Meaning & Analysis
A person has suffered a public disgrace or humiliation, which is described as the Devil finally settling a long-standing debt with them.
Insights
Inevitable Retribution
The proverb suggests that a person's downfall or shameful exposure was an inevitable consequence of their past actions or character flaws. The 'debt' to the Devil symbolizes a long-accumulated moral deficit that has finally come due.
Fulfillment of a Negative Fate
It implies a sense of fatalism, suggesting that a person was always destined for a fall from grace. The shameful event is not random but the fulfillment of a negative destiny that has been pending for some time.
External Malice
The proverb can be used to explain a sudden and severe misfortune as an act of external malice. The Devil acts as a scapegoat, representing a hostile force in the universe that ensures people get their comeuppance.
Supernatural Justice
Rooted in a worldview where the Devil was an active agent in human affairs, this proverb personifies misfortune as a supernatural transaction. It reflects a cultural tendency, particularly evident in the 16th and 17th centuries, to attribute disgrace to malevolent, external forces, thereby framing a person's downfall as a form of cosmic settlement.
Psychology of Judgment
The proverb serves a psychological function as a form of social judgment or rationalization. By attributing a person's disgrace to a 'debt' being paid by the Devil, observers can frame the event as a deserved, almost inevitable outcome, reinforcing a sense of moral order and distancing themselves from the fallen individual.
Literary and Theological Resonance
This saying resonates with the literary and theological motif of the Faustian bargain, where a long-standing obligation to a malevolent entity must eventually be settled. The 'shame' is the final, public payment for an implicit 'debt' of sin, folly, or moral compromise.
Rhetorical Devices
Personification
The proverb personifies the Devil as a debtor who settles his accounts, translating an abstract concept like karmic justice into a familiar, transactional scenario.
Metaphor
The entire phrase functions as a metaphor where 'shame' is a commodity that can be owed and 'paid'. This financial metaphor makes the idea of retribution concrete and impactful.
Irony
There is a dark irony in the concept of a 'payment' that brings harm rather than benefit. The Devil settles his debt by delivering disgrace, subverting the positive expectation of receiving payment.
Transcription
Quotations
The Deuil, gossip, ought me a shame.
The Devill, or els his dame, they ought her sure a shame.
The diuell owes thee shame.
The diuell ought me a shame, and now hath paide it.
See see, the deuil ought my maister a shame and now he has paid him.
The Devil certainly owed him a shame, that put into his head, to take upon him the handling of this Argument.
The Devill sure Ought me a mischiefe, when he enabled that Old Wretch, my Father to beget me.
I was finely helpt up when I married you .. But the devil ow'd me a good turn!
The Press hath ought him a shame a long time, and is but now beginning to pay-off the debt.
The devil I think ow'd me a shame, and sought to pay it this way.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.