Meaning & Analysis
Make your jokes among children or in trivial company; do not mock sacred persons, sacred matters, or those set apart for reverence.
Insights
Sanctity Boundaries
Warns that some domains—religion, honor, solemn rites—are not fit for levity; treating them lightly profanes shared values and invites censure.
Prudence in Power
Counsels avoiding satire of the exalted—clerics, nobles, ‘great men’—because ridicule travels upward as insult and may provoke punishment.
Fit of Audience
Advises matching humor to context and capacity: playful teasing suits peers or children, while sacred or heavy matters demand gravity.
Risk-aware Speech
Frames joking as an act with consequences; discretion in topics and targets protects both the speaker and communal peace.
Sacred–Profane Policing
The proverb functions as cultural guardrail: it cordons off ‘holy things’ from everyday jest, preserving ritual seriousness and group cohesion by penalizing irreverence.
Thunderbolt Logic
Early modern commentators allude to divine retribution—‘thunderbolts’—revealing a worldview where blasphemous wit is not only socially hazardous but cosmically dangerous.
From Saints to ‘Great Men’
A parallel thread redirects caution toward secular power: to ‘checke’ (rebuke) the mighty is imprudent; the maxim doubles as political self-preservation in hierarchical societies.
Humor Theories
Implicitly endorses a conservative use of humor—punching down or sideways (superiority theory) rather than up or into sacra—exposing the ethical tension between wit’s freedom and communal taboos.
Affect Management
By segregating jest from sancta, the proverb teaches emotional code-switching: joy and play are sanctioned, but only within arenas where laughter will not unbind reverence or order.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
Sets ‘boys’ against ‘saints’ to stage a stark contrast between trivial play and sacred gravity, sharpening the boundary.
Imperative Aphorism
Commands (‘Jest… leave…’) compress social etiquette into portable, actionable rules.
Metonymy
‘Saints/holy things’ stand for all revered persons, institutions, and rites; ‘boys’ stands for light, harmless company.
Parataxis
Two balanced clauses without connectors create a clipped, memorable cadence that feels like a maxim long rehearsed.
Transcription
Quotations
Non bonus est, ludere cum sanctis. The quietest, and the thryftiest course they say, Is not to checke, but prayse great mens amys.
Besides, you knowe the olde prouerbe, Non bonum est ludere cum sanctis, It is not good to meddle with these holie ones, for feare of thunderbolts, to insue.
We say (Non bonum ludere cum sanctis) it is no safe iesting with holy things.
Play with Children and let the Saints Alone.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.