‘fjende-gave ingen gave’, ‘an enemy’s gift is no gift’.^66 But the Sophoclean line
found its way into the Paroemiographers, and learned transmission to the
North is an all too obvious possibility. It is the same with Lithuanian proverbs
such as ‘one hand washes the other’, or ‘one swallow does not make it spring’,
both corresponding to familiar Classical adages.^67 In Old Irish as in Greek one
finds the motif of the third wave (or some higher ordinal) that is bigger than
the others and overwhelms one.^68
Parallels between Greece and India might seem in principle more
promising, but again it is difficult to find solid ground to build on. ‘Put out
thefire before it spreads’ was a Greek proverb, applicable for example to a
political situation such as a growing tyranny.^69 There is a similar one in the
Indian epics: ‘this blazing and grisly fire that is mounting, extinguish it now
before there is war!’ (MBh. 2. 56. 7; cf. Rm. 5. 45. 29). Are we to assume
common inheritance? A few pages later the same sententious adviser cites
a saying about the goat that scratched at the ground and dug up the lost
knife with which its own throat was to be cut (MBh. 2. 59. 8). We have
other Indian sources for this, the earliest of which is perhaps of the second
century . There is a corresponding Greek proverb α_ξ (or οj)τ^ν
μα ́ χαιραν, ‘the goat (or sheep) (found) the knife’, and versions are attested
later in Arabic and Ethiopic.^70 In this case the proverb does not allude to
the typical behaviour of goats but to a fable, a tale of what a certain goat
once did in a particular situation. Animal fables were popular in Greece from
the archaic period on and at a later date in India; but it is fairly certain
that they originated in the Near East and do not represent Indo-European
heritage.
RIDDLESWe tend to think of riddles as a species of social diversion, something to
amuse children and sharpen their wits. No doubt the more hackneyed ones
always tended to finish up in that way. But in the ancient literatures riddles
(^66) Soph. Aj. 665; G. Kallstenius in Studier til Axel Kock (Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi, Tillags-
band til bd. 40, Lund 1929), 23 no. 36.
(^67) Schleicher (1857), 162, 178.
(^68) See P. Groeneboom’s note on [Aesch.] Prom. 1015; Dooley–Roe (1999), 235.
(^69) Alc. 74. 6 with schol.; Pind. Nem. 1. 24; Call. fr. 195. 23–6; Arnd Kerkhecker, Callimachus’
Book of Iambi (Oxford 1999), 136.
(^70) For the full material and discussion see Winfried Bühler, Zenobii Athoi proverbia, iv
(Göttingen 1982), 233–44.
- Cosmos and Canon 363