Meaning & Analysis
Even the smallest creatures, such as flies and ants, possess sources of irritation or bitterness—'spleen' and 'gall' representing their capacity for anger or resentment.
Insights
No Creature Is Powerless
Even the seemingly insignificant have the capacity for resentment, resistance, or retaliation. Size or apparent weakness does not preclude a being from having means of self-defense or sources of grievance.
Hidden Potency in the Humble
Suggests that those who appear harmless or inferior often possess overlooked strengths or can strike back if provoked. One should not underestimate or scorn the lowly.
Universality of Emotion
Symbolically points to the idea that feelings such as anger, envy, or hurt are universal—present in all beings, regardless of status or might.
Classical and Humanist Wisdom
The proverb draws on classical sources (Erasmus, Adagia) and ancient physiology, where 'spleen' and 'gall' signify emotional irritability or bitterness. It reflects a humanist sensibility: all creatures, however small, have agency and capacity for feeling.
Social and Political Implication
Historically applied to warn the powerful against despising or oppressing the weak, as even those without obvious strength can harbor resentment and may ultimately retaliate or cause harm in unexpected ways.
Psychological Undercurrent
Recognizes a psychological truth: anger and the urge to defend one’s dignity are not reserved for the mighty. This can serve as both a caution to the strong and encouragement to the marginalized.
Rhetorical Devices
Parallelism
Pairs the fly and the ant, each with a visceral attribute ('spleen,' 'gall'), enhancing rhythm and balance and reinforcing the message of universality.
Metonymy and Symbolism
Uses bodily organs—'spleen' and 'gall'—as metonyms for emotional states (anger, bitterness), grounding the proverb in concrete, physical imagery.
Antithesis
Contrasts the smallness of flies and ants with the potency of their negative qualities, sharpening the warning against underestimation.
Transcription
Quotations
Formicae inest sua bilis. Ibid., 829F: Habet et musca splenem.
[As in Eras. Adagia, 829F]
Low trees haue their tops, smal sparkes their heat, the Flye his splene, the Ant hir gall.
Sparkes haue their heate, Antes their gall, Flyes their splene.
Yea, haue ye not heard that the fly hath her spleene And the Ant her gall?
Flyes haue their spleene, each silly ant his teenes.
A Fly hath a spleene.
The lowest trees haue topps: the Ante her gall, the fly his spleene, the little sparke his heate.
There is in ants a cholor, every fly Carries a spleene; poor worms, being trampled on, turn tail.
A flie hath her spleene.
A fly hath a spleen.
A flye kicks as well as she can.
Even a Fly hath its Spleen.
Cross References
Annotations
- A Prouerbe applied vn to those, which being weake, and of no force: yet ought not to be contemned, because by occasion he may and will reuenge wrong done vn to them by their superiours, or of those which be stronger than they.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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