Serbian proverbs — read closely

Parallel & Proverbs

A weekly literary miscellany

The Frog That Wanted Shoeing

Жаба тражила да је поткују

žaba tražila da je potkuju

A Serbian frog lifts its foot at the blacksmith's — and across three continents, the same truth about imitation lands differently in Latin, Chinese, and Hindi.

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Serbian proverbs, at a glance

The frog that wanted to be shod like a horse

Жаба тражила да је поткују

Žaba tražila da je potkuju

Literally: The frog asked to be shod

Serbian · Serbia

Set beside
- Latin (Phaedrus, via Aesop) — same creature, but the failure is inflation, not imitation of equipment
- Chinese (Zhuangzi) — imitation without understanding what made the original beautiful
- Hindi (folk tradition) — the imitator loses its own gait along with the borrowed one