Meaning & Analysis
The proverb poses a rhetorical question, implying that nothing is more detrimental or discouraging than bad luck.
Insights
Supremacy of Misfortune
Asserts that bad luck is the ultimate setback—an obstacle so powerful that little else can compare to its capacity for undermining plans or hopes.
Existential Resignation
Hints at a fatalistic worldview, in which misfortune is seen as an unavoidable force, rendering other worries insignificant by comparison.
Rhetorical Emphasis
The proverb’s question format dramatizes the helplessness people feel when faced with sheer bad luck, making it a classic expression of resignation and frustration.
Cultural Catharsis
Such sayings serve as communal catharsis, allowing people to voice shared disappointments and to acknowledge that, sometimes, effort and planning are simply defeated by chance.
Philosophical Pessimism
Reflects a long tradition in folk and philosophical wisdom that recognizes the limits of human agency in the face of fate, echoing similar sentiments in many world cultures.
Rhetorical Devices
Rhetorical Question
Poses a question not meant for answer but to underscore the point, increasing the emotional impact and memorability.
Ellipsis
Leaves the answer unstated, allowing listeners to supply their own, thus broadening the proverb’s resonance.
Antithesis
Implicitly contrasts misfortune with any other miseries or setbacks, highlighting ill luck’s preeminence.
Transcription
Quotations
The Proverbe sayes, What's worse than ill-luck?
Then our business is done already! What's worse than ill luck?
Annotations
- Spoken when a thing miscarries purely by Misfortune. There is a Return to this Proverb, but it is paltry.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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