The _proverb_ forms as it were the middle point of this sphere. In the form of their execution, that is to say, proverbs lean at one time in the direction of the fable, at another to that of the apologue. They give us a particular case selected for the most part from the daily walk of mankind, which, however, is to be interpreted universally. Take the example, "One hand washes the other," or those others, "Every one wheels before his own door," "Who digs a grave for another, falls into it himself," "Bake a pudding for me and I will staunch your thirst," and others like them. To wise saws of this type belong the many apophthegems that Goethe has contributed to modern literature, often of exquisite grace and profound to a degree. These are not modes of comparison of the type that the general significance and the concrete phenomenon are opposed to one another in separation, but the former is immediately expressed with the latter.
The _apologue_ may be regarded as a parable, which not only serves in the way of _comparison_ to render visible a general significance, but rather in this its very form reproduces and expresses the general moral, the same being actually included in the particular case, which is, however, related as only a single example. Conformably to this definition we may call Goethe's "Der Gott und die Bajadere" an apologue. Here we find the Christian tale of the repentant Magdalene reclothed in accordance with Hindoo ideas. The Bajadere[85] exemplifies the same humility, a like strength of love and faith; God puts her to the proof, an ordeal she completely sustains, and her exaltation and reconciliation follows. In the apologue also narrative is so extended that the outcome of it furnishes the moral itself, bare of any parallel to support it, as may be illustrated from "The Treasure-Finder":
/$ Work by day and guests at night, Weeks of moil, feasts of delight, Such the Future's spell for thee. $/
The _third_ mode we have to discuss in its contrast to the fable, parable, proverb, and apologue, is the _metamorphosis._ This is no doubt of a kind which is both symbolical and mythological; it sets forth, however, expressly furthermore the natural in its opposition to the spiritual. That is to say, it confers on an object immediately present to sense such as a rock, animal, flower, or spring the peculiar significance of being a _delapsus_ and a _punishment_ of spiritual existences. Such are the examples of Philomela, the Pieredes, Narcissus, and Arethusa, all of whom, through some false step, passion, transgression or the like, became subject to irreparable guilt or pain, and for this reason were deprived of the freedom of spiritual life, and united to the substance of physical nature. From one point of view Nature is not regarded merely under its external and prosaic aspect, simply, that is, as mountain, river-source, tree and so forth, but it further receives a content which is bound up with some action or event of spiritual life. The rock is not simply stone, but Niobe herself, who weeps for her children. From the other point of view this human action implies guilt of some kind, and this metamorphosis into the physical phenomenon is accepted as a degradation of Spirit.