Note 636 — Chapter XIX
Reading edition
There is another collection of proverbs made by the Marquis of Santillana, that is to be found in Mayans y Siscar, “Orígenes de la Lengua Castellana” (Tom. II. pp. 179, etc.). They are, however, neither rhymed nor glossed; but simply arranged in alphabetical order, as they were gathered from the lips of the common people, or, as the collector says, “from the old women in their chimney-corners.” For an account of the printed editions of the rhymed proverbs prepared for Prince Henry, see Mendez, Typog. Esp., p. 196, and Sanchez, Tom. I. p. xxxiv. The seventeenth proverb, or that on Prudence, may be taken as a fair specimen of the whole, all being in the same measure and manner. It is as follows:—
Si fueres gran eloquente Bien será, Pero mas te converrá Ser prudente. Que el prudente es obediente Todavia A moral filosofía Y sirviente.
A few of the hundred proverbs have a prose commentary by the Marquis himself; but neither have these the good fortune to escape the learned discussions of the Toledan Doctor. The whole collection is spoken of slightingly by the wise author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas.” Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 13.
The same Pero Diaz, who burdened the Proverbs of the Marquis of Santillana with a commentary, prepared, at the request of John II., a collection of proverbs from Seneca, which were first printed in 1482, and afterwards went through several editions. (Mendez, Typog., pp. 266 and 197.) I have one of Seville, 1500 (fol., 66 leaves). They are about one hundred and fifty in number, and the prose gloss with which each is accompanied seems in better taste and more becoming its position than it does in the case of the rhymed proverbs of the Marquis.