[In the following essay, Brosnahan outlines Wace's use of proverbs and explores the narrative, literary, and dramatic functions they serve in his work.]

Pvr remembrer des ancesurs
Les feiz e les diz e les murs.

The primary intention of this study is simply to add Wace to the relatively short list of individual mediaeval authors whose uses of proverbial materials have been closely examined.¹ For the student of mediaeval proverbs the collection contains a thorough culling and classification of the various types of proverbial expressions found in Wace's five known works.² In addition, the collection offers clear indication of the frequency of occurrence of individual expressions, information necessarily lacking in formal, single-entry lists of proverbs and in frame poems of the Solomon-Marcoul or vilain dit type. The literary historian and student of mediaeval rhetoric may also find here additional detailed material useful for comparative studies of the use of proverbial expressions as a literary device.

Among the mediaeval writers whose uses of proverbial materials have been closely studied, Wace is, not surprisingly, neither the first nor the last, in either quantity or quality, in his use of these materials. Though the following collection may appear quite bulky, it represents a combing of the nearly 36,000 lines of Wace's work, and indicates clearly that Wace was, for example, far more sparing than Chaucer³ but more prodigal than Froissart⁴ in proverbial expressions. On the other hand, while Wace makes virtually no approach to Chaucer in the variety and ingenuity of his use of proverbs, his skill compares rather favorably with Froissart's. If Froissart's proverbs frequently lack spontaneity and point,⁵ Wace's uniformly meet these rather minimal requirements, though very rarely is anything more demanding attempted.⁶ Among Wace's few apparent attempts to go beyond a simple, straightforward use of proverbial material is the very rare use of a pun, probably with humorous intent (cf. entry 297), or a proverbial joke based on folk etymology (183), though these may be the normal forms of the proverbs. There are also equally rare clusters of sententious material apparently carefully studied for the poetic effect of an ubi sunt lyric (316). Slightly more often Wace caps an episode with a proverb containing what might be called the punch line of the tale (138, 176, 183, 295).

In most respects Wace's use of proverbs conforms to the general practice of mediaeval French writers observed long ago by Le Roux de Lincy.⁷ A good number of his proverbs are introduced by some variation of the traditional formula le vilain dit (5, 24, 164, 176, 183, 184, 295) or Veir dit qui dit (41, 42). Like other early French authors Wace drew heavily on the scriptures for his proverbial materials, both explicitly (4, 44, 305, 314, 323) and implicitly (6, 8, 30, 40, 46, 51, 85, 148, 165, 327), and rather often upon the common law (18, 129, 133, 227, 247, 255, 264, 298). Proverbial material in Wace, as in the work of other early writers, gathers most densely at the beginnings and endings of his works and their major divisions, and even at the beginnings and endings of such smaller units as episodes and individual speeches. The Nicholas, for instance, begins with thirty-four lines of almost unbroken proverbial material justifying the work, asking for an attentive hearing, and begging a generous recompense; and the work ends with a sententious reminder of the recompense, embedded in the conventional blessing and signature. The first half of the Rou begins⁸ with fifteen lines of similar proverbial material and ends with five lines of proverbial reference to the needs of poets. The second half of the Rou (R III) begins with 180 lines of rather thick sententious material, expanded from some hundred lines of the first-draft beginning of the Rou (R I). Episodes rather frequently begin or end with less elaborate proverbial passages (38b, 50, 51, 138, 226a, 232a, 233, 241, 245, 256 ef, 271) while units as small as speeches only occasionally conclude with a proverb (274, 303, 321). Only a few of the proverbial expressions ending episodes do more than comment rather flatly on the action, and these few usually function as summaries (38a, 50, 51, 232a, 233). Perhaps the most pointed are Gunnor's comment on being made an honest woman (138) and William the Conqueror's reflection on the credence due sooth-sayers (233).

Though fully a third of the proverbial expressions in Wace's works is placed in the mouths of characters, it is spread so thinly over the multitude that it rarely constitutes effective characterization. Among the most successful is Cordelia's answer to Lear's demand of the measure of her love, an answer sadly echoed by Lear himself after his fall (49). Lear's fatalistic apostrophe to Fortune in his misery (256cd) captures the defeated and sententious old man at low ebb. Also notable are Merlin's sly and incantation-like repetitions of the superiority of engin to force (12), the surly saintliness of Marguerite's “Dyable, ariere va!” (148), and Harold's bitter reply to Gurth at the battle of Hastings, “Sire frere … Conseil arriere ualt petit” (7).

The two thirds of the proverbial material reserved to the narrator does serve, however, to characterize to some extent Wace and his times. The dominant impression conveyed of the narrator is of a serious, moralizing clergyman with an expected preoccupation with sin and death (8, 30, 32, 46, 91, 225, 246c, 281). He appears very much of his time in his interpretation of Halley's comet as a portent of political change (245), and in his support of the ethics of a military society (216, 227, 294, 308). He is, however, aware of and critical of the corruptions of court (20, 139), the monastic orders (176, 266, 267), the nobility (227, 252, 259, 288, 294, 298, 308), and women (133, 250). Finally, he goes to considerable pains to picture himself as the embattled literary man, overworked (223, 320) and underpaid (212, 263). This impression of struggle, whether real or calculated, is given sad confirmation by the bitter words which end the Rou and which may also mark the end of Wace's literary career, words addressed to Benoît, who superseded Wace in the favor of Henry as chronicler of the Norman dukes:

Die en auant qui dire en deit:
I'ai dit por Maistre Beneeit
Qui cest[e] oure a dire a emprise,
Com li reis l'a desor lui mise.
Quant li reis li a roue faire,
Laissier la dei si m'en dei taire.
Li reis iadis maint bien me fist,
Mult me dona, plus me pramist,
E se il tot done m'eust
Co qu'il me pramist, mielz me fust.
Nel poi aueir, ne plout al rei,
Mais n'est mie remes en mei …
Qui'n uelt auant faire si'n face.

(R [Rou] III 11481-502)

The general tone of the proverbial material in Wace is one of fatalistic though not necessarily pessimistic resignation to the general helplessness of man not only in the face of time and decay and death but also of fortune. The more pessimistic run from near dirge on decay (315, 316) through warning to prepare for the worst (171) to a long series of notices of the defeat of happy expectations (206, 229, 235, 251, 253, 262, 277, 287). The bulk of such observations, however, are neutral and stoical, and include both of the most frequently recurring proverbial statements in Wace, the first dealing with the inevitable balance of loss and gain (257) and the second with fickle Fortune (256). On rare occasion this resignation is even the source of rather dark hope (5, 45, 321). Though this tone of resignation or fatalism is generally associated with the end of the Middle Ages rather than the twelfth century, the tone as well as the content of Wace's proverbial material is very like that of Froissart.⁹

Perhaps the most striking peculiarity of Wace's use of proverbial expressions is his tendency to use proverbs in clusters. These clusters may be groups of rather distantly related but appropriate expressions ranging from two,

(32) Veir est que nuls ne naist, qui n'estuise murir

(R II 91)

(46) E ki de terre vient a terre estuet venir,

(R II 92)¹⁰

to as many as five,

(254) Mais fols est qui se glorefie:

(R III 6701)

(16) Tost est une ioie faillie,

(R III 6702)

(33) Male nouele est tost uenue,

(R III 6703)

(268) Tost poet morir qui altre tue;

(R III 6704)

(229) Souent contre son destorbier

(R III 6705)

Se selt coer d'ome esleecier,

(R III 6706)¹¹

or occasionally even more.¹² Other clusters are of very closely related proverbs that constitute a kind of progression; these also vary from two,

(10) Vne perte atrait l'altre, tost est vn[s] duel[s] dublez,

(R II 4109)¹³

to five in length,

(36) Kar oisdive atrait malvaistied

E maint hume ad aperecied.

(B [Brut] 10741-42)

(318) Uisdive met hume en peresce,

(B 10743)

(318) Uisdive amenuse prüesce,

(B 10744)

(318) Uisdive esmuet les lecheries,

(B 10745)

(318) Uisdive esprent lé drueries.

(B 10746)¹⁴

Still other clusters are made up of simple repetitions of the same proverb in different words; these groups vary from two,

(208) Par mult poi d'auenture est vne alme fenie,

(R II 934)

(208) E par poi d'achaisun est vne alme perie,

(R II 935)¹⁵

to four proverbs,

(12) “Reis, dist Merlin, dunc ne sez tu

Que engin surmunte vertu.

(B 8057-58)

(12) Bone est force e engin mielz valt;

(B 8059)

(12) La valt engin u force falt.

(B 8060)

(12) Engin e art funt mainte chose

Que force comencer nen ose.

(B 8061-62)¹⁶

In clusters of these various types and lengths are found a little over a third of all the proverbs in Wace's writings. The first type of cluster suggests the ease with which one proverb called up others in Wace's mind, and though the repetitive clusters suggest either a low attention level or high noise level in Wace's audience, it may be that they represent the Aguecheek philosophy that anything good at one telling is better when repeated.

To facilitate the use of this collection with earlier collections for the purposes of comparison of Wace's techniques with those of other mediaeval writers whose proverbs have been studied, Wace's proverbial material has been classified in four formal categories: Proverb, Proverbial Comparisons, Proverbial Phrases, and Sententious Remarks.¹⁷ Within each category individual sayings have generally been arranged in alphabetical order of what the present writer considered the principal word. Occasionally, sayings are arbitrarily joined to groups of sayings of similar content though they may not contain the principal term which occurs in the majority of the members of the group. Sayings drawn from Wace's Roman de Brut are accompanied by supplementary line references to Manning of Brunne's Story of England and Layamon's Brut¹⁸ when Wace's proverbs are retained in these two mediaeval English paraphrases.¹⁹ When Wace's proverbial expressions are drawn directly from his Latin sources, the Latin forms of the expressions are recorded at the end of the entry.²⁰ Finally, references to the mediaeval and classical Latin forms of Wace's various proverbial expressions are given when they occur in the collections listed at the end of the bibliography.

The distribution of the various types of proverbial expressions in the works of Wace is indicated in the following table:

From the table there appears a gradual rise in the frequency of Wace's use of proverbial materials from the early poems to a peak in Part I of the Roman de Rou,²¹ Wace's most ambitiously experimental piece of work, then a decline in Part II of the Roman de Rou, in which Wace returned to the traditional octosyllabic meter. There also appears a progressive gain in the frequency of occurrence of proverbs and proverbial comparisons in contrast with proverbial phrases and sententious remarks, though the latter always dominate.

It is noteworthy that these formal categories in Wace also represent to a very large extent functional categories with rather clearly distinguishable patterns of use. The category most clearly differentiated in use as in form is Proverbial Comparisons. Their distribution between narrator and characters is four to one, a good deal higher than the general average. What marks them most from the other categories is their very even distribution throughout the works, and their almost total absence from the frequent clusters of other types of proverbial material and from the dense groupings of proverbial material at the beginning or ending of works, episodes, or speeches. Their function is almost exclusively to heighten color and vividness of expression. Seven eighths of them occur in the commonest form of such comparisons: to x like a y, and the majority of the remaining comparisons take the forms: more x than a y and as x as a y.

The category of pure proverbs is very nearly evenly distributed between narrator and characters: four to three, while slightly more than half of them occur in clusters, and fully a seventh of them in progressive or repetitive clusters. Almost all of those spoken by the narrator are used to foreshadow future action or to justify past action, and about two thirds of those used by characters are used to strengthen an assertion. They occur very rarely in prominent positions beginning or ending works, episodes, or speeches.

The Proverbial Phrases are distributed between narrator and character about five to three, near the general average of all categories. Only one in seven appears in a cluster, and very rarely do they occur in beginning or ending positions. Their most common use, some three eighths of them, is to give boastful, forceful, emphatic, or solemn color to expression; the balance are rather evenly distributed among the functions of expressing foreshadowing, irony, humor, hyperbole, litotes, contempt, geographical limits, or totality.

The largest group, the Sententious Remarks, are distributed between narrator and character at exactly the general ratio, two to one; nearly half occur in clusters and a fourth in repetitive clusters; about one fifth occur in prominent positions at the beginning or ending of works, episodes, or speeches. Practically all those given to characters are used as persuasive appeals to authority. Of those assigned the narrator about a third foreshadow the narrative and about a sixth justify past narration. A large majority of those remaining to the narrator are used to justify either his writing or his expected reward for having written, and the balance are divided rather evenly between direct moralizing and proverbial commentary on the ups and downs of life.

As might be anticipated, the Proverbs and Sententious Remarks have greatest similarities of distribution and use, since sententious remarks are rather like pure proverbs in the making. Sententious remarks still carry about them the unrounded, expansive, personal, and literary quality of individual creations, but their likeness to the shorter, more popular pure proverbs is apparent.²² Both categories are used in the main, by both narrator and characters, to bring the authority and weight of folk-wisdom (or would-be folk-wisdom) to confirm the reality of the narrator's tale or the validity of the characters' opinions. The Proverbial Comparisons stand apart, both in form and function, as stylistic devices rather than narrative devices. Finally, the Proverbial Phrases remain a kind of catch-all category consisting of such varied devices as to make generalization difficult, but they tend in perhaps a majority of cases to be stylistic devices of emphasis or color rather than narrative devices for securing the confidence of an audience.

Notes

1. For the fullest bibliography of proverb studies cf. Sprichwörter-Bibliographie, ed. Otto E. Moll (Frankfurt, 1958), esp. pp. 146-150. In only a few of the studies of OF proverbs have occasional proverbs drawn from Wace been included (Cf. entries 536, 2054**, 2060).

2. Cf. bibliography below. For the establishment of Wace's canon cf. E. Du Meril, “La Vie et les ouvrages de Wace,” Jahr.f.R.E.Lit., I (1859), 1-43; C. Weber, “Über die Sprache and Quelle des Afrz. Hl. Georg,” Zeit.f.R.Phil., V (1881), 498-520; G. Paris, La Littérature française au Moyen Age (Paris, 1913), p. 234; P. Meyer, “Légendes hagiographiques en français,” Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIII (1906), 351; A. Holden, “L'authenticité des premières parties du Roman de Rou,” Romania, LXXV (1954), 22-53. Holden's evidence of Wace's authorship of the questioned early parts of the Roman de Rou by citation of parallels between the questioned early parts and the unquestioned later part (pp. 30-39) is strengthened by additional parallels discovered in this present study. Cf. entries 46, 56, 73, 74, 77, 87, 90, 93, 113, 121, 140, 164, 200, 212, 256, 257, 261, 270.

3. Cf. B. J. Whiting, Chaucer's Use of Proverbs (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1934).

4. Cf. B. J. Whiting, “Proverbs in the Writings of Jean Froissart,” Speculum, X (1935), 291-321.

5. Ibid., p. 293.

6. There are, incidentally, striking similarities between the proverbial materials used by Froissart and Wace, particularly their favorites (256, 257), which may indicate a rather stable stock in trade over the two centuries separating them.

7. Le Livre de Proverbes Français, 2 ed. (Paris, 1859), pp. lxviii-lxix, 459-470.

8. Part I of the Rou actually begins with the Ascending Chronicle (Roman de Rou, ed. Hugo Andresen [Heilbronn, 1877-79], I, 207-218) and continues and ends with Rou II (Andresen, I, 36-198). Part II of the Rou consists of R III (Andresen, II, 29-482). Rou I (Andresen, I, 11-36) is an accidentally preserved first attempt at a beginning of the chronicle. Cf. G. Paris, “Wace, Roman de Rou, hgg. von Andresen,” Romania, IX (1880), 598-599; H. Keller, Étude descriptive sur le vocabulaire de Wace (Berlin, 1952), p. 18; and A. Holden, pp. 22-24.

9. Cf. Whiting, “Proverbs in the Writings of Jean Froissart.”

10. Cf. also 6a-4b, 17-15, 121c-3, 20-139, 38b-51.

11. Cf. 25-261a-b.

12. Cf. Nicholas, ll. 1-34; Roman de Rou, AC 1-16, R III 1-180, R I 1-122.

13. Cf. 27a-b, 41-19, 256e-f, 30a-b, 34-35, 40a-d.

14. Cf. 24a-b-11, 285a-b-38a.

15. Cf. 2a-b, 154b-a, 233b-a, 255a-b, 256c-d, 257a-b, 272b-c, 285a-b, 290b-c, 299a-b, 325b-a, 325c-d, 327d-c.

16. Cf. 246a-b-d, 298b-c-d, 310a-b-c-31, 316a-b-c.

17. Cf. B. J. Whiting, “The Nature of the Proverb,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, XIV (1932), 302-307.

18. Cf. bibliography below.

19. About two thirds of Wace's proverbial material is preserved in Brunne, and a little less than half is preserved in Layamon.

20. Cf. n. 8.

21. Ibid.

22. Cf. Whiting, “Nature of the Proverb,” pp. 306-307.