Home
Home is home, be it ever so homely.
Hame is a hamely word.—Scotch.
“Homely” and “hamely” are not synonymous, but imply different ideas associated with home. The one means plain, unadorned, fit for every-day use; the other means familiar, pleasant, dear to the affections. “To every bird its nest is fair” (French, Italian).155 “East and west, at home the best” (German).156 “The reek of my own house,” says the Spaniard, “is better than the fire of another’s.”157 The same feeling is expressed with less energy, but far more tenderly, in a beautiful Italian proverb, which loses greatly by translation: “Home, my own home, tiny though thou be, to me thou seemest an abbey.”158 Two others in the same language are exquisitely tender: “My home, my mother’s breast.”159 How touching this simple juxtaposition of two loveliest things! Again, “Tie me hand and foot, and throw me among my own.”160
Every cock is proud on his own dunghill.
A cock is crouse on his ain midden.—Scotch.
This proverb has descended to us from the Romans: it is quoted by Seneca.161 Its medieval equivalent, Gallus cantat in suo sterquilinio, was probably present to the mind of the first Napoleon when, in reply to those who advised him to adopt the Gallic cock as the imperial cognizance, he said, “No, it is a bird that crows on a dunghill.” The French have altered the old proverb without improving it, thus: “A dog is stout on his own dunghill.”162 The Italian is better: “Every dog is a lion at home.”163 The Portuguese give us the counterpart of this adage, saying, “The fierce ox grows tame on strange ground.”164
An Englishman’s house is his castle.
But sanitary reformers tell him truly that he has no right to shoot poisoned arrows from it at his neighbours. The French say, “The collier (or charcoal burner) is master in his own house,”165 and refer the origin of the proverb to a hunting adventure of Francis I., which is related by Blaise de Montluc. Having outridden all his followers, the king took shelter at nightfall in the cabin of a charcoal burner, whose wife he found sitting alone on the floor before the fire. She told him, when he asked for hospitality, that he must wait her husband’s return, which he did, seating himself on the only chair the cabin contained. Presently the man came in, and, after a brief greeting, made the king give him up the chair, saying he was used to sit in it, and it was but right that a man should be master in his own house. Francis expressed his entire concurrence in this doctrine, and he and his host supped together very amicably on game poached from the royal forest.
“Man,” said Ferdinand VII. to the Duke of Medina Celi, the premier nobleman of Spain, who was helping him on with his great coat, “man, how little you are!”—“At home I am great,” replied the dwarfish grande (grandee). “When I am in my own house I am a king” (Spanish).166
Footnotes
155 À tout oiseau son nid est beau. A ogni uccello suo nido è bello.
156 Ost und West, daheim das Best.
157 Mas vale humo de mi casa que fuego de la agena.
158 Casa mia, casa mia, per piccina che tu sia, tu mi sembri una badia.
159 Casa mia, mamma mia.
160 Legami mani e piei, e gettami tra’ miei.
161 Gallus in suo sterquilinio plurimum potest.
162 Chien sur son fumier est hardi.
163 Ogni cane è leone a casa sua.
164 O boi bravo na terra alheia se faz manso.
165 Charbonnier est maître chez soi.
166 Mientras en mi casa estoy, rey me soy.