Meaning & Analysis
A person is showing two contradictory emotions at once, physically crying with one eye while laughing with the other. This impossible image illustrates a state of profound emotional conflict or insincerity.
Insights
Duplicity and Hypocrisy
The primary meaning is that of deliberate deception or hypocrisy. A person feigns one emotion, typically sadness, to mask their true feeling of happiness or amusement, often for personal gain. The classic example is an heir pretending to mourn a death they welcome.
Genuine Emotional Ambivalence
The proverb can describe a state of genuine emotional conflict or ambivalence. It represents moments where a person experiences contrary feelings simultaneously, such as feeling both happy and sad about a significant life event.
Cunning and Opportunism
It serves as a warning about opportunistic behavior. The subject is cleverly manipulating a situation by showing the appropriate emotion to different audiences or circumstances, thereby concealing their self-serving motives.
Gender and Inheritance Trope
The proverb is frequently applied to heirs and, particularly, widows, as seen in the 16th and 17th-century quotations. This reflects a deep-seated cultural suspicion surrounding inheritance, where feigned grief could mask delight at newfound freedom or wealth, revealing societal anxieties about female agency and economic power.
Literary Nuance
Shakespeare elevates this folk expression from a simple accusation of hypocrisy to a profound observation on human psychology. In 'Hamlet', Claudius's 'auspicious, and a dropping eye' captures the complex, contradictory emotions of a state in transition, blending grief for a dead king with celebration for a new marriage.
Psychological Complexity
The proverb captures the psychological reality of emotional ambivalence. Beyond mere deceit, it can describe genuinely mixed feelings, such as the simultaneous sorrow and relief felt at the end of a long illness, or the joy and sadness at a child's wedding. It acknowledges that human feelings are rarely simple or singular.
Social Performance of Emotion
The act of crying or laughing is often a social performance dictated by circumstance. The proverb critiques the gap between outward emotional display and inner reality, highlighting how individuals navigate social expectations by performing the 'correct' emotion, regardless of their true feelings.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The core of the proverb is the stark contrast between 'cry' and 'laugh', and 'one eye' and 'the other'. This use of antithesis creates a memorable and dramatic image of internal division.
Hyperbole / Impossible Imagery
The literal image is a physical impossibility, a form of hyperbole that effectively exaggerates the subject's emotional conflict or duplicity, making the critique more potent and memorable.
Symbolism
The eyes are traditionally seen as 'windows to the soul'. By depicting each eye with a conflicting expression, the proverb uses symbolism to represent a divided, insincere, or psychologically complex inner self.
Transcription
Quotations
Full harde it is to fynde a woman stedfast, For yf one eye wepe the other doth contrary.
The wepyng of an heire is dissembled laughyng, yea he reioyceth though he wepe.
He looks up with on ey and down with the other.
The weeping of an heire, is laughter vnder a maske.
They .. weep with one eye, laugh with the other; or . . they can both together.
One of them I saw crying with one eye . . and laughing with t'other.
The rich Widow cries with one Eye, and laughs with the other.
Shakespeare Citations
With an auspicious, and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage.
She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.