Parallel & Proverbs

A sixteenth-century Spanish proverb yokes the prayer and the mallet into a single motion. Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit and a much-quoted line with no papers each cut the same knot differently — and Spain is the only one that refuses to let go of either end.

A rich Athenian goes into the sea and starts bidding for rescue. The correction reaches him from a stranger with no authority and no spare breath — six Greek words in which the goddess is left standing with nothing to do.

A Finnish proverb about a tree and a shrub says overreaching doesn't just fail — it costs you the ground you were already standing on. A Roman dog, a Chinese contest, and a Hebrew aphorism agree.

The most quoted African proverb in the world says a person is a person through other people. Its recruitment as the definition of ubuntu is traceable, recent, and took about two years.

A Korean proverb promises that ease follows hardship — and almost every important word in it was borrowed from Chinese, including the word for the hardship and the word for the ease.