Meaning & Analysis
Even if dressed in luxurious garments like scarlet or adorned with gold, an ape remains an ape—its nature is unchanged by outward finery.
Insights
Essential Nature
Emphasizes that a person's true character or nature cannot be altered by external appearances, wealth, or status symbols.
Vanity and Pretension
Mocks the foolishness of trying to elevate one’s social or intellectual standing through mere ornamentation, exposing the futility of appearances without substance.
Unworthiness in Power
Critiques the promotion or praise of unworthy individuals simply because they hold wealth, titles, or fashionable attire—warning that dignity cannot be purchased or impersonated.
Erasmian and Classical Authority
Erasmus's *Adagia* anchors the proverb in classical humanist tradition, using the phrase 'Simia in purpura' to underscore timeless skepticism toward social display without moral worth—an idea traceable to antiquity.
Renaissance Social Commentary
Writers like Puttenham and Jonson used this proverb to critique the vulgar rise of those who lacked refinement or virtue but gained wealth or courtly favor—mirroring anxieties of social mobility and misplaced authority.
Animal Symbolism and Satire
The ape, historically a symbol of mimicry and buffoonery, stands in for human folly. Dressing the ape in scarlet or gold becomes an image of human pretentiousness and societal delusion.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The ape serves as a metaphor for the uncultured or unworthy person, while 'scarlet' and 'gold' symbolize the trappings of wealth and high status.
Irony
The contrast between luxurious attire and the ignoble creature beneath highlights the ironic gap between appearance and reality, intensifying the satirical tone.
Alliteration and Rhythm
Repetition of sounds in phrases like 'ape is an ape' and 'clad in scarlet' creates a rhythmic cadence that enhances the proverb’s memorability and punch.
Transcription
Quotations
Simia in purpura. Ibid., 265A: Simia simia est, etiamsi aurea gestet insignia.
(although she weare badges of golde).
By profe I finde an ape an ape, in purple be she plast.
Bedecke an Ape with gold, and he wyl be an Ape styl.
An ape wilbe an ape, by kinde as they say, Though that ye clad him all in purple array.
And apes are apes, though cloth'd in scarlet.
To be an ape in Purple, viz. an unworthy Person extoll'd and promoted to high Preferment and Dignity.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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