Maandelyke uittreksels, July 1727: A man is being helped by a surgeon after having been hit in the face with a stone. “Have I lost my eye?” he enquires. “No,” says the surgeon, “I’m holding it in my hand.”
I was actually looking for cousins of the abbot/neighbour bit in the proverb which appears inter alia in Núñez’s Refranes o prouerbios en romance (1555): Ni mula mohína, ni moça Marina, ni poyo a la puerta, ni abad por vezino, ni moço Pedro en casa.
There’s obviously a story behind this, but the closest I’ve found in this lightning pre-prandial sweep is from an 1836 Friesian collection (which is not to say that Friesland is where it originated): an emperor who does’t so much long for comfort as yearn for glory, and his neighbour, an abbot, who is completely indifferent to fame and considers it a load of wind.
So where does it lead? Who knows: there are mussels to be scraped.
Similar posts
Back soon
Gottfried August Bürger 1747-94
http://books.google.com/books?id=HDwWAAAAYAAJ&dq=kaiser%20abt%20B%C3%BCrger&hl=es&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q=kaiser%20abt%20B%C3%BCrger&f=false
Based on Percy King John and the Abbot of Canterbury http://www.exclassics.com/percy/perc105.htm
But the theme’s not the same as yours
Note to self: look on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_John_and_the_Bishop
Maybe I should too… The Vincent de Beauvais and Franco Sachetti versions are online, and no, I’m still looking.