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Jumping From The Frying Pan Into The Fire
The phrase out of the frying pan into the fire is used to describe the situation of moving or getting from a bad or difficult situation to a worse one, often as the result of trying to escape from the bad or difficult one. It was the subject of a 15th-century fable that eventually entered the Aesopic canon. History of the idiom and its use The proverb and several similar European proverbs ultimately derive from a Greek saying about running from the smoke or the fire into the flame, the first recorded use of which was in a poem by Germanicus Caesar (15 BCE – 19 CE) in the Greek Anthology. There it is applied to a hare in flight from a dog that attempts to escape by jumping into the sea, only to be seized by a 'sea-dog'. The Latin equivalent was the seafaring idiom 'He runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis' (''incidit in scyllam cupiens vitare charybdim''), a parallel pointed out by Edmund Arwaker in the moral that follows his verse treatment of the fable. The earliest rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proverb
A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. Collectively, they form a folklore genre, genre of folklore. Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact. In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs. Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to the same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Still Waters Run Deep
Still waters run deep is a proverb of Latin origin now commonly taken to mean that a placid exterior hides a passionate or subtle nature. Formerly it also carried the warning that silent people are dangerous, as in Suffolk's comment on a fellow lord in William Shakespeare's play '' Henry VI part 2'': :::Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep, :::And in his simple show he harbours treason... :::No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man :::Unsounded yet and full of deep deceit. According to ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs'', the first mention of the proverb appeared in Classical times in the form ''altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi'' (the deepest rivers flow with least sound) in a history of Alexander the Great by Quintus Rufus Curtius and is there claimed as being of Bactrian origin. The earliest use in English sources goes back to 1400. The fable In about 1490 the Italian writer Laurentius Abstemius expanded the proverb into a short fable in Latin ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fables By Laurentius Abstemius
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter ''excludes'' animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "" ("''mythos''") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter. A person who writes fables is a fabulist. History The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Between Scylla And Charybdis
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". Several other idioms, such as " on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings. The mythical situation also developed a proverbial use in which seeking to choose between equally dangerous extremes is seen as leading inevitably to disaster. The myth and its proverbial use Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Calabrian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesser Of Two Evils Principle
The lesser of two evils principle, also referred to as the lesser evil principle and lesser-evilism, is the principle that when faced with selecting from two immoral options, the least immoral one should be chosen. The principle is sometimes recalled in reference to binary political choices in democratic voting under a two-party system. Origin The maxim existed already in Platonic philosophy. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes: "For the lesser evil can be seen in comparison with the greater evil as a good, since this lesser evil is preferable to the greater one, and whatever preferable is good". The modern formulation was popularized by Thomas à Kempis' devotional book ''The Imitation of Christ'' written in early 15th century. In part IV of his ''Ethics'', Spinoza states the following maxim: In modern elections In 2012, ''Huffington Post'' columnist Sanford Jay Rosen stated that the idea became common practice for left-leaning voters in the United States due to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clockwise from top left) , date = April 21 – August 13, 1898() , place = , casus = , result = American victory *Treaty of Paris (1898), Treaty of Paris of 1898 *Founding of the First Philippine Republic and beginning of the Philippine–American War * German–Spanish Treaty (1899), Spain sells to Germany the last colonies in the Pacific in 1899 and end of the Spanish Empire in Spanish colonization of the Americas, America and Asia. , territory = Spain relinquishes sovereignty over Cuba; cedes Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippine Islands to the United States. $20 million paid to Spain by the United States for infrastructure owned by Spain. , combatant1 = United State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puck (magazine)
''Puck'' was the first successful humor magazine in the United States of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was founded in 1876 as a German-language publication by Joseph Keppler, an Austrian-born cartoonist. ''Puck'''s first English-language edition was published in 1877, covering issues like New York City's Tammany Hall, presidential politics, and social issues of the late 19th century to the early 20th century. "Puckish" means "childishly mischievous". This led Shakespeare's Puck character (from ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'') to be recast as a charming near-naked boy and used as the title of the magazine. ''Puck'' was the first magazine to carry illustrated advertising and the first to successfully adopt full-color lithography printing for a weekly publication. ''Puck'' was published from 1876 until 1918. Publication history After working with '' Leslie's Illustrated Weekly'' in New York – a well-established magazine at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger L'Estrange
Sir Roger L'Estrange (17 December 1616 – 11 December 1704) was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was ''An Account of the Growth of Knavery'', which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York (later King James II), placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends. Following the Exclusion Crisis and the failure of the nascent Whig faction to disinherit James, Duke of York in favour of Charles II's illegitimate son James, 1st Duke of Monmouth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media. The fables originally belonged to oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe. The process is continuous and new stories are still being added to the Aesop corpus, even when they are demonstrably more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mountain In Labour
''The Mountain in Labour'' is one of Aesop's Fables and appears as number 520 in the Perry Index. The story became proverbial in Classical times and was applied to a variety of situations. It refers to speech acts which promise much but deliver little, especially in literary and political contexts. In more modern times the satirical intention behind the fable was given greater emphasis following Jean de la Fontaine's interpretation of it. Illustrations to the text underlined its ironical application particularly and went on to influence cartoons referring to the fable elsewhere in Europe and America. The Classical fable The earliest surviving version of the tale is in the first two and a half lines of a four-line Latin poem by Phaedrus: "A mountain had gone into labour and was groaning terribly. Such rumours excited great expectations all over the country. In the end, however, the mountain gave birth to a mouse." Phaedrus then went on to say that this applies to those who make se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phaedrus (fabulist)
Gaius Julius Phaedrus (; grc-gre, Φαῖδρος; Phaîdros) was a 1st-century CE Roman Empire, Roman fabulist and the first versifier of a collection of Aesop's fables into Latin. Few facts are known about him for certain and there was little mention of his work during late antiquity. It was not until the discovery of a few imperfect manuscripts during and following the Renaissance that his importance emerged, both as an author and in the transmission of the fables. Biography A recent statement of the few facts that past scholars have tried to deduce from autobiographical hints given by Phaedrus in his poems has summarised them as follows: He was born in Macedonia, probably in Pydna, about 15 BCE, came to Rome as a slave and was freed by Augustus. He probably had some teaching function between then and the time of Tiberius, under whom the first book of his poems appeared. Envious competitors interpreted the morals of some fables as being critical of the regime and he was trie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurentius Abstemius
Laurentius Abstemius (c. 1440–1508) was an Italian writer and professor of philology, born at Macerata in Ancona. His learned name plays on his family name of Bevilaqua (Drinkwater), and he was also known by the Italian name Lorenzo Astemio. A Neo-Latin writer of considerable talents at the time of the Humanist revival of letters, his first published works appeared in the 1470s and were distinguished by minute scholarship. During that decade he moved to Urbino and became ducal librarian, although he was to move between there and other parts of Italy thereafter as a teacher. The work for which he is principally remembered now is ''Hecatomythium'' (1495), a collection of a hundred fables written in Latin and largely of his own invention. However, the inclusion together with this work of the thirty-three Aesopic fables translated from the Greek by Lorenzo Valla gave the impression that his own work was of the same kind. Several of the fables of Abstemius, it is true, relate to Ae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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