Meaning & Analysis
A petulant exclamation—“Gip!”—uttered by a rustic (‘Badger’/‘Gilbert’) when his mare kicks (or, in variants, farts). It’s a stock, silly retort to a trivial or natural provocation, used to mock someone who is peevish and froward.
Insights
Petty peevishness
The proverb targets people who snap over trifles; the curt ‘Gip!’ stands for empty flare-ups that vent irritation without solving anything.
Misplaced blame
Scolding a beast for doing what beasts do illustrates the folly of rebuking inevitabilities—weather, nature, other people’s habits—just to feel in control.
Performative outrage
The outcry is more display than remedy: a ritualized show of temper meant to advertise spirit or superiority, not to effect change.
Rustic caricature
‘Badger/Gilbert’ functions as a stock bumpkin; his reflex ‘Gip!’ turns him into a comic type whose speech reveals limited wit and short fuse.
Futility of scolding
The scene lampoons reprimands that cannot alter facts—noise substituting for judgment.
What is ‘Gip’?
A clipped, interjective cry—likely akin to a horse-command (‘gee-up’/‘gup’) or a brusque ‘get away!’—here repurposed as a petulant snap; its very thinness suits the emptiness of the response.
Variant crudities
Attested forms swap ‘kicked’ for ‘farted’; either way, a natural act triggers the same silly rebuke, heightening the bathos of great wrath at small causes.
Named speakers in proverbs
Early modern sayings often stage ‘Quoth X’ with everyman names (Gilbert, Goodwife, etc.) to dramatize common foibles; the frame lends theatrical snap and easy quotability.
Usage as reprimand
Editors gloss it as a ‘ridiculous expression’ used to check the pettish and froward. Quoting the line to someone is a social nudge: you are overreacting.
Animal-human mirror
By putting human pique against animal instinct, the proverb exposes how often indignation is about self-soothing, not correction.
Rhetorical Devices
Direct speech
The quoted cry (‘Gip’) enacts the very petulance it mocks, turning the proverb into a mini-scene.
Onomatopoeia
The sharp ‘Gip!’ snaps like a slap or tongue-click, aurally conveying abrupt irritation.
Burlesque
Serious ‘quoth’ diction is deflated by a trivial cause (a mare’s kick/fart), producing comic incongruity.
Alliteration
The g-cluster (‘Gip,’ ‘Gilbert’) gives the line a catchy bite, fit for taunt and tavern.
Antonomasia
‘Badger/Gilbert’ stands for any choleric rustic, a name used as type rather than individual.
Transcription
Quotations
Gip quoth Gilbert when his Mare farted.
(Gip with an ill rubbing, quoth).
Annotations
- This is a ridiculous expression, used to people that are pettish and froward.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.