Apples in Proverbs

Myriad cultures use apples as the focal point of many of their proverbs, some familiar, some not so much. The Bible compares “a word fitly spoken” to ”apples of gold in pictures of silver” (KJV Proverbs 25:11). The Danish proverb warns that “A bad tree does not yield good apples.” There is a Sicilian proverb–”A rock offered by a friend is an apple.”–closely paralleled by the Moroccan proverb–”A stone from the hand of a friend is an apple.” Why would such a common fruit be considered to be worth using in short, pithy sayings intended to teach a lesson? Perhaps it’s precisely because the fruit is so common–what is familiar is more likely to be less distracting and better understood. After all, “A bad tree does not yield good kumquats” just doesn’t have the same effect. Instead of being driven to consider my own morality and the results thereof, I get stuck wondering what, exactly, a kumquat is. In fact, I’d be just as likely to forget all about the proverb and head to the internet to research kumquats. As the proverb was originally written, with the apple as the goal, my mind focuses on the truth presented, only slightly considering, if at all, that a specific fruit was mentioned. Apples are “everyday fruits” that most of us can mentally picture with little, if any, effort. Most of us even have mental images of apple trees and can easily consider the difference between a healthy, apple-producing tree and a “bad tree” that can barely manage to produce leaves, much less fruit.

Probably the most familiar apple proverb is the French “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” closely followed by the German “One bad apple spoils the bunch.” These are statements that most of us heard from our parents, from the time we were little, to encourage us to eat our daily helpings of fruit and to warn us to avoid bad friends. Did we ever consider their medical or scientific accuracy? Probably not, unless we were especially literally-minded. Sure, apples are reported to have significant health benefits, and rottenness does seem to spread pretty quickly, but that’s not the point (although it would be interesting to investigate how much apples really benefit our health, and whether one bad apple really can spoil a whole bunch . . . ). The point is, did you learn the lesson your folks wanted to embed in your thinking? Did you eat more fruit and watch out for the naughty kids that would teach you bad habits? Maybe not, but you probably did remember the proverbs. Perhaps you even tell them to your children, now, in the hopes that they will learn the lessons, with a little help from memorable proverbs that use apples to make the lessons learnable.

So, the next time you grab an apple out of the fridge or the fruit basket, remember that “Handsome apples are sometimes sour” (Dutch/German proverb) and that “Sometimes it is better to give your apple away, than to eat it yourself” (Italian proverb).