Meaning & Analysis
Something is as physically delicate and easily shattered as a piece of glass.
Insights
Emotional Fragility
The simile is used to describe emotional or psychological delicacy, signifying a person who is easily hurt, emotionally unstable, or psychologically fragile.
Instability of Fortune
It metaphorically represents the precariousness of abstract concepts like fortune, social status, or success, suggesting they can be shattered in an instant by a sudden turn of events.
Fickleness and Unreliability
The proverb signifies unreliability and inconstancy in relationships or character. A promise, friendship, or person described this way is considered untrustworthy and easily 'broken'.
Precariousness of Trust
It represents the delicate nature of trust, credit, or reputation. Like a shattered glass, once broken, these concepts are nearly impossible to fully restore.
Symbolism of a Luxury Good
The comparison to glass, particularly Venetian glass as noted in the quotations, leverages its status as a valuable, beautiful, yet notoriously fragile luxury item in the early modern period. This duality makes it a potent symbol for anything precious but easily destroyed, such as life, fortune, or honor.
Gender and Perceived Frailty
Several quotations explicitly associate this brittleness with women and their supposed fickleness or frailty. This reflects a deep-seated cultural bias, using the simile to reinforce patriarchal stereotypes about female emotional and moral vulnerability.
Psychological Resonance
The proverb taps into the universal human experience of glass shattering suddenly and irreparably. This visceral, physical understanding makes the metaphor for emotional, social, or financial collapse immediately and powerfully resonant, evoking the anxiety of irreversible loss.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is a direct simile, using 'as...as' to explicitly compare a quality (brittleness) to a tangible object (glass), making the meaning clear and vivid.
Material Symbolism
Glass serves as a powerful material symbol, where its physical properties—clarity, beauty, and especially fragility—are transferred to abstract human qualities and conditions.
Consonance
The consonance in 'brittle' and 'glass' creates a sharp, crisp sound that phonetically echoes the idea of shattering, enhancing the proverb's auditory impact.
Transcription
Quotations
It is more brittle than glass.
As brittle as the glasse.
She is fickle as the brittle glasse.
I know the rest of women may be frail, Brittle as glasses.
Her fortune being as brittle as her glasses.
To associate with Critical peevish people, whose friendship is . . as brittle as glass.
As brittle as a Venice glass.
Shakespeare Citations
And yet as glass is brittle.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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