"When you want to marry a prince...."

Mon Aug 13 00:08:42 UTC 2007

"When you want to marry a Prince, you will have to kiss a lot of frogs."

  I first encountered this now-popular saying on a Valentine's Day card between 20 and 25 years ago. The wording, as I recall, was slightly different, something like, "Before you find your Prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs."  The girl I gave it to disagreed.

  According to Franchesca Ho Sang's _The Wisdom of Frogs_ (Irvington, N.Y.: Hylas, 2006), certainly the definitive brief treatment of its declared subject, the saying is in reality a "Dutch Proverb."

  Should I believe this?

  JL

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