Thy FACE is shorn against the wool

Meaning & Analysis

Literally, the proverb refers to having one’s face shaved or cut in a direction contrary to the natural lie of the wool (or hair), which is uncomfortable and difficult.

Insights

Contrary Action

The proverb symbolically warns against acting against the natural order, custom, or prevailing circumstances, suggesting that to oppose the grain or established flow is to invite unnecessary hardship.

Self-Inflicted Difficulty

It points to the futility and discomfort of creating one’s own obstacles, likening self-defeating behavior or willful contrariness to inflicting pain on oneself through resistance.

Resistance and Consequence

Conveys the idea that resisting the path of least resistance—whether social, psychological, or natural—results in friction, discomfort, and sometimes personal loss.

Historical Symbolism

Shearing or shaving 'against the wool' historically evoked vivid imagery in an age familiar with manual labor, wool production, and the discomfort of going against the natural direction of hair or fiber. The phrase thus draws on tactile and occupational experience to illustrate broader lessons.

Literary and Cultural Resonance

The proverb's motif appears widely in Renaissance and early modern English literature—most famously echoed in Shakespeare's 'to go against the grain.' It resonates with the cultural suspicion of those who resist accepted norms, as well as with biblical or folkloric motifs warning against prideful opposition.

Psychological Dimensions

Psychologically, the saying encodes an awareness of self-sabotage and the discomfort of inner resistance. It acknowledges the pain of stubbornness and the psychological cost of refusing adaptation, hinting at the universal human tension between conformity and opposition.

Rhetorical Devices

Metaphor

The act of being 'shorn against the wool' is a striking metaphor for opposition, discomfort, and the perils of resistance, vividly transforming a physical act into a symbolic warning.

Concrete Imagery

The tactile imagery of a face shorn contrary to the grain makes the proverb memorable and relatable, rooting abstract advice in sensory experience.

Antithesis

The opposition between 'with' and 'against' the wool creates a rhetorical antithesis, dramatizing the consequences of defiance versus harmony.

contrarinessresistanceself-sabotagecustomdiscomfortmetaphor

Analyzed with gpt-4.1 on July 12, 2025

Transcription

Quotations

What, shuld your face thus agayn the woll be shorne For one fall?

— 1546, HEY, I xi, s. D4

— 1562, HEY, Epig., 152, p. 151

— 1659, HOW, Eng. Prov., p. 6

Cross References

S287 It is ill shaving against the wool.

Related Proverbs

L69 Like a LAPWING that runs away with the shell on its head 92.5%F27 FAIR and far off 92.4%A64 AGE (Winter) and wedlock tame both man and beast 92.2%P480 A POPE's bull, a dead man's skull, and an old trull are not all worth a pound of wool 92.0%Y26 Three dear YEARS will raise a baker's daughter to a portion 92.0%D261 The DEVIL owed him a shame and now he has paid it 91.9%F348 When FLATTERERS meet the devil goes to dinner 91.8%G420 To cut the GRASS whereof another meant to make hay 91.8%P392 As good as a PLAY 91.8%G17 He repents too late that repents at the GALLOWS 91.7%F29 FAIR without but foul within 91.7%N27 He who but once a good NAME gets may piss abed and say he sweats 91.6%F622 He that has but FOUR and spends five has no need of a purse 91.6%F476 A FOOL will not give (leave, part with) his bauble for the Tower of London 91.6%A145 ALL is not at hand that helps 91.5%F764 To fret like a FROG under a harrow 91.5%K151 Their own KNAVERY will pay them home at length 91.5%F667 Too FREE to be fat 91.5%P408 After PLEASURE (joy) comes pain (sorrow) 91.4%C146 He bides as fast as a CAT bound with a saucer 91.4%

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