Meaning & Analysis
A person is believed to have absorbed their evil disposition or character flaws directly from their wet nurse's milk during infancy.
Insights
Innate Corruption
The proverb metaphorically suggests that a person's wickedness is so deeply ingrained that it seems to be an inherent part of their being, acquired at the earliest possible stage of life rather than developed through later choices.
The Power of Early Influence
It symbolizes the profound and irreversible impact of early environmental influences. The 'dug' represents the primary source of care and sustenance, implying that a toxic or corrupting upbringing can permanently embed negative traits into a person's character.
Misogyny and Blame
The saying can be seen as a form of scapegoating, displacing the blame for a man's moral failings onto the woman who nurtured him. It reflects a historical cultural bias that often attributed vice and corruption to female influence.
Historical Beliefs about Nurture
Rooted in the historical belief that a wet nurse's moral and emotional character could be transmitted through her breast milk, this proverb reflects deep-seated anxieties about heredity, lineage, and the vulnerability of early childhood development. The choice of a nurse was thus a critical decision, believed to shape the infant's lifelong disposition.
Literary and Dramatic Convention
The proverb was a common trope in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature, used by Shakespeare, Jonson, and others to explain a character's fundamental nature. Shakespeare inverts it for comedic effect in 'Romeo and Juliet' but uses it seriously in 'Titus Andronicus' and 'Richard III' to explore the origins of tyranny and deceit.
Psychological Determinism
Psychologically, the proverb serves to explain seemingly innate wickedness by tracing it to an external source from infancy. It reflects a deterministic view of character formation, suggesting that core traits are absorbed passively and are therefore unchangeable, absolving the individual of some responsibility while simultaneously blaming the maternal figure.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The proverb's central metaphor equates the physical act of drinking milk with the abstract absorption of moral 'evil', creating a powerful and visceral connection between nourishment and corruption.
Visceral Imagery
The use of the archaic and somewhat crude word 'dug' creates a raw, primal image of infancy, heightening the shock value of it being a source of evil.
Synecdoche
'Dug' serves as a synecdoche, representing not just the breast but the entire person of the nurse and the whole complex process of early nurturing and its lasting influence.
Transcription
Quotations
Cum lacte nutricis.
Often times the childe soukethe the vice of his nouryse with the milk of her pappe.
Wherefore the common bye worde of the common people seemeth to be grounded vppon good experience which is: This fellow hath sucked mischiefe euen from the teate of his nursse.
We are no sooner borne .. but we follow after wickednesse as if we had sucked iniquity togither with our nurses milke.
From . . woman . . together with his milke hee sucks all euill and imperfection.
We say, He sucked evil from the dug: that is, as the nurse is affected in her body or in her mind, commonly the child draweth the like infirmity from her.
But, believe me, I suck'd not in this patience with my milk.
Nor were it reason in mee to expect That for my sake, hee should put off a nature Hee suck'd in with his milke.
And suck'd in our ill customes, with their milke.
Sure, he did sucke this goodnesse from his Nurse.
And would not suffer in her those desires she sucked in with my milk.
And from a lousy nurse he stole his nature.
Shakespeare Citations
Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.
Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
He is my son .. Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
Cross References
- OTTO, no. 183
- St., nos. 1526, 1774.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.