Meaning & Analysis
A rhetorical question posed to someone moving with reckless and dangerous speed, asking if they are moving under their own control ('coming') or have been dispatched with such urgent haste that they've lost all caution, as if they were a messenger being 'sent'.
Insights
Critique of Reckless Haste
The proverb serves as a broader critique of impatience and recklessness. It questions whether a person's actions are driven by considered intention or by a mindless, uncontrolled impulse that disregards potential consequences.
Loss of Agency
The distinction between 'coming' and being 'sent' metaphorically questions an individual's agency. It implies that their haste is so extreme they appear to have surrendered their personal will to some external force or compulsion.
Urgency vs. Carelessness
The question highlights the fine line between purposeful urgency and dangerous carelessness. To be 'sent' can imply an important mission, but in this context, it suggests that the haste has become self-destructive.
Historical Social Dynamics
This proverb captures a specific cultural moment, likely from a period when being 'sent' implied the urgency of a messenger, whose speed was not their own but dictated by a master. The question uses this social reality to comment on an individual's loss of self-control.
Psychological Intervention
The question serves as a sharp, rhetorical interruption intended to shock someone into recognizing their own dangerous or foolish behavior. It's less an inquiry and more a direct challenge to their lack of self-awareness and control.
Embodied Metaphor
The proverb's power lies in its physical immediacy. The image it conjures—someone moving so fast they might as well be an inanimate object dispatched on a mission—vividly illustrates the dangers of abandoning caution.
Rhetorical Devices
Rhetorical Question
The proverb is framed as a rhetorical question, which is not meant to be answered but to serve as a pointed criticism of the listener's behavior.
Antithesis
It creates a stark contrast between 'come' (suggesting volition and control) and 'send' (suggesting external force and lack of control), which effectively highlights the person's reckless state.
Irony
The question carries a sarcastic or ironic tone, feigning confusion about the person's motivation in order to underscore the absurdity of their dangerous speed.
Transcription
Quotations
To go down [stairs] swiftly, to measure them all at once, in danger of breaking ones neck; to such the English say, What do ye come or send?
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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