Meaning & Analysis
A person who has been outrun and despairs of catching up with their competitor gives up the chase, often by throwing their cap after the person in a gesture of concession and finality.
Insights
Irretrievable Loss and Hopelessness
The proverb signifies a situation so hopeless that any further effort is pointless. It represents the complete and final abandonment of a goal, whether it is recovering a debt, winning a contest, or pursuing a person.
Acknowledging Superiority
The act of 'casting a cap' can be a way of conceding that another person is so superior in skill or speed that they cannot be matched. It is an admission of being thoroughly outclassed.
Finality of Surrender
The gesture symbolizes a definitive and irreversible surrender. It is not a temporary pause but a final, resigned acceptance that the opportunity is gone forever.
Gesture of Defeat
The proverb originates from the physical, almost theatrical, gesture of a runner in a race throwing their cap at a competitor who is too far ahead to be caught. This act serves as a public, non-verbal admission of defeat and frustration, making the abstract feeling of hopelessness tangible and universally understood.
Psychology of Resignation
This expression captures the psychological tipping point where striving and hope collapse into resignation. It marks the moment a person consciously abandons a goal—be it a person, an object, or an ambition—as utterly unattainable, reflecting a fundamental human experience of confronting insurmountable limits.
Literary and Dramatic Use
Common in 17th-century English drama, as seen in the works of Dekker and Massinger, the proverb was a concise way to signal a lost cause. Shakespeare’s use in 'Timon of Athens' to describe unrecoverable debts demonstrates its metaphorical flexibility beyond a literal chase.
Rhetorical Devices
Kinetic Imagery
The phrase relies on the powerful, kinetic image of throwing an object, which vividly conveys the frustration and finality of giving up.
Metaphor
The entire act of throwing the cap serves as a metaphor for giving up on any kind of hopeless endeavor, not just a physical race.
Hyperbole
The phrase 'for ever overtaking him' is a hyperbolic flourish that emphasizes the absolute impossibility of success, amplifying the sense of complete defeat.
Transcription
Quotations
I set some of my Parishioners Wiues such Coppise; as their Husbands might cast their cappes at it, but could neuer come neare.
Shee’s scapt indeed, my lord; you may cast your cap after her, for I See you can do no other good vpon hir.
For clean action and good delivery, they may all cast their caps at him.
The rest may cast their caps at him.
Cast your Cap at her, but she’s gon hurried into a Coach drawne with foure horses.
If they had been practised at Breda, Spinola might haue thrown his cap at it, and ne’er took it.
The rest may cast their Caps at him.
Or else he may throw his cap at thee, and giue thee [up] for one got out of his reach.
They may cast their caps at him.
When two or more run together, and one gets ground, he that is cast and despairs to overtake, commonly casts his hat after the foremost, and so gives over the race. So that to cast their caps at one, is to despair of catching or overtaking him.
He may fling up his Cap after it, when a thing or a business is past Hope.
Shakespeare Citations
I perceive our masters may throw their caps at their money.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.