The alliterative proverbs and maxims of the Talmud and Midrash are less easily illustrated.

Sometimes they enshrine a pun or a conceit, or depend for their aptness upon an assonance.

In some of the Talmudic proverbs there is a spice of cynicism.

But most of them show a genial attitude towards life.
The poetical proverb easily passes into the parable.

Loved in Bible times, the parable became in after centuries the most popular form of didactic poetry among the Jews.