Birds of a feather flock together

The first known written instance of metaphorical use of the flocking behavior of birds is found in the second century BC, where Ben Sira uses it in his apocryphal Biblical Book of Sirach, written about 180–175 BC. This was translated into Greek sometime after 117 BC (probably), and it is this Greek version that has commonly been used, even in the Septuagint used by diaspora Jews. Verse 27:9 of this Greek version of Sira's Hebrew original is Richard Challoner's 1752 version of the Douay–Rheims Bible translates this as Other renderings give "Birds roost with their own kind, so honesty comes home to those who practice it" (New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, 1989), "Birds nest with their own kind, and honesty comes to those who work at it" (New American Bible Revised Edition, 2011), and so forth. ==In English literature==

The first known use of the idiom in original English writing is 1545, when William Turner used a version of it in his anti-Catholic satire "The Rescuing of the Papist Fox": Which may be rendered in 21st century English as John Minsheu's The Dictionarie in Spanish and English (1599) has "Birdes of a feather will flocke togither". Philemon Holland's 1600 translation of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri has "As commonly birds of a feather will flye together", while Dryden's 1697 translation The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis ascribes flocking behavior to humans: "What place the gods for our repose assigned / Friends daily flock..." Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato's 360 BC Republic, published in 1856 and in use since, has "Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says". Plato's original is: Jowett gives this as: However, Jowett here is taking a liberty in rendering Plato's phrase into idiomatic English of his time; the Greek original has nothing about birds, and it is not known what "old proverb" is referred to. But as Jowett was long the standard translation (and is still sometimes used), generations of students learned (wrongly) that the idiom was current in classical Athens. Later translations dispense with the bird reference, hewing more closely to the original text; Allan Bloom's 1968 translation of the passage, for instance has "By Zeus, I shall tell you just how it looks to me, Socrates, he said. Some of us who are about the same age often meet together and keep up the old proverb." But Jowett's work was quite influential and respected in his time and after and his translation of Plato was the standard for about a century and is still used, putting the proverb in the mouth of a character (Cephalus) to be read by generations of students and scholars. The idiom appears occasionally in the literary canon, both in English and translations from other languages. Swift's poem "A Conference, Between Sir Harry Pierce's Chariot, And Mrs. D. Stopford's Chair" (c. 1710) has "And since we're so near, like birds of a feather / Let's e'en, as they say, set our horses together", while Anthony Trollope in The Prime Minister (1876) has "'They're birds of a feather,' said Lopez. 'Birds of a feather do fall out sometimes'...", and James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) has "I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together." Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869, first translated into English in 1899) has "...so that birds of a feather may fight together" (that is, on the same side). (A Russian proverb with similar meaning is одного поля ягоды ("berries from the same field") ==Translation from other languages==

Many cultures have similar sayings which, although not necessarily mentioning birds, may be idiomatically translated as "birds of a feather flock together". • Chinese: a form similar to anapodoton, called xiehouyu ("a saying with the latter part suspended"), is a folk tradition. One xiehouyu of similar meaning to "birds of a feather...", and which may be idiomatically translated as that, is 物以類聚, "Similar things collect...", where the second part (人以群分, "...similar people also") is left unsaid and implied. • Finnish: "vakka kantensa valitsee" (bushel will choose its lid) is an idiom with a similar meaning and it's also sometimes used as a local alternative to the English "birds of a feather flock together". • French: "Qui se ressemble, s'assemble", literally "who looks alike, assembles" is a common saying. • German: a similar proverb exists and it can be translated with "same and same like to join each other" ("Gleich und Gleich gesellt sich gern"). It does not rhyme, but has an alliteration. • Hebrew: "הלך הזרזיר אצל העורב" (the starling went together with the crow), also sometimes used as an anapodoton, e.g. "הלך הזרזיר..." (went the starling... [you know where]). The expression mostly carries a negative tone, meaning both starling and crow are complicit in their bad behavior, presumably because of the crow's bad behavior towards people and the starling's resemblance to it, or that both birds are unclean animals. The original Mishnaic Hebrew proverb is "לא לחינם הלך זרזיר אצל עורב, אלא מפני שהוא מינו" (Not for nothing went a starling with a crow, but because it is its kind) (Hullin 65, A). • Italian: a similar proverb exists which consists of "chi si somiglia si piglia", and which can be translated as "who resembles each other takes the other". • Japanese: a similar proverb in is 目の寄る所へ玉が寄る, literally "where the eyes go, the eyeballs follow" but with an understood idiomatic meaning of "like draws like", which can be translated into idiomatic English as "birds of a feather flock together", ==References==