He both BACK-BEATS him and belly-beats him

Insights

Total domination

Attack comes from every side; the victim is overborne without avenue of escape, a thorough routing rather than a single blow.

Relentless harassment

Pressure is continuous and multifront—criticism, demands, or penalties rain down no matter where the target turns.

Public and private assault

‘Back’ suggests assaults out of sight (behind one’s back), while ‘belly’ evokes face-to-face pressure; together they figure a foe who slanders in absence and browbeats in presence.

Reducing a person to a body

By beating ‘back’ and ‘belly,’ the aggressor treats the whole person as mere flesh to be managed—an emblem of dehumanizing power.

Damned-if-you-do

Whatever the target does is counted against him; the line captures a rigged situation where every outcome draws punishment.

Merism of the body

Pairing back and belly (rear and front) forms a merism—naming two opposed parts to signify the whole—so the phrase means ‘in every way,’ like other early formulas (‘back and edge,’ ‘head to foot’).

Corporal-punishment backdrop

Flogging conventionally fell on the back; to add the belly marks severity beyond the norm, heightening the proverb’s force as a picture of unrestrained coercion.

Semantic reach of ‘beat’

Early modern ‘beat’ ranges from bodily blows to defeating in argument or bargaining (‘beat him down’); the proverb therefore suits both physical violence and rhetorical/financial drubbings.

Back-and-belly as livelihood

Elsewhere ‘back and belly’ can mean clothing and food (basic needs). Read that way, the saying hints at stripping a man of both—economic oppression that hits sustenance and standing alike.

Power psychology

Comprehensive attack breeds learned helplessness: when punishment is omnidirectional, agency shrinks. The proverb names that strategy of domination in a single, vivid stroke.

Rhetorical Devices

Alliteration

The b-cluster (‘back-beats,’ ‘belly-beats’) gives a drumming snap that mirrors the blows and makes the line memorable.

Parallelism & Isocolon

Twin clauses with matched rhythm (‘back-beats … and belly-beats’) enact the two-sided pummeling in syntax as well as sense.

Merism

Naming front and back to mean ‘the whole person’ compresses the idea of totality into compact bodily terms.

Hyperbole

Beating both back and belly exaggerates to underscore utter thoroughness of harm or defeat.

Synecdoche

‘Back’ and ‘belly’ stand for the entire person (or interests), letting parts carry the weight of comprehensive injury.