There are also other proverbs, such as: A barleycorn is better than a diamond to a cock.[11] The allusion’s main idea is: when a hungry cock was searched for food, he saw a diamond. The cock said to the diamond: “To someone who admires you, you are a precious thing; but to me, you have no value at all, for all valuable thing can not match with a barley-corn.” Indeed, according to our common sense, a diamond is far more valuable than a barley-corn. But to a hungry man, especially to someone who needs grains badly, he would choose grains but not treasure, for treasure cannot satisfy his stomach. So this proverb tends to imply that different people have different views no the same thing. The submitting to one wrong brings on another.[12] The allusion, which this proverb came from, is generally like this: a snake was often ridden down by people, so he complained it to Zeus. Zeus told him that if he bit someone who firstly trampled on him, the next one would not trample him. It shows that if one put up with the mistake he made at the first time, he will make another similar mistake. So we should gain a lesson from the above allusion so as to avoid making the same mistakes.
2.4 Originating from Greek and Roman mythology
“Westerners are heirs to Greco-Roman civilization. Many ideas now prevailing in western countries can be traced back to the thinkers in ancient Greece and Roman. Greek and Roman mythologies are well known in the west and have beard on a strong influence upon people’s lives in western countries. It is natural that it becomes a common source of English proverbs.”[13]
Some proverbs are from Greek and Roman mythology. Each of them has an allusion. For example, The Devil too has Achilles’ heel.[14] According to the Homer, we can know: Achilles was a Greek hero. Except his heel, every part of Achilles’ body is swordproof, so his heel is his fatal defect. The proverb tells us that even the Devil has his weakness. No man is absolutely powerful. There is a similar example from Roman mythology. Not even Hercules could contend against two.[15] Hercules, a son of Zeus, was a hero in Roman mythology. He had incredible force, which helped him gain twelve heroic achievements. Although he was powerful enough, he couldn’t defeat a large number of enemies on his own. So the proverbs tells us that man’s energy is limited no matter how powerful he is. Another example, without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold.[16] Ceres is Roman goddess of grain and agriculture; Bacchus is the Greet god of wine; Venus is the goddess of beauty and love. From this, we can know that Ceres and Bacchus stand for basic necessity of life. So the proverb tends to express that love can’t be sweet without material support.
2.5 Originating from other languages
With the development of society, a language cannot avoid contacting with other languages. In the contact, the certain language surely absorbs some proverbs from others. With a long history, English language borrowed a large number of proverbs widely from many other languages including Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and other languages, among which Latin, Greek and French provide the richest nutrition. Most of the borrowed proverbs in English, due to the remoteness of time, have already assimilated or merged into the English language with their traces almost impossible to follow.
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