Signs of life - Michelle Lovric

People often ask me how the diminishing population of native Venetians feels about the tourist hordes that dominate her more obvious streets. (Real Venetians go ‘through the linings’, as their saying goes, knowing routes the crowds never find).

Salvatore Settis has written of the danger of Venice becoming a ‘servile monoculture’ of tourism. ‘Servile’ is an insult no Venetian would easily accept. So when I see irascible or emotional signs put up by Venetians, I take them as a proof of life. They demonstrate that Venetians have not given up on their city, care about one another and will vigorously defend her against the ‘maleducati’ – the vulgar masses, who dump their rubbish on Venetian doorsteps or use her quiet corners as urinals and worse. Years ago, I translated a set of Venetian proverbs that had never before been rendered in English. One that applies here seems to be: Dio ha mandà l’om per castigar l’om. God created man to shame man. And Venetians create signs to shame those who shame their city with unsanitary and inconsiderate behaviour. They also create signs about things close to their hearts.

Those of delicate dispositions are advised to leave off reading here, as I’m afraid there is scatology to come. Honest, angry scatology, that there’s no prettying up.

 This Venetian sign is probably my favourite, because of the language. It translates as ‘This place is the depository for rubbish and other materials – only for the vulgar, the uncivil, the ignorant, the cuckolds, the yokels, the bumpkins, the dirty, the ugly, those who stink, whose relatives are dead dogs.’ One of the things I loved about this one is that it shows Venice’s quintessential maritime-metropolitan disdain for those who come from terrafirma. Or, as the proverbs say,

Sete ciape tre cui e mezo.
Seven buttocks, three arseholes and a half: Venetian description of a typical land-dweller.

This one at right, with its porcupinery of exclamation marks, recently appeared in my own little campo. It says, ‘From the telecameras I have seen who you are!!! Don’t come to this door or this corner to defecate or urinate!! Videos of you are in police hands!!! Every urination and defecation will be recorded!!!!!

Which recalls this old Venetian proverb …
L'ànema a Dio, el corpo a la tera,
e 'l bus del cul al diavolo per tabachiera
The soul goes to God, the body to the Earth
and the arsehole to the devil, for his snuffbox.

Or this one:
El tempo, el culo e i siori
i fa quel i vol lori
Time, arses, and lords
do whatever they want

 In a ‘lively’ way, the one below invites ‘I Signori Passanti’ – the Gentle Misters Passers-By – not to leave their rubbish here. In fact, it also asks other residents to desist from the practice. This place, it concludes, is not a rubbish bin (with a drawing of the same).

As the proverb goes,
 El mondo no te dise vaca,
co no ghe xe qualche taca
The world doesn't point a finger at you,
if you haven't done something wrong.

At right, ‘Mr Citizen out on a walk’ is asked not to let his dog perform its ‘little needs’ in the entrance of the restaurant. Thanks to Rosato Frassanito for this sign.

The one below is sadder. A lost dog is always sad. When he is 15 years old, and obviously very much loved, it is even sadder. His owner thanks ‘from his heart’ and offers a reward of 200 euros to anyone who can help him find Zizzul, a medium-sized German shepherd type.

This sweet-faced dog was last seen on March 3 near the Stazione Marittima. I so hope he’s found.

In honour of Zizzul:

Loda el mar e tiente a la tera,
loda el monte e tiente al pian,
loda el gato, e tiente al can.
Praise the sea but stay on the land,
Praise the mountains but stay in the valley,
Praise the cat but stroke the dog.

This last one clearly contained an imprecation against dog owners that so angry-making as to make one canine-proprietor to clutch a handful of the paper and rake it off the wall.

As the proverb goes,
La lingua no ga osso ma la rompe i ossi.
The tongue doesn't have bones, but it breaks bones.


Michelle Lovric's website

'Know The Meaning By The Mumping' by Karen Maitland

Research for novels takes you into some odd nooks and crannies of history as you try to uncover all kinds of details from what type of false-teeth were in use in that century, to the shape and flavour of a medieval cabbage. But it is only too easy to become distracted when you are researching one simple fact and find hours are slipping by as other tempting snippets catch your eye. You sternly remind yourself you do not need to know that at this moment, but find you can’t tear yourself away.

One such distraction popped up this month when I was trying to find out when a particular proverb came into use and found myself captivated by other old proverbs I stumbled upon.

We still use Love me, love my dog which St Bernard is said to have coined in one of his sermons in 1153. But sadly we have lost the 15th century - Love of lads and fire of chats (wood chips) is soon in and soon out. Although many today might still recognise the truth of that one.

'Pissing Against the Moon'

Every herring must hang by its own gill, was the 16th century way of saying Everyone must stand on their own two feet. Then there was the sound advice - Calves should not play with oxen since the ox have bigger horns or A cat in gloves catches no mice or He who has a snake by the tail does not have it under control. And the 16th Century - It is good to have friends both in heaven and hell – must certainly have rung true in that turbulent century.

'Herring hangs by its own gill'

Proverbs are often very revealing about the period in which they were in common use. We often believe that in former times men had the upper hand in marriage, but old proverbs suggest that wasn’t necessarily the case. He that would thrive must ask leave of his wife (1470). Husbands are in heaven whose wives chide not (1549). He that has a wife has a master. (1721) And the 17th century proverb - A good lawyer must be a great liar - reveals much about the attitude towards the legal profession at the time.

We still use the medieval As merry (or happy) as a lark, and I love the 17th century version As merry as mice in malt, but I am slightly baffled by the medieval As merry as a pie, or the 16th century – As merry as three chips (wood chips) or the odd, but intriguing, He is a crab in a cow's mouth (crab apple). Then there is my personal favourite, the 17th century proverb – Toasted cheese has no master.

'Armed to the Teeth' while 'Belling the Cat'

The proverb may change a little, but the sentiment doesn’t. Today we refer to the Pot calling the kettle black, but in the 16th century they said the Kiln called the oven burnt tail. We say Pissing into the wind, but it used to be Pissing against the moon. And while we would say Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. In the Middle Ages they would remind each other  So long as the milk is given to you, why should you itch to know which cow it came from?

But maybe in this internet age we should end on a wise proverb from 16th century - A good word costs no more than a bad one.

'Big fish eat little fish'

The illustrations in this piece are all taken from 16th century paintings by both Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Younger who illustrated the proverbs in their literally sense to show the foolishness of people. Many of these proverbs were also current in English at that time.

'Falling between two stools.'

A Pig Called Uncle – Michelle Lovric

I’ve always loved obscure Balkan proverbs, perhaps because I am obscurely Balkan myself.

One of my favourites is this Albanian jewel: ‘In times of need, a pig is called uncle.’

For years, I’ve been trying to figure this one out. In restaurants in New York, I have asked Albanian waiters. Talking to old ladies on the vaporetto, I have trotted it out. (After all, the eastern Adriatic coast used to belong Venice.) I’ve looked in dictionaries. But it never adds up.

It might be that ‘pig’ is an insulting Albanian epithet for a policeman, just as it can be in Anglo-Saxon culture. ‘Uncle’ was once a general term of respect, especially in Eastern Europe. So when times get tough, one must be polite to policemen? Or is it something to do with the well-known intelligence of the pig? In difficult times, the pig’s sagacity deserves our respect?

This week, an explanation came to me sideways, as the best ones often do.


Our lovely Venetian electrician Denis was looking at my shabby but wondrous old tapestry, which is sewn together from twenty leftover bits of grander tapestries. It’s a rural scene of bizarre disproportion, with an improbably large goose dipping its feet in a mirrored stream in the foreground. Just behind, there’s a very small boy, the size of the goose’s head, playing with a miniature dog. Oak and beech trees dream into the shadowy distance. For me, my large scrag of painted canvas opens a peaceful verdant window on an 18th-century Italian countryside, right on my wall in the middle of intensely urban, marble-clad, waterborne Venice.

Denis laughed indulgently at my fantasy window. Then his refined Venetian features softened as he told me of a memory it brought him.

His grandparents were ‘proper peasants’, as he put it, who worked the land by the river Sile in the Veneto. They kept chickens and pigs on their small farm. It was a hardworking, simple life.

In those days, the Venetian lagoon island of Burano was inhabited solely by fishermen. It was not the tourist destination it is today. The Buranesi did nothing but fish; they ate nothing but fish. That is, until a few enterprising or plain hungry fishermen started sailing their boats up the Sile estuary to visit smallholdings by the river. There they would swap fresh fish for eggs, grain, chicken and ham. The farm of Denis’s grandparents was on this miniature trade route.

One day, the Burano fishermen brought a new item to trade: a beautiful old tapestry. In fact, it was something like the one I’m so proud of, Denis said politely (by ‘something like’, I am sure he meant ‘much better than’).

He explained, ‘It was all painted with the Madonna and goodness knows what – and goodness knows where they got it. Anyway, the fishermen wanted to trade it for chickens.’

A deal was struck. So what did Denis’s grandparents do with the tapestry?

They used it to hang over the door of the pigsty to keep the pigs warm in the winter.

‘Pigs were king in those days,’ Denis said. ‘We lived on pigs. We lived for pigs. Everything for the pigs.’

So I am inclined to think that the Albanian proverb means that when you are hungry, you must be kind to pigs. Pigs are the bringers of all good things. Pigs can even bring fresh fish to an inland smallholding.

Pigs can even bring art.

Power to the pigs. Power to the pig proverbs.


Michelle Lovric's website

The avuncular pig is from an advertisement for Rachachuros Seasoning.