* * * * * A serpent lives in the water, but the water is not poisonous; if your tongue is poisonous, keep the mouth closed so as not to poison the air. Giving is pleasanter than receiving. A king boasted that he would rule all the earth, but the sun looking down upon him could not distinguish him from the clay on which he stood. That man is my friend who lives laboriously like the bee and dies quietly like the grass. When wolves and sheep are brothers, what will the wolves eat? Lift up your hearts to heaven. The foulest water is purified when it is lifted to the clouds of heaven. The greatest pain should not be the subject of speech. The headache is worse than a pain in the hand, a toothache than a headache, crucifixion than toothache, and hopeless slavery than crucifixion. A gipsy, asked what pain is greatest, said: "To be hungry and to see bread before the householder's dog." A mother, asked what pain is greatest, said: "To see a snake coming from the grave of one's child." A man, asked what three things he did not like, said: "To be compelled to cut down the tree planted by his own hands, to be on the watch for a blow, and to go hunting with a deaf man." * * * * * Economise in speaking, but not in thinking. Only an oath to do evil may you break with God's permission. If you have fixed to-morrow as a day for revenge, do not sleep but talk with death, and see if it were not better to postpone your vengeance. If you help a beggar, you wipe out the fault of your ancestors. When will the world become better? When the ass stops competing with the nightingale. When will the world become better? When men build two bridges--one to God and one to nature--and when rich men learn to consider themselves great debtors to God. God is more silent than silence in observing sins, and more audible than a cart in punishing them. God and sinners wish to annihilate one another. A Turk asked a Serb what there would be at the end. The answer was: "I know not what there will be, but I know what there will not be--there will not be Turkish dominion over Serbia." The imitator remains in the shadow of him whom he imitates. The imitated lives in the sunshine, but the imitator remains always in shadow. PART III FRAGMENTS OF SERBIAN POPULAR POETRY JAKSHICH'S PARTITIONING.