Meaning & Analysis
The person appears so visibly emaciated, sickly, or miserable that starvation seems to manifest physically as a discharge from their nostrils, or their pinched, dripping nose betrays their destitute state.
Insights
Visible Destitution
Poverty is described as an inescapable stain on one's appearance. The proverb implies that extreme want cannot be hidden; it marks the face with a distinct, repulsive wretchedness that is obvious to all observers.
The Stigma of Want
By associating hunger with nasal discharge, the saying links poverty to disease and filth. It turns the starving person into an object of disgust rather than pity, suggesting they are 'leaking' their misery.
Self-Inflicted Deprivation
In the context of misers (as seen in the Cotgrave citation), the metaphor mocks the wealthy who live like paupers. Their greed is so consuming that they bear the physical stigmata of starvation despite their riches.
Humoral Physiology
In early modern medical theory, a cold, dripping nose could signal a lack of 'vital heat.' A well-fed body was warm and sanguine; a starving body was cold and melancholic or phlegmatic. The proverb likely plays on the physical reality that the destitute, lacking food and warmth, would suffer from constant catarrh and pale, pinched extremities.
Skelton’s Macabre Variant
John Skelton’s earlier usage (1533) substitutes 'requiem aeternam' (eternal rest/death) for hunger, saying it 'groweth forth of his nose.' This suggests the proverb originally alluded to the 'Hippocratic face'—the pinched features and cold nose of a dying man. The transition to 'hunger' retains this ghostly, deathly implication.
Chiche-face and the Miser
Randle Cotgrave (1611) links this phrase to 'Chiche-face' (literally 'lean-face' or 'pinch-penny'). This connects the proverb to the folkloric beast *Chichevache*, said to feed on patient wives (and thus was always starving). Here, it reinforces the satire against the miser who is visibly wasting away due to his refusal to spend money on food.
The Esthetics of Disgust
The imagery serves a social function of separation. In *Eastward Ho* (1605), the character says, 'Come away... Hunger drops out at his nose.' The poor man is treated as a contagion; the visual cue of the 'dropping' nose serves as a warning to keep one's distance to avoid catching his bad fortune.
Rhetorical Devices
Grotesque Realism
The proverb uses the visceral, unappealing image of nasal discharge to embody an abstract economic state, grounding the concept of poverty in bodily fluids and revulsion.
Reification
Hunger is treated as a tangible substance (fluid) stored within the body that can leak out, rather than a lack of sustenance.
Synecdoche
The 'nose' stands in for the whole face or the general constitution of the person, focusing the observer's attention on the center of the visage where the signs of privation are most acute.
Transcription
Quotations
I gyue hym Crystys curse with neuer a peny in his purse.. Ye, for requiem aeternam groweth forth of his nose.
Hunger droppeth euen out of bothe theyr noses.
Come away, I say, Hunger drops out at his nose.
A.. wretched fellow; one out of whose nose hunger drops.
Hunger still drops out of some noble nose.
Hunger drops down at his nose.
She will in a short time make hunger to dropp out at your nose.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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