least poetic when the likeness between the two subjects is expressed by a verb; as Pro 27:15 (to which, however, Pro 27:16 belongs):
A continual dropping in a rainy day
And a contentious woman are alike.
The usual form of expression, neither unpoetic nor properly poetic, is the introduction of the comparison by כּ [as], and of the similitude in the second clause by כּן [so]; as Pro 10:26 :
As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes,
So is the sluggard to them who give him a commission.
This complete verbal statement of the relation of likeness may also be abbreviated by the omission of the כּן; as Pro 25:13; Pro 26:11 :
As a dog returning to his vomit -
A fool returning to his folly.
We call the parabolic proverbs of these three forms comparisons. The last, the abbreviated form of the comparative proverb, which we will call, in contradistinction to the comparative, the emblematic, in which the contrast and its emblem are loosely placed together without any nearer expression of the similitude; as e.g., Pro 26:20; Pro 27:17-18, Pro 27:20. This takes place either by means of the couplative Vav, ו, as Pro 25:25 -
Cold water to a thirsty soul,
And good news from a far country.[1]
Or without the Vav; in which case the second line is as the subscription under the figure or double figure painted in the first; e.g., Pro 25:11., Pro 11:22 :
A gold ring in a swine's snout -
A fair woman without understanding.
These ground-forms of two lines, can, however, expand into forms of several lines. Since the distich is the peculiar and most appropriate form of the technical proverb, so, when two lines are not sufficient for expressing the thought intended, the multiplication to
- ↑ This so-called Vav adaequationis, which appears here for the first time in the Proverbs as the connection between the figure and the thing itself without a verbal predicate (cf. on the other hand, Job 5:7; Job 12:11; Job 14:11.), is, like the Vav, ו, of comparison, only a species of that Vav of association which is called in Arab. Waw alajam'a, or Waw alam'ayat, or Waw al'asatsahab (vid., at Isa 42:5); and since usage attributes to it the verbal power of secum habere, it is construed with the accus. Vid., examples in Freytag's Arabum Proverbia, among the recent proverbs beginning with the Arabic letter k.
