Meaning & Analysis
It is impossible to change the skin color of a person of African descent to white through washing. The act represents a completely futile and pointless endeavor.
Insights
The Futility of Effort
The proverb is a powerful metaphor for any task that is doomed to fail because it seeks to alter the fundamental, unchangeable nature of a person, object, or situation. It signifies wasted effort on an impossible goal.
Unalterable Human Nature
It metaphorically expresses the idea that certain traits, particularly ingrained aspects of character or identity, are inherent and cannot be reformed or altered through external efforts, such as trying to 'teach a foole wisedome'.
Warning Against Vain Labor
The proverb functions as a cautionary warning against investing time, resources, or hope in ventures that are fundamentally flawed or go against the natural order of things.
Biased Notion of 'Correction'
Implicitly, the proverb uses the act of 'washing white' to symbolize a misguided attempt at purification or correction. It carries a strong, problematic connotation that whiteness is a superior or desirable state, reflecting deep-seated cultural and racial biases.
Historical and Racial Context
This proverb is a stark artifact of historical racial hierarchies, originating from a period of European colonial expansion. It employs skin color as the ultimate symbol of an unchangeable, and implicitly undesirable, trait, codifying a worldview where 'whiteness' is the normative ideal and blackness a permanent state to be 'corrected'.
Biblical and Classical Roots
The proverb's authority is deeply rooted in Western culture through its connection to the Bible (Jeremiah 13:23), which poses a similar rhetorical question about an Ethiopian's skin. This biblical parallel lends a sense of timeless, divine truth to what is a culturally constructed bias.
Psychology of Futility
The proverb reveals a psychological bias where failure to change someone or something is attributed to the object's inherent, immutable nature rather than the attempt's flaws. It serves as a justification for giving up, framing the effort as inherently hopeless from the start.
Literary Subversion
John Webster's inversion of the proverb in 'The White Devil'—suggesting a large dowry could 'wash the Ethiop white'—offers a cynical critique. It implies that while nature may be immutable, social perceptions and status are transactional and can be altered by wealth, exposing the proverb's social rather than natural basis.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The physical act of washing a person of color is a powerful and visceral metaphor for any attempt to change an essential, unchangeable quality.
Symbolic Dichotomy
The proverb relies on the symbolic opposition of 'black' and 'white', where white is implicitly positioned as the standard or desired state, and black represents an immutable quality that resists this standard. This binary is central to its historical and cultural meaning.
Hyperbole
The act described is an obvious exaggeration used to underscore the absolute impossibility and absurdity of the undertaking, making the proverb's point about futility more dramatic and memorable.
Transcription
Quotations
Here, therefore, do ye nothing else than, as the common proverb is, go about to make an Ethiop white.
*A prouerbe applied to him that preyseth a thyng that is naught, or teacheth a foole wisedome. This prouerbe grewe of one that bought a Mooren and .. ceased not to wasshe the Mooren continualllye with suche thynges as he thought would make hym white.
*To be applyed to those, whose labour and industrie is to no purpose, and as we terme it, to bestowe labour in vayne.
By trauaile who striueth, to winne thanklesse wight, Is like one that washeth a black a Moore white.
Loose not thy paines, to teach an Owle to speake, Nor striue to wash an Ethiopian white.
It is a dowry, Me thinkes, should make that sun-burnt prouerbe false, And wash the Ethiop white.
No Plague frights them, no Prayers stirre vp them, no Fast tyes them to obedience .. I wash an Aethiope, who will neuer be the whiter for all this water I spend vpon him, and therefore let mee saue any further labour.
To undertake to wash a Black, Labour in vain.
To wash a Blackmore white.
To wash a black Moor white. Aethiopem lauare.
For as the old saying is, you do but attempt to wash the blackamore white.
Bible Citations
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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