Meaning & Analysis
A mock declaration of complete devotion that immediately carves out the two things that would make it costly—one’s person and one’s property—so in effect, nothing substantial is offered.
Insights
Hollow allegiance
A pledge padded with exemptions: grand words of loyalty that withhold the very commitments (time, labor, money, risk) which would give the pledge weight.
Bounded commitment
Signals willingness to agree in principle while reserving practical autonomy—cooperation without exposure of the self or the purse.
Polite refusal
A courteous way to say ‘no’: accept the form of obligation while declining any material consequence, keeping face without paying costs.
Fine-print morality
Promises function like contracts; the ‘except body and goods’ is the hidden clause that guts the headline offer, warning against naïve trust in rhetoric.
Cheap talk
Words are inexpensive signals; by excluding personal risk and resources, the speaker reveals the signal’s low cost and thus low credibility.
Legal echo
Early formulas of liability and service often named ‘body’ and ‘goods’ to define the scope of obligation (imprisonment of the body; seizure of goods). The proverb cheekily inverts that register to disclaim real liability while sounding loyal.
Courtly civility
In a deference culture, hyperbolic avowals (‘I am your servant’) greased social wheels. This line parodies such courtesies, exposing the gap between ceremonious speech and actionable service.
Economy of promises
Social life runs on asymmetric information; costly commitments are credible. By stripping out cost, the speaker broadcasts non-commitment, teaching listeners to weigh vows by their embedded sacrifices.
Power dynamics
The phrase resists capture: it keeps the self and estate outside another’s reach. It thus marks a boundary tactic—appeasement in tone, independence in substance.
Satiric mirror
By making the carve-outs explicit, the proverb caricatures all mealy-mouthed promises, holding up a mirror to the fine-print habits of suitors, petitioners, and politicians alike.
Rhetorical Devices
Irony
‘All yours’ is instantly undercut by sweeping exceptions, flipping a total offer into near zero—comic reversal that carries the moral.
Exception clause
Legalistic ‘except’ turns a warm avowal into a contract with exclusions, mimicking documents to spotlight rhetorical evasiveness.
Antithesis
Totality (‘all yours’) versus reservation (‘except…’) sets a crisp opposition that dramatizes the bait-and-switch.
Parallelism
Two matched nouns—‘body and goods’—give the line balance and memorability while naming the chief currencies of commitment.
Hyperbole
The exaggerated opening promise heightens the subsequent deflation, sharpening the satire.
Transcription
Quotations
(and goods, which is now growne into a common proverb).
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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