“Sicut avis ad alia transvolans, et passer quolibet vadens, sic maledictum frustra prolatum in quempiam superveniet.”
“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”
“Like a fluttering sparrow or darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.”
“Like a fluttering sparrow, like a darting swallow, so the undeserved curse doesn’t come to rest.”
“As the sparrow in her wandering, as the swallow in her flying, So the curse that is causeless alighteth not.”
As a bird, &c. The meaning is, that a curse uttered without cause shall do no harm to the person that is cursed, but will return upon him that curseth; as whithersoever a bird flies, it returns to its own nest. (Challoner) — Come. Chaldean, “shall not come in vain,” if it be just, like that of Noe, Josue, &c. Hebrew, “shall not come” (Calmet) to the person against whom it is uttered, though God will not hold the curser guiltless, as the Vulgate intimates. (Haydock) Curses, anathemas, &c., vented without reason, do not injure any but those who denounce them. Yet out of respect for ecclesiastical authority, those who are under censures, must abstain from their functions till they be absolved. (Calmet)
Note, 1. It is too common a thing for honour to be given to fools, who are utterly unworthy of it and unfit for it. Bad men, who have neither wit nor grace, are sometimes preferred by princes, and applauded and cried up by the people. Folly is set in great dignity, as Solomon observed, Eccl 10 6. 2. It is very absurd and unbecoming when it is so. It is an incongruous as snow in summer, and as great a disorder in the commonwealth as that is in the course of nature and in the seasons of the year; nay, it is as injurious as rain in harvest, which hinders the labourers and spoils the fruits of the earth when they are ready to be gathered. When bad men are in power they commonly abuse their power, in discouraging virtue, and giving countenance to wickedness, for want of wisdom to discern it and grace to detest it.