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Did the ancient Greek sophist Publius Silus really coin this proverb?
The proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss" is often mentioned, and many people believe that it was coined by the ancient Greek sophist Publius Silus. According to his collection of sentences, this sentence expresses the idea that "people who are always on the move cannot take root anywhere and therefore escape responsibility and troubles." However, the history of this sentence The background, however, shows a more complicated picture.
The Latin text of this phrase is usually given as "Saxum volutum non obducitur musco", but this does not actually appear in Publius Silus's edited text.
Historically, this phrase first appeared in the collection of Egbert de Lier around 1023 AD, in which it was stated "Assidue non saxa legunt volventia muscum". In fact, the proverb was not coined by Publius, but was brought into the public eye 500 years later by Erasmus in his Fables in England around 1500. Erasmus provided this proverb in Greek and Latin, and there are other forms of expression as well.
This is a common English translation that first appeared in John Heywood's Proverbs c. 1546, which explicitly attributes it to Erasmus.
As time went on, the concept of being rooted was still valued in the 19th century, and many documents mentioned the negative consequences of rootlessness. The 1825 Dictionary of the Scots Language states that "a gentleman, whether he be a man of property or no property, who is well liked by his fellow-citizens, and who is disposed to help the poor in their distress, may look forward to a 'moss day', as they are wont to call it. "At this time, "moss days" refer to the hard work of digging peat in the bogs in preparation for winter.
20th Century Evolution
Citations in Literature
In fact, this phrase was very popular in Britain in the early 20th century. In Arthur Ransom's "Swallows and Amazons", an important plot is about the saying "A rolling stone cannot cover moss". And in science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein's novel Rolling Stone, a family travels across the solar system in search of adventure and money, and this phrase becomes a running theme throughout the work.
Also in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, Gandalf tells the hobbits: "Tom Bombadil is a moss-gatherer, but I am a stone that is destined to roll."< /p>
Influences in Music
This phrase is not exclusive to literature, but has also been used in many ways in music. In 1915, union activist Joe Hill’s will was written in song form: “My relatives need not fret / Moss won’t cling to a rolling stone.” In Hawke Williams’s “Lost Highway,” he wrote, “I The song opens with "I'm a Rolling Stone/Lost Alone", which inspired many subsequent songs to borrow the metaphor of "Rolling Stone".
In 1972, the talented group Trump released a famous cover of "Dad Was a Rolling Stone", which tells the story of an absent father.
Psychological Exploration
Due to its universality, this saying has become one of the most commonly used proverbs in psychological testing. American psychological research in the 1950s found that mentally ill patients generally had poor abstract thinking ability, which triggered a discussion on "concrete thinking." Under the influence of stereotypes, researchers often associate such results with mental illness, gradually forming inherent cognitive biases.
References in Film and Television
This proverb has also been introduced into many movies and TV series. The 1975 movie "Laughing or Tearing" interspersed a plot related to this saying. In a 2005 TV show called Mystery Explorers, the production team also conducted an experiment in which a stone was rolled for six months, but no moss growth was detected.
Fun in comics
In the comic book "Crazy Cat" by comic creator George Herriman, there was a funny plot in which the protagonist Katz followed a rolling stone in order to personally verify the question of "whether a rolling stone gathers moss".
In conclusion, “A rolling stone gathers no moss” plays an important role in linguistics, culture and psychology, but how should we interpret this sentence and its profound meaning?
