Читать книгу Proverbs of All Nations, Compared, Explained, and Illustrated онлайн

38 страница из 49

She will be more at home there than in the drawing-room. "A sow prefers bran to roses" (French).ssss1 "Set a frog on a golden stool, and off it hops again into the pool" (German).ssss1

There's no making a silk purse of a sow's ear

or, "A good arrow of a pig's tail" (Spanish);ssss1 or, "A sieve of an ass's tail" (Greek).

A carrion kite will never make a good hawk.

An inch o' a nag is worth a span o' an aver.

A kindly aver will never make a good nag.

An aver is a cart horse.

One leg of a lark is worth the whole body of a kite.

A piece of a kid is worth two of a cat.

Bray a fool in a mortar, he'll be never the wiser.

"To wash an ass's head is loss of suds" (French).ssss1 "The malady that is incurable is folly" (Spanish).ssss1

There's no washing a blackamoor white.

"Wash a dog, comb a dog, still a dog is but a dog" (French).ssss1

A hog in armour is still but a hog.

An ape is an ape, a varlet's a varlet,

Though he be clad in silk and scarlet.

There's no getting white flour out of a coal-sack.