Meaning & Analysis
A lion’s skin is costly—not easily obtained—because it must be taken from a powerful and dangerous creature, implying that the risk involved is great.
Insights
High Cost of Valor
Signifies that true courage, honor, or victory is never gained without significant struggle, danger, or sacrifice—it must be ‘paid for’ in effort, risk, or life itself.
Glory Comes at a Price
Warns that heroic status or great achievements are never easy or inexpensive—they require immense investment, whether in war, labor, or moral conviction.
Danger of Ambition
Implies that pursuing greatness, symbolized by the lion’s skin, is fraught with peril and must not be underestimated.
Military and Chivalric Roots
Historically used in martial contexts, the proverb reflects the ethos of knightly combat and warfare—where slaying a formidable enemy was the path to glory, but never without real danger.
Economic Metaphor of Honor
The phrase transforms valor into an economic metaphor—valor as a commodity that must be 'sold dear,' reinforcing early modern notions of honor as transactional and earned through peril.
Psychological Truth of Risk
Touches on a psychological reality: rewards that seem impressive or legendary often conceal the cost behind their attainment. It reminds us to weigh admiration against hidden struggle.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The lion’s skin represents triumph, honor, or conquest, making the proverb a powerful figurative expression of cost versus reward.
Allusion
Evokes classical and folkloric associations with lions as symbols of supreme challenge, and with lion-skin trophies as heroic tokens (e.g., Hercules).
Economic Idiom
By describing the lion’s skin as never 'cheap,' the proverb applies commercial language to valor, adding an ironic realism to romantic ideals of heroism.
Transcription
Quotations
A Lyons skinne was neuer bought good cheape; the valiant euer sold their skinnes full deere.
(A lyon's).
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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