One for Sorrow (5 page)

Used to encourage people to take action promptly when they have the best chance of success, this thirteenth-century proverb has its roots in medieval blacksmiths' forges. Iron had to be heated to high temperatures in furnaces to make it pliable enough to make tools, weapons and cooking utensils. The blacksmith would strike the white-hot iron with a hammer to re-shape it and had only a brief window of time in which to work before the iron cooled and became rigid again.
    The saying – which could be compared with the agricultural ‘Make hay while the sun shines' – was applied to any situation that required action to be taken when the circumstances were most favourable and where hesitation might cause an opportune moment to be lost. The earliest example of the phrase in print can be found in the second of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales
, ‘The Tale of Melibee', written in 1386.

Whil that iren is hoot, men sholden smyte.

It is probable though that its inclusion in the  
Canterbury Tales
helped to popularize the phrase, which is thought to have originated in France. Chaucer's twenty-four tales were some of the first works of literature to be written in the language spoken by the people who read them – English – and they were so popular in their day that Chaucer was invited to read them to the King.

   

This proverb comes from the Bible:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
(Matthew 6:24)

Early use of the phrase stayed true to this religious context and it was applied to those who valued the trappings of wealth over piety.
    The lines quoted above follow a paragraph dissuading man from gathering up treasures on earth (where they will be corroded by rust and threatened by thieves) in favour of laying up treasures in heaven. With the word mammon interpreted as meaning money, the lesson Jesus was teaching is clear: we should value the riches of heaven rather than material wealth.
    In the New Testament however, Mammon is personified as an idol or deity representing greed and avarice, so the words spoke against the worshipping of false gods as well as warning against succumbing to the base desire to accumulate wealth.
    These days the saying is employed to describe any situation where there is a conflict of interest or where loyalties are divided. We're especially fond of applying it to high-profile political figures who claim to be representing the public whilst earning extra cash or status by serving the interests of big businesses.

   

This ancient phrase can be traced to the writing of fourth-century Latin churchman St Jerome, who used it in his scholarly commentary of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians in around
ad
400. His words translate as ‘Don't inspect the teeth of a gift horse', which gives a clue as to the meaning of the current phrase. Examining a horse's teeth is the best way to assess its age as horses' teeth grow constantly to cope with their high-fibre diet. A young horse is of greater value than an old one so to look into the mouth of a horse that had been given as a gift would be, rather rudely, to seek to put a price on the present you'd received.
    St Jerome was using what was probably already a well-established aphorism to instruct people to accept gifts graciously and appreciate the intention behind them rather than their monetary worth.
    The phrase was recorded in its modern form in John Heywood's 
Dialogue of Proverbs
in 1546:

No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth.

The phrase has been linked to the mythological Trojan Horse, which was delivered to the gates of Troy as a gift from the Greeks around 1184
bc
, but which concealed a Greek army (including two spies in its mouth) that defeated the Trojans. The link is erroneous – looking into the mouth of the Trojan horse might have meant a jab in the eye from a Greek dagger at best – but the tale of the Trojan horse is the origin of another adage: ‘Fear the Greeks bearing gifts' (Laocoön's warning to the Trojans in Virgil's
Aeneid
:
imeo Danaos, et dona ferentes
– ‘I fear the Greeks, even when they are bringing gifts.')

A mid-seventeenth-century saying to remind you that you must be prepared to pay for any service that you make use of. Dances were one of the most popular forms of entertainment from the sixteenth century onwards and there were dancing events that appealed to all sections of society, from the rural country dance to the high-society ball. While musicians who played at the latter were paid by the host of the party, at less formal dances it was customary for the fiddler to earn a his living through donations from the guests who had enjoyed his performance. In
Taylors Feast
(1638) by the seventeenth-century writer John Taylor, the phrase is used literally but also makes reference to the fact that it was a well-known saying:

One of the Fidlers said, Gentlemen, I pray you to remember the Musicke [musicians
]
, you have given us nothing yet .
. .
Alwayes those that dance must pay the Musicke.

    In 1837, Abraham Lincoln demonstrated how the phrase could be used in a political setting to make a case against the spending of state money on resolving private disputes:

It is an old maxim, and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler.

An argument that makes the phrase seem every bit as relevant today as it was in Lincoln's day.

A similar saying, possibly derived from it, and with roughly the same meaning but reversing the roles, is:

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

The meaning is clear – the person who is paying chooses what is to be done and how. Surprisingly perhaps, the earliest record of it is as recent as 1895 when the
Daily News
of 18 December stated that ‘Londoners had paid the piper, and should choose the tune.'

   

This phrase is proof that the rumour mill has been running since the ancient civilizations. The Roman playwright Plautus (c. 254– 184
bc
), who was famous for his use of proverbs in his writing, included in his comedy
Curculio
the line:

Flamma fumo est proxima.
(
The flame is right next to the smoke.)

It meant then as it does now, that rumours don't exist without a source, and that the source is often the truth. From translations of Plautus's work came the thirteenth-century French phrase ‘
nul feu est sens fumee ne fumee sens feu
,' which translates as no fire is without smoke, nor smoke without fire. By the fourteenth century, the saying existed in Middle English – and in Scots, appearing in the long narrative poem on Robert the Bruce and other Scottish heroes by the poet and churchman John Barbour:

And thair may no man fire sa covir,

[Bot] low or reyk [flame or smoke]
sall it discovir.

It was readily integrated into British folklore and later travelled with the early settlers to the US, where the phrase now more commonly exists in the modernized form ‘Where there's smoke, there's fire.' We use it today to imply that even when an individual or organization denies whatever scandalous behaviour has been attributed to them, it's rare for gossip to start circulating without there being some degree of truth behind the tale.

   

This saying has its roots in Ancient Greece and was recorded for the first time in
ad
95 by Greek biographer Plutarch as ‘Even a dog gets his revenge.' One notion about its origins, expounded by Erasmus in his
Adagia
in 1500, is that it was coined after the death of the Greek playwright Euripides, in his seventies, in 406
bc
. There are several theories about exactly how Euripides died but one story has him visiting the King of Macedonia and being mauled to death by a pack of dogs that had been set on him by a rival.
    The phrase was used to convey the idea that if even a creature as lowly as a dog can overthrow a renowned and well-connected figure, then the most humble men should have faith that their chance for retribution against their oppressors will come. It was used as a form of encouragement to the downtrodden and as a warning to anyone who abused their power over others.
    The version we're more familiar with today appeared for the first time in English in Richard Taverner's translation of Erasmus's
Adagia
(second edition, 1545), where it appeared as:

A dogge hath a day

The phrase was picked up by John Heywood, appearing in his
Dialogue of Proverbs (
1546) as:

As euery man saith, a dog hath a daie.

Elizabeth I used it in 1550:

Notwithstanding, as a dog hath a day, so may I perchance have time to declare it in deeds.

And Shakespeare popularized it at the turn of the century with his now famous couplet in
Hamlet
:

Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

These days the phrase has lost much of its malice and is often used to suggest that everyone will get their chance at success.