Meaning & Analysis
If you pursue love, pleasure, or glory too eagerly, they will evade you; but if you avoid or disregard them, they will come after you instead.
Insights
Paradox of Desire
The proverb highlights a psychological paradox: overt pursuit often repels what we desire, whereas detachment can make us more attractive to those very things.
Power of Indifference
Suggests that disinterest—real or feigned—often provokes pursuit, especially in romantic, social, or aspirational contexts, making emotional distance a form of influence.
Elusiveness of Fulfillment
Implies that pleasure, love, and glory are inherently elusive when sought directly, but may arrive when one is focused on other aims or values.
Erasmian and Classical Origins
Rooted in Erasmus’s *Adagia* and echoing ancient Latin wisdom (e.g., *Sequentem fugit, fugientem sequitur*), the proverb expresses a longstanding philosophical observation about the inverse relationship between pursuit and possession.
Gender and Courtship Norms
Many early modern interpretations of this proverb involve women and love, reinforcing social scripts in which passivity and emotional restraint were idealized as desirable traits, especially for women or suitors.
Psychological Inversion of Control
Captures the human tendency to value what is out of reach and to disregard what is readily available—an enduring dynamic in both romantic and professional pursuits.
Social Status and Ambition
Several citations apply the proverb to preferment, fame, or glory, reflecting early modern skepticism toward ambition and suggesting that true distinction is best attained without aggressive self-promotion.
Rhetorical Devices
Chiasmus
The mirrored structure—'follow... flee; flee... follow'—creates a rhetorical and mnemonic balance that reinforces the proverb’s paradoxical message.
Personification
Love, pleasure, and glory are treated as agents with volition, enhancing their mystique and suggesting that they respond to human behavior in quasi-sentient ways.
Alliteration and Rhythm
The repeated 'f' sounds in 'follow,' 'flee,' and 'follow thee' contribute to a flowing, lyrical cadence, aiding in oral retention and aphoristic impact.
Transcription
Quotations
Aversum insequitur, rursum aversatur amantem.
Folowe pleasure, and then will pleasure flee. Flee pleasure, and pleasure will folowe thee.
Cupide is a craftie childe following those at an ynche that studye pleasure, and flyinge those swyftlye that take paines.
(and it wil flie the).
(Follow thou pleasure and still it will flee, But flee thou pleasure and).
I am not tied to that opinion, They are like women, which do always shun Their lovers and pursuers, and do follow With most rank appetites them that do fly.
Flie pleasure, and it will follow thee.
And when we slight them thus, Instead of following them, they'll follow us; It is a woman's nature.
In Rome preferments seek them that seek them not, and fly from them that seek them.
[As in 1616 Dr.]
A woman runs after who shuns her.
Glory flyes from such as seek after her, and runs after such as shun her.
(and it will flee from thee; leave it, and).
[As in 1616 Dr.]
*This was wont to be said of glory, Sequentem fugit, fugientem sequitur. Just like a shadow.
[As in 1616 Dr.]
(and it will flee thee).
Fly pleasures, and they'll follow you.
Shakespeare Citations
Why, this it is to be a peevish girl That flies her fortune when it follows her!
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.