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100-489: John Heywood ( c.  1497 – c.  1580 ) was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs . Although he is best known as a playwright, he was also active as a musician and composer, though no musical works survive. A devout Catholic, he nevertheless served as a royal servant to both the Catholic and Protestant regimes of Henry VIII , Edward VI , Mary I and Elizabeth I . Heywood

200-746: A Low Countries derby ( Derby der Lage Landen ), is a sports event between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium separated in 1830 from the (northern) Netherlands. The new country took its name from Belgica , the Latinised name for the Low Countries, as it was known during the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). The Low Countries were in that war divided in two parts. On one hand, the northern Federated Netherlands or Belgica Foederata rebelled against King Philip II of Spain ; on

300-465: A "proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many." But giving the word "proverb" the sort of definition theorists need has proven to be a difficult task, and although scholars often quote Archer Taylor 's argument that formulating a scientific "definition of a proverb is too difficult to repay the undertaking... An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not. Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively

400-557: A Soft Place", and the pair "Verbs of a feather flock together" and "Verbs of a feather flock together II". Proverbs have been noted as common in subtitles of articles such as "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'." Also, the reverse is found with a proverb (complete or partial) as the title, then an explanatory subtitle, "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections". Many authors have cited proverbs as epigrams at

500-617: A boon; / The man who calls the piper / Will also call the tune." Eliza Griswold also created a poem by stringing proverbs together, Libyan proverbs translated into English. Because proverbs are familiar and often pointed, they have been used by a number of hip-hop poets. This has been true not only in the USA, birthplace of hip-hop, but also in Nigeria. Since Nigeria is so multilingual, hip-hop poets there use proverbs from various languages, mixing them in as it fits their need, sometimes translating

600-424: A character from that period. Some authors have used so many proverbs that there have been entire books written cataloging their proverb usage, such as Charles Dickens , Agatha Christie , George Bernard Shaw , Miguel de Cervantes , and Friedrich Nietzsche . On the non-fiction side, proverbs have also been used by authors for articles that have no connection to the study of proverbs. Some have been used as

700-455: A conquest of the Low Countries with the shortest possible notice, to forestall the French, and prevent Allied air power from threatening the strategic Ruhr Area of Germany. It would also provide the basis for a long-term air and sea campaign against Britain. As much as possible of the border areas in northern France should be occupied. Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics rapidly overpowered

800-531: A dozen proverbs in The Horse and His Boy , and Mercedes Lackey created dozens for her invented Shin'a'in and Tale'edras cultures; Lackey's proverbs are notable in that they are reminiscent to those of Ancient Asia – e.g. "Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong" is like to "Before telling secrets on the road, look in the bushes." These authors are notable for not only using proverbs as integral to

900-417: A fictional story set in a real society, the movie Forrest Gump introduced "Life is like a box of chocolates" into broad society. In at least one case, it appears that a proverb deliberately created by one writer has been naively picked up and used by another who assumed it to be an established Chinese proverb, Ford Madox Ford having picked up a proverb from Ernest Bramah , "It would be hypocrisy to seek for

1000-453: A fraction of a proverb to invoke an entire proverb, e.g. "All is fair" instead of "All is fair in love and war", and "A rolling stone" for "A rolling stone gathers no moss." The grammar of proverbs is not always the typical grammar of the spoken language. Elements are often moved around, to achieve rhyme or focus. Another type of grammatical construction is the wellerism , a speaker and a quotation, often with an unusual circumstance, such as

1100-445: A literal sense, not yet knowing how to understand the conventionalized metaphor. Interpretation of proverbs is also affected by injuries and diseases of the brain, "A hallmark of schizophrenia is impaired proverb interpretation." Proverbs in various languages are found with a wide variety of grammatical structures. In English, for example, we find the following structures (in addition to others): However, people will often quote only

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1200-411: A person mishears one of Jesus Christ's beatitudes , "I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'" Some books and stories are built around a proverb. Some of Tolkien's books have been analyzed as having "governing proverbs" where "the action of a book turns on or fulfills a proverbial saying." Some stories have been written with a proverb overtly as an opening, such as "A stitch in time saves nine" at

1300-565: A person that keeps moving, seeing moss as a positive thing, such as profit; others see the proverb as praising people that keep moving and developing, seeing moss as a negative thing, such as negative habits. Similarly, among Tajik speakers, the proverb "One hand cannot clap" has two significantly different interpretations. Most see the proverb as promoting teamwork. Others understand it to mean that an argument requires two people. In an extreme example, one researcher working in Ghana found that for

1400-488: A sentence as proverbial," many students of proverbs have attempted to itemize their essential characteristics. More constructively, Wolfgang Mieder has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation". To distinguish proverbs from idioms, cliches, etc., Norrick created

1500-550: A single Akan proverb, twelve different interpretations were given. Proverb interpretation is not automatic, even for people within a culture: Owomoyela tells of a Yoruba radio program that asked people to interpret an unfamiliar Yoruba proverb, "very few people could do so". Siran found that people who had moved out of the traditional Vute-speaking area of Cameroon were not able to interpret Vute proverbs correctly, even though they still spoke Vute. Their interpretations tended to be literal. Children will sometimes interpret proverbs in

1600-478: A slightly different use of reshaping proverbs, in the Aubrey–Maturin series of historical naval novels by Patrick O'Brian , Capt. Jack Aubrey humorously mangles and mis-splices proverbs, such as "Never count the bear's skin before it is hatched" and "There's a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot." Earlier than O'Brian's Aubrey, Beatrice Grimshaw also used repeated splicings of proverbs in

1700-492: A society, but are now no longer so widely known. For example, English speakers use some non-English proverbs that are drawn from languages that used to be widely understood by the educated class, e.g. "C'est la vie" from French and " Carpe diem " from Latin. Proverbs are often handed down through generations. Therefore, "many proverbs refer to old measurements, obscure professions, outdated weapons, unknown plants, animals, names, and various other traditional matters." Therefore, it

1800-401: A table of distinctive features , an abstract tool originally developed for linguistics. Prahlad distinguishes proverbs from some other, closely related types of sayings, "True proverbs must further be distinguished from other types of proverbial speech, e.g. proverbial phrases, Wellerisms , maxims, quotations, and proverbial comparisons." Based on Persian proverbs, Zolfaghari and Ameri propose

1900-550: A title alludes to a proverb, but does not actually quote much of it, such as The Gift Horse's Mouth by Robert Campbell. Some books or stories have titles that are twisted proverbs, anti-proverbs, such as No use dying over spilled milk , When life gives you lululemons, and two books titled Blessed are the Cheesemakers . The twisted proverb of last title was also used in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian , where

2000-567: Is a skill that is developed over years. Additionally, children have not mastered the patterns of metaphorical expression that are invoked in proverb use. Proverbs, because they are indirect, allow a speaker to disagree or give advice in a way that may be less offensive. Studying actual proverb use in conversation, however, is difficult since the researcher must wait for proverbs to happen. An Ethiopian researcher, Tadesse Jaleta Jirata, made headway in such research by attending and taking notes at events where he knew proverbs were expected to be part of

2100-455: Is best". "The proverb has since been used in other contexts to prompt quick action." Over 1,400 new English proverbs are said to have been coined and gained currency in the 20th century. This process of creating proverbs is always ongoing, so that possible new proverbs are being created constantly. Those sayings that are adopted and used by an adequate number of people become proverbs in that society. The creation of proverbs in many parts of

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2200-499: Is common that they preserve words that become less common and archaic in broader society. Archaic proverbs in solid form – such as murals, carvings, and glass – can be viewed even after the language of their form is no longer widely understood, such as an Anglo-French proverb in a stained glass window in York. Proverbs are often and easily translated and transferred from one language into another. "There

2300-708: Is embraced as a true local proverb in many places and should not be excluded in any collection of proverbs because it is shared by the neighbors. However, though it has gone through multiple languages and millennia, the proverb can be traced back to an ancient Babylonian proverb Another example of a widely spread proverb is "A drowning person clutches at [frogs] foam", found in Peshai of Afghanistan and Orma of Kenya, and presumably places in between. Proverbs about one hand clapping are common across Asia, from Dari in Afghanistan to Japan. Some studies have been done devoted to

2400-534: Is newly coined by a reference to something recent, such as the Haitian proverb "The fish that is being microwaved doesn't fear the lightning". Similarly, there is a recent Maltese proverb, wil-muturi, ferh u duluri "Women and motorcycles are joys and griefs"; the proverb is clearly new, but still formed as a traditional style couplet with rhyme. Also, there is a proverb in the Kafa language of Ethiopia that refers to

2500-652: Is not commonly used, but a form of it is still heard (or read) in the proverb "There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." The conservative form preserves the meter and the rhyme. This conservative nature of proverbs can result in archaic words and grammatical structures being preserved in individual proverbs, as has been widely documented, e.g. in Amharic, Nsenga , Polish, Venda , Hebrew , Giriama , Georgian , Karachay-Balkar , Hausa , Uzbek , Budu of Congo , Kazakh . In addition, proverbs may still be used in languages which were once more widely known in

2600-452: Is nothing so uncertain as the derivation of proverbs, the same proverb being often found in all nations, and it is impossible to assign its paternity." Proverbs are often borrowed across lines of language, religion, and even time. For example, a proverb of the approximate form "No flies enter a mouth that is shut" is currently found in Spain, France, Ethiopia, and many countries in between. It

2700-554: Is still found in languages around the world, with plenty of examples from Africa, including Yorùbá and Igbo of Nigeria. A film that makes rich use of proverbs is Forrest Gump , known for both using and creating proverbs. Other studies of the use of proverbs in film include work by Kevin McKenna on the Russian film Aleksandr Nevsky , Haase's study of an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood , Elias Dominguez Barajas on

2800-537: Is the blind poet Bernlef , from c.  800 , who sang both Christian psalms and pagan verses. Bernlef is representative of the coexistence of Christianity and Germanic polytheism in this time period. The earliest examples of written literature include the Wachtendonck Psalms , a collection of twenty five psalms that originated in the Moselle-Frankish region around the middle of

2900-434: Is the extension of its literal meaning. Some experts classify proverbs and proverbial phrases as types of idioms. Proverbs come from a variety of sources. Some are, indeed, the result of people pondering and crafting language, such as some by Confucius , Plato , Baltasar Gracián , etc. Others are taken from such diverse sources as poetry, stories, songs, commercials, advertisements, movies, literature, etc. A number of

3000-579: The Water Margin ( Shuihu zhuan ) and one proverb every 4,000 words in Wen Jou-hsiang . But modern Chinese novels have fewer proverbs by far. Proverbs (or portions of them) have been the inspiration for titles of books: The Bigger they Come by Erle Stanley Gardner , and Birds of a Feather (several books with this title), Devil in the Details (multiple books with this title). Sometimes

3100-618: The Austrian Netherlands . The United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830) temporarily united the Low Countries again before it split into the three modern countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. During the early months of World War I (around 1914), the Central Powers invaded the Low Countries of Luxembourg and Belgium in what has been come to be known as the German invasion of Belgium . It led to

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3200-496: The Dutch Revolt . Each of the provinces had its own laws, customs and political practices. The new policy, imposed from the outside, angered many inhabitants, who viewed their provinces as distinct entities. It and other monarchical acts, such as the creation of bishoprics and promulgation of laws against heresy , stoked resentments, which fired the eruption of the Dutch Revolt . After the northern Seven United Provinces of

3300-652: The Franco-Flemish School were highly sought by the leading classes of all Europe. In 1477 the Burgundian holdings in the area passed through an heiress— Mary of Burgundy —to the Habsburgs . Charles V, who inherited the territory in 1506, was named ruler by the States General and styled himself as Heer der Nederlanden ( lit.   ' Lord of the Netherlands ' ). He continued to rule

3400-489: The Free County of Burgundy , which were part of their realm but geographically disconnected from the Low Countries. Governor Mary of Hungary used both the expressions les pays de par deça and Pays d'Embas ("lands down here"), which evolved to Pays-Bas or Low Countries . Today the term is typically fitted to modern political boundaries and used in the same way as the term Benelux . The name of

3500-524: The Kingdom of France or the Holy Roman Empire . While the further history the Low Countries can be seen as the object of a continual struggle between these two powers, the title of Duke of Lothier was coveted in the low countries for centuries. In the 14th and 15th century, separate fiefs came gradually to be ruled by a single family through royal intermarriage . This process culminated in

3600-572: The Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior . They were inhabited by Belgic and Germanic tribes . In the 4th and 5th century, Frankish tribes had entered this Roman region and came to run it increasingly independently. They came to be ruled by the Merovingian dynasty , under which dynasty the southern part (below the Rhine ) was re- Christianised . By the end of the 8th century,

3700-442: The 1520s and 1530s, he was writing and producing interludes for the royal court. He enjoyed the patronage of Edward VI and Mary I , writing plays to present at court. While some of his plays call for music, no songs or texts survive. Heywood was retained at four royal courts (Henry, Edward, Mary, Elizabeth), despite the unpopular political views which he and his family held. Heywood was a devout Catholic, and there are signs that he

3800-629: The Bini of Nigeria, there are three words that are used to translate "proverb": ere, ivbe , and itan . The first relates to historical events, the second relates to current events, and the third was "linguistic ornamentation in formal discourse". Among the Balochi of Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a word batal for ordinary proverbs and bassīttuks for "proverbs with background stories". There are also language communities that combine proverbs and riddles in some sayings, leading some scholars to create

3900-472: The German occupation of the two countries. However, the German advance into France was quickly halted, causing a military stalemate for most of the war. In the end, a total of approximately 56,000 people were killed in the invasion. During World War II , when Adolf Hitler 's gaze turned his strategy west toward France, the Low Countries were an easy route around the imposing French Maginot Line . He ordered

4000-599: The King to avoid creating any sort of schism. Heywood is therefore more conciliatory than his famous uncle-in-law Thomas More , who was executed for his religious beliefs, (interpreted as high treason ) in the face of Henry VIII 's changes. Heywood was arrested for his part in the Prebendaries Plot in 1543 which sought to arraign Archbishop Cranmer for heresy. A contemporary writer, Sir John Harington, observed that Heywood "escaped hanging with his mirth" (7). Heywood

4100-647: The Low Countries formed a core part of a much expanded Francia and the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingian dynasty . In 800, the Pope crowned and appointed Charlemagne Emperor of the re-established Roman Empire . After the death of Charlemagne , Francia was divided in three parts among his three grandsons. The middle slice, Middle Francia , was ruled by Lothair I , and thereby also came to be referred to as "Lotharingia" or "Lorraine". Apart from

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4200-511: The Low Countries were divided into numerous semi-independent principalities . Historically, the regions without access to the sea linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to form various unions of ports and hinterland , stretching inland as far as parts of the German Rhineland . Because of this, nowadays not only physically low-altitude areas, but also some hilly or elevated regions are considered part of

4300-601: The Low Countries, including Luxembourg and the south of Belgium. Within the European Union , the region's political grouping is still referred to as the Benelux (short for Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg). During the Roman Empire , the region contained a militarised frontier and contact point between Rome and Germanic tribes . The Low Countries were the scene of the early independent trading centres that marked

4400-638: The Netherlands. However, in official use, the name of the Dutch kingdom is still Kingdom of the Netherlands , Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (plural). This name derives from the 19th-century origins of the kingdom which originally included present-day Belgium. In Dutch, and to a lesser extent in English, the Low Countries colloquially means the Netherlands and Belgium, sometimes the Netherlands and Flanders —the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium. For example,

4500-709: The Pacific have them, such as Māori with whakataukī. Other Pacific languages do not, e.g. "there are no proverbs in Kilivila " of the Trobriand Islands . In the New World, there are almost no proverbs: "While proverbs abound in the thousands in most cultures of the world, it remains a riddle why the Native Americans have hardly any proverb tradition at all." Although, "as Mieder has commented . . .

4600-692: The Weather which required ten boy actors, and elaborate staging. A partial list: Proverb Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact. In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs ) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus ) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs. Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to

4700-532: The basis for book titles, e.g. I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self by April Lane Benson. Some proverbs been used as the basis for article titles, though often in altered form: "All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence" and "Should Rolling Stones Worry About Gathering Moss?", "Between a Rock and

4800-714: The beginning of "Kitty's Class Day", one of Louisa May Alcott 's Proverb Stories . Other times, a proverb appears at the end of a story, summing up a moral to the story, frequently found in Aesop's Fables , such as " Heaven helps those who help themselves " from Hercules and the Wagoner . In a novel by the Ivorian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma , "proverbs are used to conclude each chapter". Proverbs have also been used strategically by poets. Sometimes proverbs (or portions of them or anti-proverbs ) are used for titles, such as "A bird in

4900-569: The beginning of their articles, e.g. "'If you want to dismantle a hedge, remove one thorn at a time' Somali proverb" in an article on peacemaking in Somalia. An article about research among the Māori used a Māori proverb as a title, then began the article with the Māori form of the proverb as an epigram "Set the overgrown bush alight and the new flax shoots will spring up", followed by three paragraphs about how

5000-584: The borrowing may have been through plural languages. In some cases, it is possible to make a strong case for discerning the direction of the borrowing based on an artistic form of the proverb in one language, but a prosaic form in another language. For example, in Ethiopia there is a proverb "Of mothers and water, there is none evil." It is found in Amharic , Alaaba language , and Oromo , three languages of Ethiopia: The Oromo version uses poetic features, such as

5100-628: The bush" by Lord Kennet and his stepson Peter Scott and " The blind leading the blind " by Lisa Mueller. Sometimes, multiple proverbs are important parts of poems, such as Paul Muldoon 's "Symposium", which begins "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it hold its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds. Every dog has a stitch in time..." In Finnish there are proverb poems written hundreds of years ago. The Turkish poet Refiki wrote an entire poem by stringing proverbs together, which has been translated into English poetically yielding such verses as "Be watchful and be wary, / But seldom grant

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5200-425: The cat. Some authors have created proverbs in their writings, such as J.R.R. Tolkien , and some of these proverbs have made their way into broader society. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is credited for a proverb regarding a lobster in a pot, which he wrote about in his book series Chronicles of Narnia . In cases like this, deliberately created proverbs for fictional societies have become proverbs in real societies. In

5300-524: The conversations. Many authors have used proverbs in their writings, for a very wide variety of literary genres: epics, novels, poems, short stories. Probably the most famous user of proverbs in novels is J. R. R. Tolkien in his The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. Herman Melville is noted for creating proverbs in Moby-Dick and in his poetry. Also, C. S. Lewis created

5400-472: The country of the Netherlands has the same etymology and origin as the name for the region Low Countries, due to "nether" meaning "low". In the Dutch language itself De Lage Landen is the modern term for Low Countries, and De Nederlanden (plural) is in use for the 16th century domains of Charles V , the historic Low Countries, while Nederland (singular) is the normal Dutch name for the country of

5500-453: The creation of the Church of England , and he was not timid about letting his political views be known. Greg Walker notes that Heywood wrote a poem in defence of Princess Mary shortly after she was disinherited. In plays like The Four PP (pronounced "pees", plural of the name of the letter P ), Heywood takes a page from Chaucer 's book in representing a corrupt Pardoner, but at the end of

5600-474: The crown which made Heywood wealthy and propertied. In 1523, he received the freedom of the City of London with the help of Henry VIII. At Michaelmas 1525 he received £6. 13s. 4d. as a 'player of virginals '. At about the same time he married Jane Rastell, the niece of Sir Thomas More . Through this marriage, Heywood entered into a very dramatic family. Jane's father John Rastell was a composer of interludes and

5700-658: The defences of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. All three countries were occupied from May 1940 until early 1945. During the occupation, their governments were forced into exile in Britain. In 1944, they signed the London Customs Convention , laying the foundation for the eventual Benelux Economic Union , an important forerunner of the EEC (later the EU ). One of the Low Countries' earliest literary figures

5800-549: The development of the characters and the story line, but also for creating proverbs. Among medieval literary texts, Geoffrey Chaucer 's Troilus and Criseyde plays a special role because Chaucer's usage seems to challenge the truth value of proverbs by exposing their epistemological unreliability. Rabelais used proverbs to write an entire chapter of Gargantua . The patterns of using proverbs in literature can change over time. A study of "classical Chinese novels" found proverb use as frequently as one proverb every 3,500 words in

5900-575: The encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen. Dutch and French dialects were the main languages used in secular city life. Historically, the term Low Countries arose at the Court of the Dukes of Burgundy , who used the term les pays de par deçà ("the lands over here") for the Low Countries as opposed to les pays de par delà ("the lands over there") for the Duchy of Burgundy and

6000-568: The exposition of the characters in an equally complex way, even if it might seem foreign to modern sensibilities. Greg Walker has argued that the lack of plot (for example, in Four PP where as soon as the Palmer has mastery over the Pardoner and Pothecary, he gives it up) has a lot to do with Heywood's political views. As these plays can logically be assumed to have been performed in the presence of

6100-403: The film Viva Zapata! , and Aboneh Ashagrie on The Athlete (a movie in Amharic about Abebe Bikila ). Television programs have also been named with reference to proverbs, usually shortened, such Birds of a Feather and Diff'rent Strokes . In the case of Forrest Gump , the screenplay by Eric Roth had more proverbs than the novel by Winston Groom , but for The Harder They Come ,

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6200-657: The following definition: "A proverb is a short sentence, which is well-known and at times rhythmic, including advice, sage themes and ethnic experiences, comprising simile, metaphor or irony which is well-known among people for its fluent wording, clarity of expression, simplicity, expansiveness and generality and is used either with or without change." There are many sayings in English that are commonly referred to as "proverbs", such as weather sayings. Alan Dundes , however, rejects including such sayings among truly proverbs: "Are weather proverbs proverbs? I would say emphatically 'No!'" The definition of "proverb" has also changed over

6300-522: The following, a representative of a wellerism proverb found in many languages: "The bride couldn't dance; she said, 'The room floor isn't flat.'" Another type of grammatical structure in proverbs is a short dialogue: Because many proverbs are both poetic and traditional, they are often passed down in fixed forms. Though spoken language may change, many proverbs are often preserved in conservative, even archaic , form. "Proverbs often contain archaic... words and structures." In English, for example, "betwixt"

6400-482: The forced military conscription of the 1980s, "...the one who hid himself lived to have children." A Mongolian proverb also shows evidence of recent origin, "A beggar who sits on gold; Foam rubber piled on edge." Another example of a proverb that is clearly recent is this from Sesotho : "A mistake goes with the printer." A political candidate in Kenya popularised a new proverb in his 1995 campaign, Chuth ber "Immediacy

6500-537: The heirs. By streamlining the succession law in all Seventeen Provinces and declaring that all of them would be inherited by one heir, Charles effectively united the Netherlands as one entity. After Charles' abdication in 1555, the Seventeen Provinces passed to his son, Philip II of Spain . The Pragmatic Sanction is said to be one example of the Habsburg contest with particularism that contributed to

6600-464: The initial ha in both clauses with the final -aa in the same word, and both clauses ending with -an . Also, both clauses are built with the vowel a in the first and last words, but the vowel i in the one syllable central word. In contrast, the Amharic and Alaaba versions of the proverb show little evidence of sound-based art. However, not all languages have proverbs. Proverbs are (nearly) universal across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some languages in

6700-443: The king on at least one occasion, it is a very fruitful reading of the plays to consider the ways in which Heywood is in fact arguing for a peaceful resolution to the conflicts caused by events leading up to the schism of 1531. Richard Axton and Peter Happé observe that Heywood's longer plays would probably take at least an hour and a half to perform, including the songs and acrobatic routines. Their sparse staging requirements (most of

6800-404: The label "proverb riddles". Another similar construction is an idiomatic phrase. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a distinction between idiomatic phrase and proverbial expression. In both of them the meaning does not immediately follow from the phrase. The difference is that an idiomatic phrase involves figurative language in its components, while in a proverbial phrase the figurative meaning

6900-408: The long monologues in his text would have required actors with an extraordinary range. Many scholars have conjectured that Heywood was probably a performer in his own plays, due to the frequent references in royal expense accounts to Heywood as a performer of various kinds. The plays might seem simple due to their lack of plot in the modern sense, but the ideas that Heywood explores are developed through

7000-534: The lower basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern " Benelux " countries: Belgium , Luxembourg , and the Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland , which is singular). Geographically and historically, the area can also include parts of France (such as Nord and Pas-de-Calais ) and the German regions of East Frisia , Guelders and Cleves . During the Middle Ages ,

7100-536: The lyrics for Beauty and the Beast , Gaston plays with three proverbs in sequence, "All roads lead to.../The best things in life are.../All's well that ends with...me." Low Countries The Low Countries ( Dutch : de Lage Landen ; French : les Pays-Bas ), historically also known as the Netherlands (Dutch: de Nederlanden ), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming

7200-488: The mouth of an eccentric marquis to create a memorable character in The Sorcerer's Stone , such as "The proof of the pudding sweeps clean" (p. 109) and "A stitch in time is as good as a mile" (p. 97). Because proverbs are so much a part of the language and culture, authors have sometimes used proverbs in historical fiction effectively, but anachronistically, before the proverb was actually known. For example,

7300-513: The novel Ramage and the Rebels , by Dudley Pope is set in approximately 1800. Captain Ramage reminds his adversary "You are supposed to know that it is dangerous to change horses in midstream" (p. 259), with another allusion to the same proverb three pages later. However, the proverb about changing horses in midstream is reliably dated to 1864, so the proverb could not have been known or used by

7400-451: The one who has two houses loses his mind."), The Green Ray , Boyfriends and Girlfriends . Movie titles based on proverbs include Murder Will Out (1939 film) , Try, Try Again , and The Harder They Fall . A twisted anti-proverb was the title for a Three Stooges film, A Bird in the Head . The title of an award-winning Turkish film, Three Monkeys , also invokes a proverb, though

7500-506: The original coastal County of Flanders , which was within West Francia , the rest of the Low Countries were within the lowland part of this, " Lower Lorraine ". After the death of Lothair, the Low Countries were coveted by the rulers of both West Francia and East Francia . Each tried to swallow the region and to merge it with their spheres of influence. Thus, the Low Countries consisted of fiefs whose sovereignty resided with either

7600-506: The original. For example, "They forget say ogbon ju agbaralo They forget that wisdom is greater than power" Some authors have bent and twisted proverbs, creating anti-proverbs, for a variety of literary effects. For example, in the Harry Potter novels, J. K. Rowling reshapes a standard English proverb into "It's no good crying over spilt potion" and Dumbledore advises Harry not to "count your owls before they are delivered". In

7700-541: The other, the southern Royal Netherlands or Belgica Regia remained loyal to the Spanish king. This divide laid the early foundation for the later modern states of Belgium and the Netherlands. The region politically had its origins in the Carolingian empire ; more precisely, most of the people were within the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia . After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under

7800-464: The person of the Sacred Emperor in a Low Tea House." The proverb with "a longer history than any other recorded proverb in the world", going back to "around 1800 BC" is in a Sumerian clay tablet, "The bitch by her acting too hastily brought forth the blind". Though many proverbs are ancient, they were all newly created at some point by somebody. Sometimes it is easy to detect that a proverb

7900-559: The play the Pedler chastises the Pothecary for "raylynge her openly / At pardons and relyques so leudly" (lines 1199–1200). Heywood's representations in his plays cater to popular tastes but contain an undercurrent of Catholic conservatism. The Palmer ends the play with the blessing "besechynge our lorde to prosper you all / In the fayth of hys churche universall" (line 1234). Walker reads this as an indication of Heywood's desire to persuade

8000-526: The plays require no more furniture than perhaps a table and a chair) would mean that they could be performed almost anywhere, whether it be in a dining hall or as Cameron Louis suggests, the Inns of Court . Most of his works would require four actors or fewer, and would have been performed by adult performers. Axton and Happe conclude as there is no doubling of roles, the plays would have not used professional actors. The major exception would be his play The Play of

8100-484: The political secession of the autonomous Dutch Republic (or "United Provinces") in the north, the term "Low Countries" continued to be used to refer collectively to the region. The region was temporarily united politically between 1815 and 1839, as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands , before this split into the three modern countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Low Countries were part of

8200-566: The proverb served as a metaphor for the research and the present context. A British proverb has even been used as the title for a doctoral dissertation: Where there is muck there is brass . Proverbs have also been used as a framework for an article. Similarly to other forms of literature, proverbs have also been used as important units of language in drama and films. This is true from the days of classical Greek works to old French to Shakespeare, to 19th Century Spanish, 19th century Russian, to today. The use of proverbs in drama and film today

8300-438: The reason for the visible lack of proverbs was probably the inability of foreign researchers to identify proverbial utterances among those peoples." Hakamies has examined the matter of whether proverbs are found universally, a universal genre, concluding that they are not. Proverbs are used in conversation by adults more than children, partially because adults have learned more proverbs than children. Also, using proverbs well

8400-427: The reawakening of Europe in the 12th century. In that period, they rivalled northern Italy as one of the most densely populated regions of Western Europe. Guilds and councils governed most of the cities along with a figurehead ruler; interaction with their ruler was regulated by a strict set of rules describing what the latter could and could not expect. All of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and

8500-559: The reverse is true, where the novel derived from the movie by Michael Thelwell has many more proverbs than the movie. Éric Rohmer , the French film director, directed a series of films, the "Comedies and Proverbs", where each film was based on a proverb: The Aviator's Wife , The Perfect Marriage , Pauline at the Beach , Full Moon in Paris (the film's proverb was invented by Rohmer himself: "The one who has two wives loses his soul,

8600-525: The rule of the House of Valois , who were the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy . At the height of Burgundian influence, the Low Countries became the political, cultural, and economic centre of Northern Europe , noted for its crafts and luxury goods, notably early Netherlandish painting , which is the work of artists who were active in the flourishing cities of Bruges , Ghent , Mechelen , Leuven , Tournai and Brussels , all in present-day Belgium. Musicians of

8700-773: The rule of various lordships until they came to be in the hands of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy . Hence, a large part of the Low Countries came to be referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands . After the reign of the Valois Dukes ended, much of the Low Countries were controlled by the House of Habsburg . This area was referred to as the Habsburg Netherlands , which was also called the Seventeen Provinces up to 1581. Even after

8800-447: The same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show that cultures in which the Bible is the major spiritual book contain "between three hundred and five hundred proverbs that stem from the Bible," whereas another shows that, of the 106 most common and widespread proverbs across Europe, 11 are from the Bible. However, almost every culture has its own unique proverbs. Lord John Russell ( c.  1850 ) observed poetically that

8900-854: The seventeen declared their independence from Habsburg Spain in 1581, the ten provinces of the Southern Netherlands remained occupied by the Army of Flanders under Spanish service and are therefore sometimes called the Spanish Netherlands . In 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht following the War of the Spanish Succession , what was left of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to Austria and thus became known as

9000-404: The spread of proverbs in certain regions, such as India and her neighbors and Europe. An extreme example of the borrowing and spread of proverbs was the work done to create a corpus of proverbs for Esperanto , where all the proverbs were translated from other languages. It is often not possible to trace the direction of borrowing a proverb between languages. This is complicated by the fact that

9100-488: The territories as a multitude of duchies and principalities until the Low Countries were eventually united into one indivisible territory, the Seventeen Provinces , covered by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 , while retaining existing customs, laws, and forms of government within the provinces. The Pragmatic Sanction transformed the agglomeration of lands into a unified entity, of which the Habsburgs would be

9200-653: The title does not fully quote it. They have also been used as the titles of plays: Baby with the Bathwater by Christopher Durang , Dog Eat Dog by Mary Gallagher , and The Dog in the Manger by Charles Hale Hoyt . The use of proverbs as titles for plays is not, of course, limited to English plays: Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée (A door must be open or closed) by Paul de Musset . Proverbs have also been used in musical dramas, such as The Full Monty , which has been shown to use proverbs in clever ways. In

9300-401: The well known sayings of Jesus, Shakespeare, and others have become proverbs, though they were original at the time of their creation, and many of these sayings were not seen as proverbs when they were first coined. Many proverbs are based on stories, often the end of a story. For example, the proverb " Who will bell the cat ?" is from the end of a story about the mice planning how to be safe from

9400-583: The world during the Corona-virus era showed how quickly proverbs and anti-proverbs can be created. Interpreting proverbs is often complex, but is best done in a context. Interpreting proverbs from other cultures is much more difficult than interpreting proverbs in one's own culture. Even within English-speaking cultures, there is difference of opinion on how to interpret the proverb " A rolling stone gathers no moss ." Some see it as condemning

9500-596: The years. For example, the following was labeled "A Yorkshire proverb" in 1883, but would not be categorized as a proverb by most today, "as throng as Throp's wife when she hanged herself with a dish-cloth". The changing of the definition of "proverb" is also noted in Turkish . In other languages and cultures, the definition of "proverb" also differs from English. In the Chumburung language of Ghana, " aŋase are literal proverbs and akpare are metaphoric ones". Among

9600-489: Was Elizabeth Heywood, and his grandson was the poet and preacher John Donne . Arthur F. Kinney writes that Heywood 'seems to have survived an unusually long and turbulent existence both by his use of "good learning" – his use of literary sources, especially More and Chaucer, and his intelligent if often oblique commentary on religious and social issues – and his wit, his sociability and his playfulness'. While Fraser and Rabkin argue that Heywood's plays represent primitive drama,

9700-561: Was a favourite of King Henry despite his political beliefs (Henry, despite his split with Rome was a staunch believer in the Catholic faith). In 1530, he transferred from the Stationers Guild to the Mercers Company , where he was made Common Measurer, although he did not appear to work with cloth in any way in his career. In 1533, he received a gilt cup from the king. Heywood was in a politically unstable environment during

9800-782: Was born in 1497, probably in Coventry , and moved to London sometime in his late teens. He spent time studying at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford , but did not obtain a degree. His language skills can be seen by his adaptation of his play Johan Johan from the French La Farce du pâté . His name first appears in the King Henry VIII's Household Books in 1519 as a 'synger', a job for which he received quarterly payments of 100 shillings. In 1521 he began receiving annual rents from lands in Essex , lands recently seized by

9900-608: Was most successful in Mary's court, where he redrafted his allegory The Spider and the Fly in order to compliment the queen. Though Heywood had performed for Elizabeth's court, he was forced to flee England for Brabant because of the Act of Uniformity against Catholics in 1564. He died in Mechelen , in present-day Belgium . His son was the poet and translator Jasper Heywood , his daughter

10000-526: Was the first publisher of plays in England. When Rastell built his own house in Finsbury Fields , he built a stage explicitly for the performance of plays, and his wife made costumes. It appears that the whole family, including Thomas More, were involved in these productions. In this private theatre, Heywood found an audience for his early works, and a strong artistic influence in his father-in-law. In

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