Note 319 — Chapter V · THE WISE MAN’S PARTING COUNSELS.
Reading edition
But Goethe may have thought of the Turkish proverb, ‘Do good, throw the loaf into the water; if the fish knows it not, the Creator does,’ or the story from the life of the Caliph Mutewekyil [Mutawakkil?] quoted, with this proverb, from H. F. v. Diez by Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, pp. 73-74. Comp. also the stories in the Midrash Koheleth on our passage.