Világi szerencse, változó velence ‘luck doesn’t last’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2024.3.346Keywords:
idioms, explanation of idioms, historical phraseologyAbstract
Older Hungarian proverb collections contain several proverbs in which the word szerencse ‘fortune’ appears together with the word velence, a component that rhymes with szerencse. All these proverbs refer to the ups and downs of fortune. In the earliest occurrences of these expressions, the word velence is written in lower case, but later on the proper name Velence is usually found. Consequently, Gyula Csefkó assumes that the component velence of these expressions is in fact a common noun, meaning ‘carousel’, because old carousels had many motifs evoking Velence (Venice in Italy). However, it is a serious weakness of this theory that the word velence in Hungarian does not have the meaning ‘carousel’. Nevertheless, what offers an explanation to the visual background of the proverbs quoted is the fact that the Hungarian common word velence was also the name of a kind of textile material, from which the lexeme meaning ‘weathervane’ could have secondarily developed, which, blowing to and fro, is perfectly suitable to illustrate the inconstancy of fortune.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Tamás Forgács
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