Is fhearr caraid 's a chùirt na crùn 's an sporran
is fhearr caraid 's a chùirt na crùn 's an sporran
A friend at court beats a coin in your pocket.
Sakla samanı, gelir zamanı
sakla samanı, gelir zamanı
Save the straw — its time will come.
落叶归根
luò yè guī gēn
No matter how far you travel, you are pulled back to where you began.
Жаба тражила да је поткују
žaba tražila da je potkuju
The frog that wanted to be shod like a horse
Why Greeks say mountains never meet but people do — and how Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish circle the same observation about the inevitability of encounter from four very different cosmologies.
The Greek phrase — Βουνό με βουνό δε σμίγει, μα άνθρωπος μ' άνθρωπο σμίγει —
means literally Mountain with mountain doesn't meet, but person with person meets.
In idiomatic use it carries far more.
This essay sits with the difference for some pages. By the end we have not solved it. We have only learned to hear it.
Saadi's drops gather into a sea. Ovid's drops hollow a stone. Swahili grain fills a small wooden cup. Japanese dust becomes a mountain. Five languages chose five different small things — and the smallness, in each case, is exactly the point.