174 Ulisse Aldrovandi

"With hands and feet" is a phrase used to describe the utmost effort.

"Many hands make the load lighter" signifies mutual assistance, or that even difficult tasks can be easily finished if several people take on the business. Indeed, we read in Hesiod, "The industry of many can do more." "With folded hands" is a jab at the idle, who are accustomed to sitting with their hands pressed together. To do something "with unwashed hands" signifies irreverence, a proverb derived from the ritual purity of sacrifices; indeed, Hesiod forbade anyone from pouring a wine libation to Jupiter with unwashed hands. To "have a hand under one's cloak" is applied to those who live in idleness.

"Sow with the hand, not the whole sack" warns that moderation should be observed in all things, an adage taken from farmers who scatter seeds thinly by hand rather than dumping them from a sack. We have it from Diogenes that "clasping hands should not be offered to friends," by which he meant to signify that kindness ought to be coupled with genuine companionship. "Give your palm to a stone" applies to those who pursue what they cannot attain, or who threaten those they cannot harm. The proverb is drawn from children who, watching a bird fly by, bend down to pick up a stone to strike it, but in the meantime, the bird flies away without suffering any harm.

"To carry water in one hand and fire in the other" can be applied to those who flatter outwardly but harm inwardly, or to double-tongued people who are one moment praising and the next disparaging. Closely related to this adage is: "He carries a stone in one hand while showing bread in the other." "Move your hand along with Minerva" warns that no one should rely so much on divine help that they neglect their own industry. This is not unlike another adage: "Prick the oxen, and then call on God." "The hands of Kings are long" is quoted by Ovid in his letters, when he says: "Do you not know that kings have long hands?"

It is also commonly asserted that one must beware of Princes because their arms are extremely long; they can strike even those who are absent through their attendants, whom they use in place of arms. To "lay on the hands of Briareus" is said of a thieving and violent hand. Briareus was a massive giant and fierce pirate who was said to have a hundred arms and hands. For this reason, even today, when it is signified that something is to be looked at but not touched, it is said: "Be an Argus, not a Briareus." "To snatch the handle from the hand" is a proverb from Plautus, used when the power to act is wrenched away from someone who was already hoping for something. "We have withdrawn our hand from the schoolmaster's rod" means that we, too, have learned our lessons; for the teachers of old used to strike the hands of students with a ferrule.

"A thin hand on a fat foot"—Hesiod explained poverty through this adage as if it were a riddle. Indeed, beggars are those who touch a fat foot with a thin hand, because their hands grow gaunt from hunger while their feet swell from the cold.

"I knowingly put my hand into the flame" is said when a man consciously exposes himself to dangers, an adage taken from the history of Mucius Scaevola, as read in Cicero. Those who admit they have been defeated are said "to give their hands." "He has his hands among the Aetolians" is a proverb from Aristophanes about a greedy man who is easily corrupted by gifts; for the Aetolians were a people whose name was said to derive from demanding "the whole," and hence Homer, in the *Odyssey*, rightly depicted a beggar as originating from Aetolia.

Having dealt with the hand, we must now hasten to the proverbs of the fingers. "Scratches his head with a single finger" was already explained above under the adages of the head. "To touch heaven with a finger" fits those who have reached the pinnacle of prosperity. Thus Lysimachus, when he reached Thrace in triumph and occupied the borders of the kingdom, is said to have remarked: "The Byzantines come to me now that I touch the sky with my spear."

"A finger is a day" is quoted by Alcaeus in Athenaeus; this adage signifies that the span of human life is tiny, as if measured by a finger's width. "To place a finger on the mouth" indicates that one should not proceed further in speech. Cicero used the phrase "where he might extend a finger" in his speech for Caecina, as if he wanted to say the man has nowhere to point his finger—indicating he has nothing left to say or do. This adage is taken from the gestures of rhetoricians; Quintilian notes that these gestures are varied, but the simplest is to extend a finger.

"Not even worth the snap of a finger." To understand this adage, it must be noted that Aristobulus, in Athenaeus, reports that a statue was placed on the tomb of Sardanapalus with the fingers of the right hand arranged as if they were about to snap, to indicate that human affairs are to be mocked and are not even worth a snap of the fingers. Indeed, this gesture of the fingers