They'll come again as GOODYER's pigs did

Insights

Impossibility and False Hope

The proverb signifies an event that will never happen or a promise that will never be fulfilled. It serves as a cynical dismissal of a false hope or an empty assurance of return.

Irreversible Loss

The saying speaks to the irreversible nature of certain events or departures. Like the pigs, once something is gone, it is gone for good, emphasizing the finality of loss.

Cultural Shorthand

As an allusion to a shared local story, the proverb functioned as a form of cultural shorthand. Using it expressed a communal understanding and reinforced a shared, skeptical worldview through a common reference point.

Lost Folklore

The proverb's meaning hinges on a lost piece of local English folklore, likely a well-known tale in the 17th century about a man named Goodyer whose pigs wandered off and never returned. Its obscurity today highlights how proverbs can lose their power when their founding stories fade from collective memory.

Cultural Parallels

The cross-reference to 'At the Greek calends'—a classical Latin idiom for 'never'—reveals a connection between a rustic English expression and an ancient scholarly one. It shows how different cultural traditions independently create vivid metaphors to express the concept of impossibility.

Psychology of the Concrete

The proverb uses a specific, almost comically mundane image (pigs failing to return) to convey the abstract and often painful idea of 'never'. This use of a concrete, folksy narrative makes the concept of permanent absence less abstract and more relatable, albeit with a touch of dark, rural humor.

Rhetorical Devices

Allusion

The entire phrase is an allusion to a specific, though now obscure, local story. Its meaning is not literal but is entirely dependent on knowing the unstated outcome of that story (i.e., that the pigs never returned).

Simile

The phrase is structured as a simile, drawing a direct comparison between the subject's likelihood of returning and that of 'Goodyer's pigs'.

Irony

The proverb is almost always used with ironic or sarcastic intent. It feigns a statement of fact ('They'll come again') while meaning the exact opposite, making it a tool for expressing deep skepticism.