Meaning & Analysis
To stay focused on the most important or profitable opportunity, particularly in a financial or strategic sense. The phrase originates from the game of Hazard, where it referred to the player's primary chance of winning.
Insights
Pragmatic Self-Interest
The proverb is a call for pragmatic self-interest, advising an individual to prioritize their own prosperity and advantage above other considerations. It champions looking out for oneself as the primary rule for success.
Financial Prudence
It serves as a maxim for financial prudence and diligence. The advice is to manage one's affairs carefully, focusing on actions that will secure or increase one's wealth and stability.
Strategic Focus
The proverb advocates for strategic focus, urging one to identify and concentrate on the single most critical element or opportunity that will lead to a successful outcome, while ignoring lesser distractions.
Cynical Opportunism
In a more negative light, it can suggest a cynical and potentially unscrupulous opportunism, where the 'main chance' is pursued at the expense of fairness, loyalty, or the well-being of others.
Gaming Origins
The proverb's origins are in the dice game 'Hazard', where the 'main chance' was the player's opportunity to win. This historical context grounds the advice in the language of risk, probability, and seizing a critical advantage at the right moment.
Reflection of Mercantilism
Rising to prominence in the late 16th and 17th centuries, the proverb reflects the burgeoning spirit of mercantilism and individual enterprise. It captures a cultural shift toward valuing financial acumen and strategic self-advancement as a primary virtue.
Psychology of Opportunism
The proverb champions a mindset of vigilant opportunism. Psychologically, it encourages a constant, calculating assessment of situations for personal benefit, framing the world as a series of opportunities to be exploited for one's own prosperity.
Moral Ambiguity
While often advice for prudent self-preservation, the proverb can carry a cynical undertone, as seen in the 1584 quotation comparing it to a tailor stealing cloth. It can imply a ruthless or amoral focus on personal gain, regardless of ethical considerations.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The use of 'eye' as a stand-in for attention and vigilance creates a powerful metaphor for focused, unwavering concentration on one's goals.
Imperative Mood
The phrase is structured as a command or piece of direct advice (imperative mood), which gives it a forceful, memorable, and instructive quality.
Idiom
The entire phrase 'have an eye to the main chance' has become a fixed idiom in English, encapsulating the complex idea of strategic opportunism in a concise and widely understood expression.
Transcription
Quotations
Let me stand to the maine chaunce.
Always haue an eye to the mayne, what soeuer thou art chaunced at the buy.
Haue an eye to the maine chaunce: As the Taylor that out of seauen yardes stole one.
An eye to the maine chance, here you slaue, haue an eye.
But by their leaves I'll have a vigilant eye To the main chance still.
To looke to the maine chance, to follow ones shop, trade or businesse.
As the Ancients Say wisely, Have a care o'th' main Chance.
To set a clue to ones feet, viz. To walk warily, and to look to the main chance.
(Look).
The Master of a Family that either keeps himself up to his antient bounds, or increases his Stock, looks very well to the main Chance.
Have a care of the main chance.
Be careful still of the main chance, my son.
With their good Favour, wise Men will look beyond their Nose, and take care of the main Chance, and provide for Accidents and Age.
('Tis good to have).
Shakespeare Citations
Then let's make haste away, and look unto the main .. —Main chance, father, you meant.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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