respect with the two appendices of the first anthology. There is also a long mashal, analogous to some we have had already, which can only with some laxity be called a proverb, and which extends over ten distichs (xxvii. 23-27). With regard to parallelism, the antithetic kind, which predominates in the first 'Solomonic' anthology, is rare in this collection, except in chaps. xxviii., xxix.; sometimes indeed there is no parallelism at all (see xxv. 8, 9, 10, 21, 22, xxvi. 18, 19, xxvii. 1, xxix. 12). As a compensation, similitudes abound in the three first chapters of the collection. Sometimes the comparison is expressed, e.g.
As the cold of snow in the heat[1] of harvest
is a faithful messenger to those that send him:
he refreshes the soul of his master (xxv. 13);
at other times it is implied by the juxtaposition of the two objects, e.g.
Apples of gold in chased work of silver,
a word smoothly spoken[2] (xxv. 11).
Let us pause on this favourite proverb of Goethe's. The Hebrew 'wise men' would not have agreed to a later sage's depreciation of speech.[3] 'A word in due season, how good is it' (xv. 23); but when not only seasonable but set off by charms of style, how much better is it! The 'apples of gold' in xxv. 11 are probably oranges; the 'chased work of silver' means either baskets of silver filagree, or, as I should like to think with Mr. Neil, the brilliant white blossoms among which the golden fruit is seen peeping out. If the 'gold' is figurative, why not also the 'silver'? We are reminded of Andrew Marvell's lines in the 'Emigrants' Song,'
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
- ↑ Reading b'khōm for b'yōm with Sept.
- ↑ Literally, 'a word spoken (or, perhaps, driven, or sent home) on its wheels,'
i.e. smoothly and elegantly ('ore rotundo'). So Schultens, who sees a reference
to the tropes and figures of elegant Oriental style. Comp. Neil, Palestine Explored,
p. 197. The interpretation is an attractive one, though uncertain. Ewald
has a slightly different view (see History, ii. p. 14, n. 6). - ↑ Carlyle however borrows an Arabic proverb (Freytag, Prov. Ar., iii. 92).
