Meaning & Analysis
Do not risk everything by placing all your assets or hopes in a single venture or means of transport—'bottom' here referring to a ship.
Insights
Risk Diversification
The proverb advises against concentrating all one’s resources, efforts, or ambitions in a single plan or investment, promoting caution through diversification to avoid total loss.
Fragility of Fortune
It metaphorically reflects how fragile success is when overdependent on one element. Just as a single ship may sink, so too might a singular hope or project collapse, bringing complete ruin.
Prudential Strategy
The saying promotes strategic thinking and foresight—urging individuals to hedge their bets and think beyond impulsive or overly confident all-or-nothing moves.
Classical Legacy
Echoing Erasmus's Latin adage 'Ne uni navi facultates' ('Do not entrust your fortune to a single ship'), this proverb draws from ancient commercial wisdom and Stoic thought, advocating rational moderation and foresight.
Elizabethan Maritime Metaphor
In an age when global trade and sea travel flourished, the metaphor of the 'bottom' (i.e., ship) carried urgent real-world significance—loss of a single vessel could mean ruin, a concept vividly present in Shakespeare’s *Merchant of Venice*.
Universal Economic Caution
This cautionary principle appears across cultures and epochs—from ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ to similar Eastern and Arabic proverbs—demonstrating a deep-rooted human awareness of risk mitigation.
Psychological Fallibility
The proverb counters cognitive biases like overconfidence and optimism bias, which lead individuals to stake everything on a favored outcome. It urges self-restraint and emotional detachment in decision-making.
Rhetorical Devices
Metonymy
‘Bottom,’ an archaic term for ship, stands in for broader concepts like venture, investment, or undertaking—inviting layered interpretation from material to metaphorical domains.
Alliteration
The repeating 'v' and 'b' sounds in 'venture' and 'bottom' lend the phrase a rhythmic clarity, reinforcing memorability and oral transmission.
Concrete Imagery
By evoking a tangible image of a ship carrying all one’s goods, the proverb effectively grounds abstract advice in vivid, sensory reality.
Transcription
Quotations
Ne uni navi facultates.
I aduentured in one ship to put all my wealth.
Yet me thynke it were not fytt in polycie to venture all in one pore shallowe Boate.
Let us not venture all this poore remainder In one unlucky bottom.
As a Marchant that lost all his inheritance in one bottome.
There's no venturing all in one bottom.
Shakespeare Citations
O, too much folly is it, well I wot, To hazard all our lives in one small boat!
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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