One swallow doesn’t make a summer

Well yesterday was the most incredible day the sun was blazing down and a group of swallows were wizzing around outside my office gleefully spreading their wings happy that the sun was shining and they could at long last have some fun after 90 days of rain!

I watched them for a while because I don’t think I have ever seen so many over Lacock it really was quite a picture!

Then the old saying ‘one swallow doesn’t make a summer’ popped into my head and I thought oooh, I haven’t heard that in a long time! It made me look up the origins of the proverb.

This old proverb is listed in several early glossaries, notably Richard Taverner’s transcription of the [Latin] proverbs of Erasmus – Prouerbes or adagies with newe addicions, gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus, 1539:

It is not one swalowe that bryngeth in somer. It is not one good qualitie that maketh a man good.

And I also know of another instance by Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE): “One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”

And even Shakespeare had his version of it..The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship. William Shakespeare, The Life of Timon of Athens (Second Friend at III, vi)

So in todays speach – do not take an isolated incident and make a generalisation from it. Don’t make a decision based on one or two incidents. Just because you see one swallow doesn’t guarantee that there’s not another rainy spell on the way!

Well thankfully I didn’t see one swallow but at least a dozen or so! On the subject of sunshine why not try our sunshine range of soaps, luxurious body lotion, silky shampoo and shower gel. Each is made with a gorgeous SLS and Paraben Free Base with ingredients that are of the finest quality.