In French one might say qui se ressemble s’assemble, or literally “whoever resembles, assembles together.” Italian also has chi si assomiglia si piglia “what is similar takes to each other”. Now let’s take a look at how this is expressed in other languages. It seems likely that the expression was in use before that time, even if this is the earliest it appears in writing. “ Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.” There is a slightly different turn of phrase, but still essentially the same expression, in The Rescuing of Romish Fox by William Turner, which dates to 1545. This means we have to look for another source for our proverb. It seems to me that Jowett simply chose a well-known English proverb for his translation, to make it clear to the reader. This simply means that people have need of the company of others of their own age – no mention of birds or flocks. It does indeed state that it is in keeping with the old proverb – διασώζοντες την παλαιάν παροιμίαν – but it does not actually state what that proverb is.Scholars generally maintain that the “old proverb” in question is: Ηλιξ ήλικα τέρπει γέρων δε τέρπει γέροντα (Skouteropoulos, commentary on Plato, Polis Publications, σχόλια του Ν. I see no reference here to either birds or feathers. Men of my age flock together we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says” “I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. In Book I of The Republic, in Jowett’s translation, I found: Plato’s work dates to around 380 BC, which would indeed make it an ancient proverb. It appears in a translation of Plato’s Republic by Benjamin Jowett, published in 1856. So, where does it come from? This is an intriguing question. It takes no great powers of deduction to work out how this expression might have come about – simple observation tells us that birds of the same species – of the same feather, as it were – can be frequently seen together. Have you ever looked up at the sky and seen a flock of birds flying overhead? It can be a magnificent sight, the more so when there is a very large number of birds.
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