Meaning & Analysis
Literally, this describes an impossible action. A dog with black fur and skin cannot visibly blush, as the dark pigmentation would obscure any reddening of the flesh. Therefore, to 'blush like a black dog' means to not blush at all.
Insights
Shamelessness and Impudence
The primary metaphorical meaning is that an individual is completely shameless or impudent. They are incapable of showing embarrassment or guilt, no matter the transgression. The 1616 quotation makes this explicit by pairing it with having a 'brazen face'.
Ironic Impossibility
The phrase is used sarcastically to mean the opposite of what it says. It is a statement of irony, pointing out a person's complete lack of a physical reaction (a blush) that would normally be expected in a shameful situation.
Inherent Lack of Conscience
The comparison suggests a person is constitutionally incapable of feeling or expressing remorse. Just as a black dog is prevented from showing a blush by its physical nature, the person is prevented from feeling shame by their moral character.
Physiological Observation as Metaphor
The proverb is rooted in the simple physiological observation that a blush, or the reddening of skin, is not visible on a black-furred animal. This physical impossibility is used to create a powerful metaphor for a psychological or moral state, equating a person's lack of shame with a dog's inability to show a blush.
Symbol of Shamelessness
To accuse someone of 'blushing like a black dog' is a form of social and moral condemnation. Blushing was seen as an external sign of an internal conscience, modesty, or guilt. A person incapable of it, like the shameless villain Aaron in Shakespeare's 'Titus Andronicus', is marked as morally deficient, impudent, and outside the bounds of normal human feeling.
Animal Imagery and Insult
The use of a common animal, the dog, makes the insult accessible and vivid. It grounds the abstract concept of impudence in a concrete, everyday image, thereby enhancing its rhetorical power and memorability as a folk expression.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is structured as a simile, using 'like' to draw a comparison between a person's lack of blushing and that of a black dog.
Irony
The core rhetorical power comes from irony. It describes the complete absence of an action (blushing) by pretending to describe the manner in which it is performed, thereby mocking the subject's shamelessness.
Paradoxical Imagery
The phrase creates a paradoxical and memorable visual image—a blushing black dog—which is impossible. This absurdity immediately signals that the literal meaning is not intended and highlights the subject's utter lack of shame.
Transcription
Quotations
We will make him to blush like a blacke Dogge when he is graueled.
Hee has a face like a blacke Dogge.
A blacke Saint can no more blush, than a blacke Dogge.
Hee blusheth like a black dogge, hee hath a brazen face.
(He blushes like).
(He blusheth like).
The contrary of blushing; the English say, He blush'd, I, like a black Dog.
Blush! ay, blush like a blue dog.
Shakespeare Citations
What, canst thou say all this and never blush? —Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
Cross References
- See ST., no. 920.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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