Meaning & Analysis
Do not read other people's private letters or correspondence, and do not put your hands in their money chests or purses. It is a direct command to respect both the privacy and the property of others.
Insights
Sanctity of Personal Boundaries
The proverb is a foundational lesson on respecting personal boundaries. 'Letters' symbolize a person's private thoughts, secrets, and communications, while 'coffers' represent their material wealth and security. Violating either is a profound intrusion into their personal domain.
Integrity and Trustworthiness
It defines personal integrity through two core prohibitions: snooping and stealing. The proverb argues that true trustworthiness requires respecting both a person’s intellectual and material property, framing them as equally inviolable.
Condemnation of Greed and Curiosity
The proverb warns against the dual human failings of excessive curiosity and greed. It places the urge to uncover private information on the same moral plane as the desire to take what is not yours, treating both as serious ethical lapses.
Historical and Ethical Parallelism
This proverb establishes a powerful ethical parallel between respecting informational privacy (letters) and tangible property (coffers). In an era of expanding literacy and commerce, it framed the violation of private correspondence as being as morally reprehensible as theft, a sentiment echoed in the cross-referenced proverb, 'The breaking open of letters is the basest kind of burglary.'
Modern Digital Analogy
The proverb remains profoundly relevant in the digital age, where 'letters' correspond to emails, private messages, and personal data, and 'coffers' to digital wallets and bank accounts. It serves as a timeless warning against both digital snooping and financial fraud, underscoring the enduring importance of respecting personal boundaries.
Psychology of Temptation
Psychologically, the proverb links two distinct but powerful temptations: curiosity (the desire to know secrets) and greed (the desire for material gain). By condemning both in a single phrase, it suggests that the underlying moral failure is the same—a lack of integrity and respect for the autonomy of others.
Rhetorical Devices
Parallelism
The 'Neither... nor...' structure creates a balanced, memorable injunction. It gives equal weight to both prohibitions, reinforcing the idea that violating privacy and property are equivalent moral failures.
Synecdoche
'Eyes' are used to represent the act of prying or reading, and 'hands' to represent the act of stealing. This use of a part to signify the whole action makes the proverb concise and impactful.
Concrete Imagery
The concrete images of 'eyes on letters' and 'hands in coffers' make the abstract principles of privacy and property rights tangible and easy to understand, enhancing the proverb's didactic force.
Transcription
Quotations
Neither the eye in the letter, nor the hande in the purse of another.
Neither eyes, nor handes in other mens writings or purses.
Nor Eye in a letter, nor hand in a purse, nor ears in the secrets of another.
Nor eyes in letter, nor hands in chests.
Keep your eye off writings and your hand out of other mens pockets.
Neither eyes in any bodies letter, nor hand in any bodies pocket.
Cast not your eye on any ones paper, neither give an ear to anothers secrets.
Nor eye in a letter, nor hand in a purse, nor ear in the secret of another.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.