Timeline for "If the cedars caught fire, what will the hyssops of the wall say?"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 1, 2023 at 7:52 | comment | added | BoldBen | I can't think of an English equivalent for disaster befalling the powerful and consuming the weak but there is an expression for good things happening to the rich and benefitting the poor (supposedly) which is "A rising tide raises all boats". | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 8:48 | comment | added | Wudang | Based on your reply to Yosef : there is a line from Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 2 Scene 2 when a plot against the king is discovered "Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem. And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot To make the full-fraught man, and best, indued With some suspicion. " | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 6:57 | answer | added | April K | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 11:03 | answer | added | BrightShad0w | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 11, 2017 at 10:46 | answer | added | Barid Baran Acharya | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 8, 2017 at 21:42 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | Well then, you are right. | |
| Jun 8, 2017 at 17:58 | comment | added | ruakh | @YosefBaskin: Are you sure about that? In my experience, shalhevet always means "flame" rather than "torch". (The latter is lapid.) And the context in which my mother used the expression was talking about Ivy League students cheating on assignments -- exactly falling victim to human foibles. | |
| Jun 8, 2017 at 13:28 | comment | added | TriskalJM | The only other thing I can think of is Paulette's quote to Elle in Legally Blonde: "If a girl like you can't hold on to her man, then there sure as hell isn't any hope for the rest of us." But that requires someone to have seen the movie or at least know the characters. | |
| Jun 7, 2017 at 13:44 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | The 'Homer nods' pairing is very good. In the Hebrew, caught fire is arson, spelled out as "If a torch fell among the cedars." The hyssops are dry weeds, instantly succumbing to fire. So Homer nods says that the greats may falter, like a saint succumbing to bribery. But it misses that he falls victim, other than to human foibles. | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 23:58 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/871878849407012865 | ||
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:51 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Ecclesiastes 9:11 is antithetical: 'I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor ...' [NIV] | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 9:59 | comment | added | fixer1234 | I haven't been able to nail down the precise quote, but during the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinski scandal, I believe it was Bill Maher who made a statement, the gist of which was "If the leader of the free world can't get a little nookie, what chance do the rest of us have." | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 3:47 | comment | added | Tom22 | Hmm... that might be a "major league problem" trying to come up with a good equivalent. Interesting question. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 3:14 | comment | added | Lawrence | Does this famous African proverb come close? When elephants fight the grass (reeds) gets hurt. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 3:06 | history | asked | ruakh | CC BY-SA 3.0 |