Proverbs

Proverb

Proverbs are the popular sayings that brighten so much Latin American talk, the

boiled-down wisdom that you are as apt to hear from professors as from peasants, from beggars as from elegants. Brief and colorful, they more often than not carry a sting.

When a neighbor?s dismally unattractive daughter announced her engagement, Imelda remarked, “you know what they say, Senora: ?There?s no pot so ugly it can?t find a lid.?” And when her son-in-law blustered about how he was going to get even with the boss who had docked his pay, Imelda fixed him with a cold eye and said, “Little fish does not eat big fish.”

One afternoon, I heard Imelda and her daughter arguing in the kitchen. Her daughter had quarreled with her husband?s parents, and Imelda was insisting that she apologize to them. Her daughter objected. “But, Mama, I just can?t swallow them, not even with honey. They talk so big until we need something; then they?re too poor. So today, when they wouldn?t even lend us enough to pay for a new bed, all I did was say something that I?ve heard you say a hundred times: ?If so grand, why so poor? If so poor, why so grand??”

“Impertinent!” snorted Imelda. “Have I not also taught you, ?What the tongue says, the neck pay for?? I will not have it said that I would never teach my daughter proper respect for her elders. And before you go to beg their pardon, change those trousers for a dress. You know how mother-in-law feels about pants on a woman. She always says, ?What was hatched a hen must not try to be a rooster!?”

Her daughter made one or more try. “But Mama, you often say, ?If the saint is annoyed, don?t pray to him until he gets over it.? Can?t I leave it for tomorrow?”

“No, no and no! Remember: ?If the dose is nasty, swallow it fast.? You know, my child, you did wrong. But, ?A gift is the key to open the door closed against you.? I have a cake in the oven that I was making for the Senora?s dinner, I will explain to the Senora. Now, dear, hurry home and make yourself pretty in your pink dress. By the time you get back, I will have the cake ready for you to take to your mother-in-law. She will be so pleased that she may make your father-in-law pay for the bed. Remember: ?One hand washes the other, but together they wash the face.?”