# Proverbs

The proverb (közmondás) covers three groups, which can be differentiated primarily according to whether their content is statement, judgement, or advice. The first form, the statement, expresses public opinion without any elaboration, judgement, or moral comment: “The dog barks, the caravan moves on”; “Yon can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”; “Good wine needs no sign-board”; “Who comes earlier will be happy earlier”; “The runaway servant is paid by the stick” (a historical survival of social conditions), etc. Proverbs may express a valuation in their judgement, often of a political or class nature, as expressed in the statements: “It is not good to eat cherries out of the same bowl with high lords”; “Better a lean compromise than a fat lawsuit”; “It is not all true what the lords lie about”; “Better a sparrow today than a partridge tomorrow”.

The third group most resembles the so-called worldly wisdom of maxims, which–especially at one time–were almost a literary fashion. These are advice-giving proverbs. For example, “Bend the twig while it is young”; “Stretch only as far as your cover reaches”, etc.

The picture of social life, along with the mental attitude of how the people view the surrounding world, is reflected in the proverb, this most simple branch of folk poetry which virtually appears to be a linguistic form of folk poetry. In the expression “a poor man stuck to the ground”, there lives the historical and class memory of the serfs’ being bound to the land, of permanent bondage! “A priest does not levy a tithe on a priest”, brings to mind the tithe of the time of church taxes. And the following need no further explanation: “The peasant lives by his ten fingers”; “A rich widow is always 30 years old”; “The rich have two nostrils like those of the poor man’s pig”; and so on.

Other proverbs carry memories of cultural history: thus, for example, “Many notches are against him” is a reference to the old way of counting by notches. Many proverbs by now appear to be only humorous common sayings. The saying, “There is neither money nor broadcloth”, has a time-defining–i.e. historical–value; it refers to the life of the soldiers who defended the border fortresses in the 16th to 17th centuries and received their payment either in money or in kind, or did not get it at all. “I tie back your heel”; “I will teach you to play the pipe in your glove”; “Keep denying until the fingernail breaks”, come from the circle of medieval torture procedures and are not at all a reminder of humorous practices. In the same way “Play his song for him on the violin”, or “Learned to dance the Kállai kettős” recall through common sayings the harsh methods of interrogating captives. There are still a great many proverbs about the justice of King Matthias. Kossuth also is remembered through proverbs.

We have mentioned conciseness as a basic characteristic of all proverbs, the attempt to formulate as finally and simply as possible, using either an open linguistic structure or a closed linguistic structure. {597.} Conciseness is so characteristic of this group that it is not necessary to justify it with separate examples; still, it can be said that this conciseness stands even the greatest tests of poetic condensation and often surpasses the best expressions of authors. It can also be stated as a rule that the more concise and simple a proverb, the more certain is its long past, the broader its communal character, and the more frequent its usage.

Another structural characteristic is the proportioned structure. The much liked double measure can be found, but there are also proverbs in great numbers that are measured out into three and four parts. The following are virtually rhythmical structures: “Today a bride, tomorrow a wife, the day after tomorrow a koma [godmother] woman”; “The table is wide, the tablecloth is narrow, the dinner is sparse.” In four parts: “If you come, you’ll be there; if you bring, you’ll have food.” Because of this condensation and attempt at giving proportion, a significant part of Hungarian proverbs and idiomatic sayings show a certain rhythmic regularity, fit into a rhythmic structure, and often take on a rhymed, lyric form.

It is also possible to construct the metrics of Hungarian idiomatic sayings and proverbs: the ancient six syllable (lassú víz partot mos–slow water washes the shore); seven syllable (eső után köpönyeg–raincoat after the rain); eight syllable (késő bánat eb gondolat–late sorrow, dog idea), (olcsó húsnak híg a leve–cheap meat makes thin soup), etc. We can find regular lines of three measures (with a ten, eleven, twelve formula), compound lines with various rhythmic formulae, and besides these rhythmic structures, a regular alliterative form (vak vezet világtalant–blind leads the blind) and final rhyme forms as well. Often the rhythmic formula tries to become verse-like through echo words and phonetic effects. All this shows that the proverb not only tries to attain its intellectual function–that is, to close debate with judgement, advice, and parables–but also that it tries to give a transformed, shaped form, that is to say, a poetic expression, to its message.

Finally it is hardly necessary to point out that connections with the European treasury of idiomatic sayings and proverbs can also be found in the Hungarian material. Apart from the earlier Hungarian antecedents, there is György Gaál, who published folk tales in Vienna in 1829 and had earlier edited a volume of comparative proverbs. This is understandable, since one of the sources of European proverbs and idiomatic sayings was the Bible, the other the tradition of ancient maxims. It is also understandable that the way of looking at nature and agriculture, and at the related situation of peasant labour and society could also have created a string of related and identical or similar proverbs. However, those proverbs and idioms that preserve local stories and anecdotes–by now “worn” into the form of proverbs and one or another idioms–are tied to certain ethnic groups or nations. There are also plenty of these in the Magyar material of the genre.