Erasmus on Writing Proverbs

Someone adept at coining or collecting proverbs.

"I can hardly believe that there will be anyone so unfair (and yet I think in the future there will be) as to expect even eloquence from a Dutchman, (i.e. a Boeotian or worse), and I am not joking--and in a work which is entirely directed to teaching, and teaching things like these, not unworthy of notice, but so tiny, so humble, that not only do they not attract ornaments of speech and fluent writing but repel everything of the sort. In a medley like this, with the constant enumeration of the names of authors, even modest ones, which I had to persevere in with dull stolidity for the sake of teaching, with the frequent interspersion of Greek and the recurring translations, what room was there for brilliance or elegance, or for maintaining the style, or for flow of oratory? Tully does not require eloquence from a philosopher, and is anyone going to ask it from a proverb-writer? Seneca never recommends it except when it comes easily or is there of its own accord, so as to treat great subjects in the great manner, and if I were to pretend to the paraphernalia of the Rhetors would it not be a case for quoting the proverb about 'Perfume in the pease-porridge'?"

Erasmus, Adages ("Herculei Labores") (1508)

[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)]