A rolling stone gathers no moss
The
proverb a rolling stone gathers no moss is often credited to the
Sententiae of
Publilius Syrus, and roughly translates as
People always moving, with no roots in one place, avoid responsibilities and cares.The saying may not be authentic to Syrus; the
Latin form usually given,
Saxum volutum non obducitur musco, does not appear in the edited texts of Publilius Syrus, but it
does appear in the
Adagia of
Erasmus.
[Adagia, Erasmus, at Bibliotheca Augustana.] The conventional English translation appeared in
John Heywood's collection of
Proverbs in
1546.
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also credits Erasmus, and relates it to other Latin proverbs,
Planta quae saepius transfertus non coalescit, or
Saepius plantata arbor fructum profert exiguum, both of which mean that a frequently replanted tree or plant yields little fruit.
[Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, sub. tit. "Rolling Stone".] It appears that the original intent of the proverb saw the growth of moss as desirable, and that the intent was to condemn mobility as unprofitable. The contemporary interpretation has turned the traditional understanding on its head.
Erasmus's proverb gave the name "rolling stone" to people who meet this description. This allusion has taken root in
blues and
rock and roll music. The blues musician
Muddy Waters wrote a
1948 song called
Rollin' Stone, which contains the lyrics:
I got a boy child's comin,
He's gonna be, he's gonna be a rollin stone. . . [Muddy Waters: Rollin' Stone][Rollin' Stone lyrics]From this reference,
Brian Jones called the band he founded with
Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards "
The Rolling Stones".
Bob Dylan's
1965 song "
Like A Rolling Stone", which appeared on his album
Highway 61 Revisited, may refer to the original proverb. From these references,
Jann Wenner and
Ralph J. Gleason founded the magazine
Rolling Stone.
