Meaning & Analysis
Literally, to refuse to perform the menial and dirty chore of carrying coals for a fire. This task was typically assigned to the lowest-ranking servants in a household, so refusing it was an act of insubordination.
Insights
Refusal to Suffer Insults
The proverb's primary meaning is a firm refusal to endure insults, slights, or any form of demeaning treatment. It is a declaration of self-respect and a rejection of being 'put upon' by others.
Assertion of Pride
It signifies a proud, defiant, and often quarrelsome nature. A person who 'carries no coals' is not passive or submissive but is quick to take offense and assert their standing.
Defiance of Subordination
The expression conveys a rejection of a subordinate or subservient role. It is a challenge to an established hierarchy, asserting that one will not accept being treated as an inferior.
Historical Social Hierarchy
This proverb is deeply embedded in the domestic social hierarchy of 16th and 17th-century England, where carrying coals was a menial task for the lowest servants. To 'carry coals' became synonymous with enduring insults and degradation, making the refusal a potent symbol of defiance against a rigid social order.
Elizabethan Dramatic Vernacular
Its prominent use in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, particularly by Shakespeare in 'Romeo and Juliet', highlights its role as popular slang. The phrase efficiently characterized figures who were proud, quick to anger, and sensitive about their honor, despite their low status.
Psychology of Honor
The proverb offers a window into the psychology of honor in an era where public reputation was paramount. It reveals that the fear of being seen as a 'coal-carrier' (a submissive person who endures abuse) was a powerful motivator for confrontational and defensive behavior.
Linguistic Obsolescence
The expression is now obsolete, demonstrating how proverbs can become archaic when their literal, material-culture reference—in this case, the specific domestic chore of hauling coal—disappears from common experience.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The act of 'carrying coals' serves as a powerful metaphor for the broader concept of enduring humiliation, abuse, or dishonor.
Idiom
The phrase is a fixed idiom from its period, where the collective meaning is non-literal and dependent on specific cultural and social context for its interpretation.
Symbolism
'Coals' are used to symbolize the weight of insults, menial status, and social degradation. The physical dirtiness of the coal reflects the perceived stain of dishonor.
Transcription
Quotations
Wyll ye bere no coles?
He carryed coales that could abide no geast.
The Slaunderers, haue .. fifty mens voices .. to bee the colecarriers of many a loude lye.
It wyll beare no coales, it wyll not take any wrong at your handes.
Here comes one that will carrie coales, ergo, will hold my dogge.
For now if one .. will carrie coales, and meekely suffer rebuke, he is noted of cowardize.
He is chollericke, and I can carrie no coles.
And soe in all things iustifie themselues .. shewinge plainly they would carrie no coals.
He'll carry no Coals, not to be Pissed upon, or Imposed upon.
Shakespeare Citations
Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.
I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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