woman wills, God wills" (French).[21] "Whatever a woman will she can" (Italian).[22]
"The man's a fool who thinks by force or skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,
And if she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't."
The cunning of the sex is equal to their obstinacy. "Women know a point more than the devil" (Italian).[23] What wonder, then, if "A bag of fleas is easier to keep guard over than a woman?" (German).[24] The wilfulness of woman is pleasantly hinted at in the Scotch proverb, "'Gie her her will, or she'll burst,' quoth the gudeman when his wife was dinging him."
A woman conceals what she does not know.
Women and bairns lein [conceal] what they kenna.—Scotch.
"To a woman and a magpie tell what you would speak in the market-place" (Spanish).[25] Hotspur says to his wife,—
"Constant you are,
But yet a woman, and for secrecy
No lady closer; for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,
And so far I will trust thee, gentle Kate."
But, if there is truth in proverbs, men have no right to reproach women for blabbing. A woman can at least keep her own secret. Try her on the subject of her age.
Beauty draws more than oxen.
"One hair of a woman draws more than a bell-rope" (German).[26]
"And beauty draws us with a single hair."
Beauty buys no beef.
Beauty is no inheritance.
In spite of these curmudgeon maxims, let no fair maid despair whose face is her fortune, for "She that is born a beauty is born married" (Italian).[27]
The saying itself is no deeper. It is physically untrue, for beauty is not an accident of surface, but a natural result and attribute of a fine organisation. A man may sneer, like Ralph Nickleby, at a lovely face, because he chooses rather to see "the grinning death's head beneath it;" but Ralph was a heartless villain, and that is only another name for a fool. "Beauty is one of God's' gifts," says Mr. Lewes, "and every one really submits to its influence, whatever platitudes he may think needful to issue.... How, think you, should we ever have relished the immortal fragments of Greek literature, if our conception of Greek men and Greek women had been formed by the contemplation of figures such as those of Chinese art? Would any pulse have throbbed at the Labdacidan tale had the descendants of Labdacus risen before the imagination with obese rotundity, large ears, gashes of mouths, eyes lurching upwards towards the temples, and no nose to speak of? Could we with any sublime emotions picture to ourselves Fo-Ti on the Promethean rock, or a Congou Antigone wailing her unwedded death?"
Fine feathers make fine fowls.
Therefore, "If you want a wife choose her on Saturday, not on Sunday" (Spanish);[28] i.e., choose her in undress. "No woman is ugly when she is dressed" (Spanish);[29] at least, she is not so in her own opinion. "The swarthy dame, dressed fine, decries the fair one" (Spanish).[30]
The fairer the hostess the fouler the reckoning.
"A handsome landlady is bad for the purse" (French);[31] for this among other reasons—that "If the landlady is fair, the wine too is fair" (German).[32]
A bonny bride is sune buskit.—Scotch.
Buskit—dressed. She needs little adornment to enhance her charms.
Joan is as good as my lady in the dark.
When candles are out all cats are grey.
"Blemishes are unseen by night,"[33] says an ancient Latin proverb; and the Greeks held that "When the lamp is removed all women are alike."[34] Opinions may differ on that point, but all agree that
"The night
Shows stars and women in a better light."
Hence the Italian warning to choose "Neither jewel, nor woman, nor linen by candlelight;"[35] and the French hyperbole, "By candlelight a goat looks a lady."[36]
If Jack is in love he is no judge of Jill's beauty.
"Nobody's sweetheart is ugly" (Dutch).[37] "Never seemed a prison fair or a mistress foul" (French).[38] "Handsome is not what is handsome, but what pleases" (Italian).[39] "He whose fair one squints says she ogles" (German).[40] "'Red is Love's colour,' said the wooer to his foxy charmer" (German).[41]
Blind to all imperfections in the beloved object; blind also to everything around it—to facts, consequences, and prudential considerations. "People in love think that other people's eyes are out" (Spanish).[42]
It is hard to keep flax from the lowe [fire].-Scotch.
"Man is fire, woman tow, and the devil comes and blows" (Spanish).[43]
Glasses and lasses are bruckle [brittle] wares.—Scotch.
A pretty girl and a tattered gown are sure to find some hook in the way.
Italy appears to be the original country of this proverb, though it is popularly current in Ulster. "A handsome woman and a pinked or slashed garment" are the things mentioned in the Italian proverb.[44] The French form[45] corresponds with the Irish.
Where love fails we espy all faults.
Faults are thick where love is thin.—Welsh. Hot love is soon cold.
Love me little, love me long.
Love of lads and fire of chats are soon in and soon out.—Derbyshire.
Chats, i.e., chips.
Lads' love's a busk of broom, hot a while and soon done.—Cheshire.
Love is never without jealousy.
"He that is not jealous is not in love," says St. Augustin;[46] but that depends not only upon the disposition of the lover, but upon the point arrived at in the history of his love. Doubts and fears are excusable in one who has not yet had assurance that his passion is returned, but afterwards "Love expels jealousy" (French),[47] or, at least, it ought to do so. "Love demands faith, and faith steadfastness" (Italian);[48] but too often "Love gives for guerdon jealousy and broken faith" (Italian).[49] It is an Italian woman's belief that "It is better to have a husband without love than with jealousy."[50]
No folly to being in love.—Welsh.
"To love and to be wise is impossible" (Spanish);[51] or, as an antique French proverb says, the two things have not the same abode.[52] This is the creed of those who have not themselves been lovers. As Calderon sings, in lines admirably rendered by Mr. Fitzgerald,—
"He who far off beholds another dancing,
Even one who dances best, and all the time
Hears not the music that he dances to,
Thinks him a madman, apprehending not
The law which moves his else eccentric action;
So he that's in himself insensible
Of love's sweet influence, misjudges him
Who moves according to love's melody;
And knowing not that all these sighs and tears,
Ejaculations and impatiences,
Are necessary changes of a measure
Which the divine musician plays, may call
The lover crazy, which he would not do,
Did he within his own heart hear the tune
Play'd by the great musician of the world."
They that lie down [i.e., fall sick] for love should rise for hunger.—Scotch.
The presumption being that, if they had not been too well fed, they would not have been troubled with that disease. "Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes" (Latin).[53] "No love without bread and wine" (French).[54]
Old pottage is sooner heated than new made.
An old flame is sooner revived than a new one kindled. "One always returns to one's first love" (French).[55] "True love never grows hoary" (Italian).[56]
Love and light cannot be hid.
Love and a cough cannot be hid.
The French add smoke to these irrepressible things.[57] La gale is sometimes enumerated with them; and the Danes say, "Poverty and love are hard to hide."[58]
Love and lordship like not fellowship.
Kindness comes awill.—Scotch.
That is, love cannot be forced. The Germans couple it in that respect with singing.[59] "Who would be loved must love,"[60] say the Italians; and "Love is the very price at which love is to be bought."[61]
Our English proverbs on love are for the most part sarcastic or jocular, and few of them can be compared, for grace and elevation of feeling, with those of Italy. We have no parallels in our language for the following:—"Love knows no measure"[62]—there are no bounds to its trustfulness and devotion;—"Love warms more than a thousand fires;"[63]—"He who has love in his heart has spurs in his sides;"[64]—"Love rules without law;"[65]—"Love rules his kingdom without a sword;"[66]—"Love knows not labour;"[67]—"Love is master of all arts."[68] The French have one proverb on the sovereign might of love,[69] which they borrowed from the sublime phrase in the Song of Solomon, "Love is stronger than death;" and another expressed in the language of their chivalric forefathers, "Love subdues all but the ruffian's heart."[70]
Marry in haste and repent at leisure.
This proverb probably came to us from Italy;[71] but, alas! it happens too often in all countries that "Wedlock rides in the saddle, and repentance on the croup" (French).[72] There is a joke in the Menagiana not unlike this:—A person meeting another riding on horseback with his wife behind him, applied to him the words of Horace—"Post equitem sedet atra cura."[73] "Marriage is a desperate thing," quoth Selden. "The frogs in Æsop were extremely wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well because they could not get out again." Consider well, then, what you are about before you put yourself in a condition to hear it said,—
You have tied a knot with your tongue you cannot undo with your teeth.
Some go so far as to say that "No one marries but repents" (French).[74] The Spaniards exclaim, in language which reminds us of the custom of Dunmow, "The bacon of paradise for the married man that has not repented!"[75]
Better wed over the mixon than over the moor.
The mixon is the heap of manure in the farmyard. The proverb means that it is better not to go far from home in search of a wife—advice as old as the Greek poet Hesiod, who has a line to this effect: "Marry, in preference to all other women, one who dwells near thee." But a more specific meaning has been assigned to the English proverb by Fuller, and after him by Ray and Disraeli. They explain it as being a maxim peculiar to Cheshire, and intended to dissuade candidates for matrimony from taking the road to London, which lies over the moorland of Staffordshire. "This local proverb," says Disraeli, "is a curious instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of that county to form intermarriages, to prolong their own ancient families and perpetuate ancient friendships between them." This is a mistake, for the proverb is not peculiar to Cheshire, or to any part of England. Scotland has it in this shape:—
Better woo o'er midden nor o'er moss.
And in Germany they give the same advice, and also assign a reason for it, saying, "Marry over the mixon, and you will know who and what she is."[76] The same principle is expressed in different forms in other languages, e.g., "Your wife and your nag get from a neighbour" (Italian).[77] "He that goes far to marry goes to be deceived or to deceive" (Spanish).[78] The politic Lord Burleigh seems to have regarded this "going far to deceive" as a very proper thing to be done for the advancement of a man's fortune. In his "Advice to his Son" he says, "If thy estate be good, match near home and at leisure; if weak, far off and quickly." There is an ugly cunning in that word quickly. Burleigh's advice is quite in the spirit of the French fortune hunter's adage, "In marriage cheat who can."[79]
He that loseth his wife and sixpence hath lost a tester.
"He that loseth his wife and a farthing hath a great loss of his farthing" (Italian).[80] In Italy also, and in Portugal, it is said that "Grief for a dead wife lasts to the door;"[81] and even in Provence, the land of the troubadours, they have a rhyme to this effect:—
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]
