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I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers, there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden, ch. 6 “Visitors” (1854)
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Added on 19-Aug-24 | Last updated 19-Aug-24
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Fish and Visitors stink in 3 days.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1736 ed.)
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Another saying Franklin repurposed from other sources. Proverbs comparing things to fish not aging well, or how guests outstay their welcome, or both, are not uncommon over the centuries.

Plautus is often mentioned as the originator of the combined sentiments, but instead he wrote of each individually. In the Asinaria [The Comedy of Asses], Act 1, sc. 3, l. 26 (c. 212-205 BC), he mentions a Roman proverb:

CLEARITA: Quasi piscis itidem est amator lenae: nequam est nisi recens.

[Just like a fish, so is a lover to a procuress; he's good for nothing if he isn't fresh.] [tr. Riley (1912)]
[For a brothel-keeper a lover is like a fish: he's no good unless he's fresh. [Source]
[For a madam a lover is just like a fish: if he’s not fresh, he’s worthless. [Loeb]]

Plautus also wrote in Miles Gloriosus [The Swaggering Soldier], Act 3, sc. 1, l. 146 (206 BC):

Hospes nullus tam in amici hospitium divorti potest, quin, ubi triduum continuum fuerit, jam odiosis siet.

[Whene’er a man is quartered at a friend’s, if he but stay three days, his company they will grow weary of.] [tr. Thomas]
[No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.] [Source]

Medieval Italy sees the development of the proverb "L'ospite è come il pesce: dopo tre giorni puzza [The guest is like fish: after three days it stinks]." This is said to derive from the Latin "Post tres saepe dies vilescit piscis et hospes," which is sometimes credited (incorrectly) to Plautus. Wegeler includes that Latin in Philosophia Patrum [Philosophy of the Fathers] (1869) as a proverb (No. 931).

Erasmus in his Adagia [Proverbs] (1523), mentioning Plautus and the Asinaria line above, indicates a shortened version of this is still in circulation as a saying to (indirectly) refer to friends who stay three days or more:

Piscis nequam est, nisi recens.

[Fish is bad, unless it's fresh.]

John Lyly wrote in Euphues and His England (1580), "Fish and Guests in three days are stale."

Matthew Henry, in his Bible commentary (1706) on Proverbs 25:17, mentions that Latin proverb "Post tres saepe dies vilescit piscis et hospes" (translating it "After the third day fish and company become distasteful").

 
Added on 29-Jul-24 | Last updated 11-Feb-25
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The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth, except it be the progress of the character which draws them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Domestic Life,” Society and Solitude (1870)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 31-Dec-21
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