On Sun, 9 Dec 2001 16:46:57 -0000, Robin Hamilton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >Not just the sexual subtext ("Who would pick cherries must first learn
to
>> >climb trees") but a medieval resonance.
>> >
>> is this a real proverb? And is it English: I would love to see the
>> connection between Brecht's cherry thief and this "motto".
>
>Erminia:
>
>I googled myself on this:
>
>"He who likes cherries soon learns to climb" -- German [sic!] proverb.
>
>There are five hits, none giving more than that.
>
>Dunno what the original German was (Martin?) or how it got into English.
***
>
>As to sexualised flowers, there's the medieval quatrain (I quote from
>memory):
>
>All nicht bi the rose, rose
>All nicht bi the rose I lay I lay
>Ich dar noght the rose steal,
>And yet I bure the flower away.
>
>Robin
Very usuful to get to know both terms of the question:
Brecht wrote two poems about the rose, and surely the poem about the cherry
tree must refer in some way to the proverb that you mention (originally
German, you
believe ), "He who likes cherries soon learns to climb".
There is an unavoidability in such an allegorical sequence that would
justify Brecht’s (the owner) tolerance of the young man's presence among
the branches of his tree. As though at a subliminal level, the popular
wisdom of it, (of the proverb) had informed his consciousness of such a
possibility.
I would like to understand what "cherries", as a symbol, stood for
(primarely sex or money?), in medieval times; who were the authors who
first used this proverb in literature (in German literature and in the
English one); whether it happeared first in ballads or tales - (Brecht
made a wide re-use of the themes and the style of the ballads, for istance,
and was deeply interested in folk tradition).
Those hints were very usuful: Robin, thank you. I am constantly thinking of
Brecht's thief, these days.
erminia
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