The Literary Sparrow

 

Merry, merry sparrow!
        - William Blake

I make no secret of my affection for sparrows, even the oft-reviled House Sparrow, that invader from Europe who has followed along with humans step by step as we decimate the North American landscape, evicting those already inhabiting the land with our shared pugnacious and oft-destructive habits.

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
        - William Shakespeare

I can't help but watch them, downtown on the ped mall among the concrete and bricks, and imagine their ancestors inspiring literary turns of phrase for thousands of years. 

I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
        - Psalm 102:7

Those little Passer birds, House Sparrows and Eurasian Tree Sparrows, make an appearance in the Bible (at least in common translation), in the ancient poetry of Sappho and Catullus, in the words of the Venerable Bede, not to mention their ill-fated appearance in Shakespeare's works that inspired their unnatural migration to our continent.

The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.                                    
        - St. Bede

 Did those writers and poets watch affectionately in their town squares as the little brown birds tussled over a scrap of bread? Were they wakened in the morning by the same unmelodious chattering outside their windows that greets me in the spring?

The sparrow of my girl has died,
the sparrow, my lady's pet
Whom she loved more than her own eyes.

         - Catullus

Our history is entwined with that of the House Sparrow. Its common name reflects its close association with us, and the brazen behavior of the city-dwelling individuals makes it one of the first and most frequent birds that most people will encounter.

Then beautiful swift sparrows led you over the black earth
from the sky through the middle air,
whirling their wings into a blur.
        - Sappho

They are symbols of humble simplicity, the most commonplace and small creatures. They are sometimes imbued with the erotic intentions of poets. They are our companions as we flit through this all-too-brief life: picking grain from farmers' fields, nesting in the roofs of small huts, gathering and chattering together in boisterous flocks in which we see reflected both our best and worst nature.

It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.
          - Marcus Aurelius