Meaning & Analysis
The proverb originates from the Anglo-Scottish borders. If the raiders ('they') come, the cattle ('they') do not come home because they are stolen. If the raiders do not come, the cattle will return home safely on their own.
Insights
Interdependent Fates
The proverb serves as a metaphor for any zero-sum situation where the success or presence of one entity guarantees the failure or absence of another. It illustrates a dynamic of inverse correlation, such as a predator's success meaning the prey's demise.
Conditional Security
It symbolizes a state of conditional security, where safety and prosperity are not inherent but are defined entirely by the non-occurrence of a specific disruptive event. Well-being is fragile and contingent on the absence of a known threat.
Absence as a Positive Force
The proverb highlights how the absence of a negative force can be a powerful, positive event in itself. The non-arrival of the raiders is the active condition that allows for prosperity, metaphorically suggesting that peace is often defined not by what is gained, but by what is successfully avoided.
Historical Context of Border Reivers
This proverb is a direct artifact of the Anglo-Scottish border conflicts (c. 13th-17th centuries). The first 'they' refers to Border Reivers (raiders), and the second to cattle. It starkly captures the precarious, agrarian economy of the borderlands, where wealth was mobile and vulnerable, and survival depended on the daily absence of violence.
The Psychology of Constant Threat
The proverb's paradoxical structure reveals the psychological state of a community living under constant threat. Their entire reality and daily fortunes are framed by a single variable: the appearance of the enemy. It is a linguistic expression of a life defined by perpetual anxiety and conditional safety.
Linguistic and Social Ingenuity
The proverb's meaning is entirely dependent on insider knowledge, functioning as a form of local code. Its clever, compressed structure makes a grim reality memorable and almost witty, demonstrating how language adapts to express complex social conditions in a succinct, powerful form.
Rhetorical Devices
Paradox and Antimetabole
The proverb is built on a paradoxical structure known as antimetabole, where the clauses are repeated in reverse order with a negative inserted ('come' vs. 'come not'). This creates a memorable, circular logic that perfectly mirrors the conditional reality it describes.
Ambiguity and Polysemy
The meaning hinges on the ambiguous pronoun 'they' and the polysemic use of the verb 'come', which refer to two different subjects (raiders and cattle). This deliberate ambiguity creates a riddle-like quality, engaging the listener who must know the context to solve it.
Ellipsis
The proverb is extremely compressed, omitting its subjects entirely. It relies on the shared cultural and historical context of the border communities for its meaning, making it a powerful piece of localized shorthand.
Transcription
Quotations
*Customary in the Wars betwixt the Crowns of England and Scotland. For the cattle of people living hereabout, turn'd into the common-pasture, did, by instinct and custome, return home at night, except violently intercepted by the Free-booters and Borderers . . If therefore these Borderers came, their cattle came not; if they came not, their cattle surely returned.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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