Detraction. Calumny. Common Fame. Good Repute
The smoke follows the fairest.
The original of this is in Aristophanes: it means that
“Envy doth merit like its shade pursue.”
“The best bearing trees are the most beaten” (Italian).597 “It is only at the tree laden with fruit that people throw stones” (French).598 “Towers,” say the Chinese, “are measured by their shadows, and great men by their calumniators.” An old French proverb compares detraction to dogs that bark only at the full moon, and never heed her in the quarter. “If the fool has a hump,” say the Livonians, “no one notices it; if the wise man has a pimple everybody talks about it.”
Slander leaves a slur.
“A blow of a fryingpan smuts, if it does not hurt” (Spanish).599 The Arabs say, “Take a bit of mud, dab it against the wall: if it does not stick it will leave its mark;” and we have a similar proverb derived from the Latin:600—
Throw much dirt, and some will stick.
Fortunately
When the dirt’s dry it will rub out.
Ill-will never spoke well.
The evidence of a prejudiced witness is to be distrusted. “He that is an enemy to the bride does not speak well of the wedding” (Spanish);601 and “A runaway monk never spoke in praise of his monastery” (Italian).602
Give a dog an ill name and hang him.
“I’ll not beat thee, not abuse thee,” said the Quaker to his dog; “but I’ll give thee an ill name.”—Irish.
He that hath an ill name is half hanged.
A French proverb declares, with a still bolder figure, that “Report hangs the man.”603 The Spaniards say, “Whoso wants to kill his dog has but to charge him with madness.”604
All are not thieves that dogs bark at.
The innocent are sometimes cried down. “An honest man is not the worse because a dog barks at him” (Danish).605 “What cares lofty Diana for the barking dog?” (Latin).606
Common fame is seldom to blame.
What everybody says must be true.
It never smokes but there’s a fire.
“There’s never a cry of ‘Wolf!’ but the wolf is in the district” (Italian).607 “There’s never much talk of a thing but there’s some truth in it” (Italian).608 This is the sense in which our droll English saying is applied:—
“There was a thing in it!” quoth the fellow when he drank the dishclout.
To accept the last half-dozen of proverbs too absolutely would often lead us to uncharitable conclusions; we must, therefore, temper our belief in these maxims by means of their opposites, such as this:—
Common fame is a common liar.
“Hearsay is half lies” (German, Italian).609 “Hear the other side, and believe little” (Italian).610
A tale never loses in the telling.
Witness George Colman’s story of the Three Black Crows.
The devil is not so black as he is painted.
Nor is the lion so fierce (Spanish).611 “Report makes the wolf bigger than he is” (German).612
It is a sin to belie the devil.
Give the devil his due.
If one’s name be up he may lie in bed.
“Get a good name and go to sleep” (Spanish).613 So do many. Hence it is often better to intrust the execution of a work to be done to an obscure man than to one whose reputation is established.
One man may better steal a horse than another look over the hedge.
“A good name covers theft” (Spanish).614 “The honest man enjoys the theft” (Spanish).615
A gude name is sooner tint [lost] than won.—Scotch.
“Once in folks’ mouths, hardly ever well out of them again” (German).616 “Good repute is like the cypress: once cut, it never puts forth leaf again” (Italian).617
Footnotes
597 I megliori alberi sono i più battuti.
598 On ne jette des pierres qu’à l’arbre chargé de fruits.
599 El golpe de la sarten, aunque no duele, tizna.
600 Calumniare audacter, aliquid adhærebit.
601 El que es enemigo de la novia no dice bien de la boda.
602 Monaco vagabondo non disse mai lode del suo monastero.
603 Le bruit pend l’homme.
604 Quien á su perro quiere matas, rabia le ha de levantar.
605 Ærlig Mand er ei disværre, at en Hund göer ad ham.
606 Latrantem curatne alta Diana canem?
607 E’ non si grida mai al lupo, che non sia in paese.
608 Non si dice mai tanto una cosa che non sia qualche cosa.
609 Hörensagen ist halb gelogen. Aver sentito dire è mezza buggia.
610 Odi l’altra parte, e credi poco.
611 No es tan bravo el leon como le pintan.
612 Geschrei macht den Wolf grösser als er ist.
613 Cobra buena fama, y échate á dormir.
614 Buena fama hurto encubre.
615 El buen hombre goza el hurto.
616 Einmal in der Leute Mund, kommt man übel wieder heraus.
617 La buona fama è come il cipresso: una volta tagliato non riverdisce più.