Meaning & Analysis
The phrase literally identifies someone’s birth month as August, yet its use in proverbial context signals more than a simple fact of birth—it conveys character traits presumed to be associated with that timing.
Insights
Taste for Indulgence
The proverb symbolically suggests a person with wide-ranging appetites or pleasures—someone who enjoys 'a gust of all things,' implying a proclivity for sensuality, novelty, or worldly tastes.
Temperamental Disposition
August birth is metaphorically linked to heat and abundance—hints at a personality marked by intensity, boldness, or exuberant energy, paralleling the peak of summer and harvest.
Curiosity and Excess
The association of August with someone who wants to 'taste everything' may reflect a metaphor for excessive curiosity or lack of restraint, portraying a figure who samples widely but perhaps lacks focus or discipline.
Astrological Influence
The proverb draws implicitly on astrological traditions—August being ruled by Leo and Virgo—both signs with distinct characteristics: Leo’s flamboyance and desire for attention, Virgo’s critical nature and appetite for knowledge. This lends the proverb folkloric psychological depth.
Seasonal Symbolism
August is traditionally a time of fullness, ripeness, and harvest—culturally seen as a season of culmination. The proverb appropriates this seasonal imagery to describe someone who is developed in taste, possibly overindulgent or hedonistic.
Moral Commentary
By equating August birth with tasting all things, older sources (like Fuller’s 1662 usage) offer a sly moral critique, portraying the figure as licentious or overly eager in gratification—a subtle warning about unchecked appetites.
Cultural Personification
This proverb participates in a broader folk practice of attributing personality types to birth months, a proto-psychological categorization that blends seasonal logic, cultural lore, and symbolic stereotyping to create memorable character sketches.
Rhetorical Devices
Periphrasis
Describing someone as 'born in August' operates as a circumlocutory metaphor for indulgent or sensual traits, using indirect phrasing to allude to personality in a coded, folkloric manner.
Metonymy
'August' stands in for a suite of seasonal and temperamental associations—heat, fullness, indulgence—functioning as a metonym for appetite and character.
Wordplay
The pun on 'gust' (as in taste or delight) and 'August' creates a witty, phonetic resonance that links name and nature, amplifying the proverb’s memorability and layered suggestiveness.
Transcription
Quotations
He wes borne in August he hes a gust of all things.
He was born in August . . is onely the periphrasis of a licorish person, and such said to be born in August, whose tongues will be the Tasters of every thing they can come by.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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