Meaning & Analysis
Whether the blade falls on its back (dull side) or its edge (sharp side)—that is, however things turn out—one is resolved to proceed. In short: come what may.
Insights
Stoic resolve
The speaker affirms fixed purpose regardless of outcome, accepting fortune’s turns without abandoning the chosen course.
Risk embraced
Action is undertaken despite danger: if the stroke cuts or glances off, the deed will still be attempted.
Unconditional commitment
A pledge is made without caveat; the formula signals loyalty or perseverance that does not depend on favorable conditions.
Fate tolerance
Outcomes are conceded to fortune; the virtue lies in steadfastness, not in guaranteeing success.
Bravado of necessity
With resources low or options few, bold talk steels the will—courage amplified by rhetoric to carry one through uncertainty.
Blade anatomy as metaphor
‘Back’ and ‘edge’ are the two faces of a sword or knife; invoking both compresses all possible fates into a smith’s shorthand—whichever way the steel lands, the resolve stands.
Variant cluster
Early modern writers spin cognates—‘fall edge, fall blade,’ and the comic ‘fall back, fall belly’—all serving the same ‘come what may’ force; the last pivots from steel to stomach to boast of being kept, whatever happens.
Kindred maxims
It sits with ‘sink or swim’ and ‘stick to him back and edge’: a family of sayings that prize constancy under hazard, whether in self-risk or pledged allegiance.
Performative courage
The line is as much self-incantation as statement—spoken to stiffen the speaker’s own spine before risk, a folk technology of courage.
Workman’s register
The concreteness of tools and blows grounds the ethic in craft and combat, where outcomes are often binary and sudden—cut or no cut—yet labor must go on.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
‘Back’ versus ‘edge’ sets a stark binary that stands in for all contingencies, dramatizing the breadth of the resolve.
Isocolon & Parallelism
The duplicated ‘fall … fall …’ builds a balanced chant that makes the commitment feel rhythmic and absolute.
Alliteration
The b/k and e/j sounds in ‘back’ and ‘edge’ give a percussive snap suited to a rallying cry.
Ellipsis
Agents and outcomes are unstated; the proverb’s very vagueness lets it fit any hazard or pledge.
Metonymy
Blade sides stand for fortune’s faces; steel becomes a token for fate and conflict.
Transcription
Quotations
Well, fall backe, fall edge, I am ons at a poincte .. taduenture a Ioyncte.
Fall back, fall belly, I must be maintained.
He speaks his thought; fall backe fall edge.
Ile neuer meddle with any matter out of the length and bredth of my Anvile, fall back, fall edge while I breathe.
Fall backe, fall edge, goe which way you will to worke.
Fall edge, fall blade, whatsoever happen.
To drink, or be drowned, viz. sink or swim, fall back, fall edge.
And, fall back, fall edge, we must be Grateful still.
Cross References
Explanation
[Come what may.]
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.