Meaning & Analysis
Literally, the proverb suggests that the application of one source of heat or fire can remove or lessen the effect of a previous burn or fire.
Insights
Replacement of Passions
Expresses the idea that one strong emotion, passion, or fixation can be displaced or alleviated by another, often of equal or greater intensity.
Cure by Contraries
Conveys the notion that sometimes the best remedy for a problem is another of a similar kind—a new pain to dull an old one, or a new love to cure the pangs of the former.
Historical Symbolism
The proverb reflects early medical and folk beliefs that pain or affliction could be treated by counter-irritation—using heat to draw out heat, or a new wound to heal an old. This approach parallels the 'hair of the dog' or 'fight fire with fire' methods in traditional wisdom.
Cultural and Literary Resonance
Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers draw on this image to discuss human psychology: sorrow, love, or deceit can be conquered or soothed by a new experience of the same kind. Its variants are found across European languages and appear alongside proverbs like 'one nail drives out another' or 'one poison expels another.'
Psychological Dimensions
Captures a familiar coping mechanism: to distract from old pain or obsession, people often turn to something new of similar emotional weight. This insight extends to love, grief, anger, or even guilt.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
Translates physical principles of heat and fire into the psychological realm, using tangible imagery to illuminate abstract processes.
Parallelism
Balanced, repetitive phrasing—'one fire drives out another'—reinforces the mutual displacement and rhythmic logic of the proverb.
Allusion
References a broad family of similar proverbs ('one nail drives out another,' 'one poison expels another'), adding intertextual richness and depth.
Transcription
Quotations
The fire that burneth, taketh away the heate of the burn.
For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still.
Whose desire Was all this while, by fire, to draw out fire; And by a well-advised course to smother The fury of one passion with another.
One extreame may driue out another; as we hold our burnt finger to the fire, by a new heat to extract the former.
The Fire that burneth, taketh out the Heat of a Burn.
Shakespeare Citations
Even as one heat another heat expels.
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning; One pain is less’ned by another’s anguish.
And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire Within the scorched veins of one new burn’d.
As fire drives out fire, so pity pity.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.