Proverb
Of enough men leave.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
CULTURAL EXPLORATION
From one object to an entire cultural map
Begin with a work, person, period, place, tradition or theme. Every card leads to public content and relationships that have passed the same publication gate.
All objects
All objects
Fable
Of the Fat Woman who Melted Away
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Fable
Of the Pretty Girl and the Seven Jealous Women
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Fable
Of the Pretty Stranger who Killed the King
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Proverb
Of two evils choose the least.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
Old birds are not to be caught with chaff.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
Old friends and old wine are best.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
On Candlemas day Throw candle and candlestick away.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Poetry
On Elizabeth L. H.
An epitaph stops the passing reader, states that the stone covers as much beauty and virtue as could die, asks that any fault stay buried, and withholds the second name so that only "Elizabeth" is spoken.
Poetry
On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
The speaker likens years of reading to travel through golden realms and western islands, says he never breathed the pure air of Homer's domain until he heard Chapman, and compares the moment to an astronomer sighting a new planet and to explorers staring silently at an unknown ocean.
Poetry
On His Blindness
Fear that blindness has buried a biblical “talent” is answered by Patience: God needs neither human work nor gifts, and waiting can also be service.
Poetry
On His Deceased Wife
The speaker recounts dreaming that his dead wife came back to him veiled and clothed in white, with love and goodness shining in her, and that as she leaned to embrace him he woke and daylight restored his darkness.
Poetry
On Salathiel Pavy
An epitaph asks readers to weep for a boy of scarcely thirteen who had already spent three years as the stage's finest performer, and claims that the Fates, deceived by how truly he played old men, took him by mistake and now cannot get him back from Heaven.
Poetry
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, 1802
The sonnet recalls Venice as a free maiden city that held the East in fee and wedded the sea, then argues that even the fading shade of what was once great must be mourned.
Poetry
On the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month, Remembering My Brothers
九月九日忆山东兄弟Alone in another region, a stranger there, at every festival I think of my kin twice as much. From far off I know my brothers are on the heights, and where all wear dogwood, one man is missing.
Poetry
On the Stork Tower
登鹳雀楼The white sun sinks behind the hills; the Yellow River flows toward the sea. To take in a thousand miles of view, climb one level higher.
Poetry
On Time
Addressing Time as a devourer, the poem urges it to swallow all that is false until it consumes itself, after which eternity, truth, peace and love remain and the soul sits triumphing over Death, Chance and Time.
Proverb
Once a use and ever a custom.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One beats the bush and another catches the birds.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One enemy is too many, and a hundred friends are too few.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One leg of a lark is worth the whole body of a kite.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One man may better steal a horse than another look over the hedge.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One man may lead the horse to the water, but fifty can't make him drink.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Proverb
One must sometimes hold a candle to the devil.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.