Meaning & Analysis
The proverb draws a comparison to the mole, an animal widely believed to be completely blind due to its subterranean lifestyle and tiny, barely visible eyes. It literally means to have no sight whatsoever.
Insights
Willful Ignorance
Describes a state of willful ignorance, where an individual deliberately refuses to see or acknowledge a truth that is apparent to everyone else.
Lack of Insight
Refers to a profound lack of insight, understanding, or judgment in matters that are not strictly visual. A person can be 'blind' to the consequences of their actions, the nuances of a situation, or spiritual truths.
Total Unawareness
Signifies complete obliviousness to one's surroundings or the reality of a situation, suggesting a person is entirely unaware of what is happening around them.
Impaired Perception
Can be used to describe any severely compromised state of perception, whether due to a lack of information, intellectual capability, or even physical impairment, as in being 'drunk-blind'.
Folk Belief vs. Scientific Fact
The proverb's endurance rests on a popular, though scientifically inaccurate, belief. Moles are not completely blind, but their extremely poor eyesight serves as a powerful symbol for a profound lack of vision, highlighting how proverbial wisdom often prioritizes symbolic truth over literal fact.
Classical Heritage
The citation from Erasmus, 'Talpa caecior' (blinder than a mole), confirms the proverb's classical origins. Its persistence since antiquity illustrates its deep cultural resonance as a metaphor for intellectual and moral imperception in Western thought.
Critique of Judgment
Early uses of the proverb, such as in the 1548 Cooper quotation, explicitly link it to a 'lacke of iudgement in thynges that are plaine'. This shows its function not just as a description of unawareness, but as a pointed critique of someone's inability to grasp obvious truths.
Psychological Symbolism
The mole's subterranean existence makes it a potent psychological symbol for being 'in the dark'—unaware of a broader reality and confined to a limited, personal world. The proverb taps into this imagery to describe a state of profound ignorance or willful denial.
Rhetorical Devices
Simile
The proverb is a direct and explicit comparison using the structure 'as...as', a common formulation for proverbial wisdom that makes its meaning clear and memorable.
Animal Symbolism
The mole serves as a powerful symbol of blindness, ignorance, and living 'in the dark'. Its natural habitat and physical characteristics are used to represent a state of human imperception.
Hyperbole
By equating a person's lack of perception with the supposed total blindness of a mole, the proverb uses exaggeration to emphasize the severity of the ignorance or lack of judgment being described.
Transcription
Quotations
Talpa caecior.
Talpa coecior, blynder then a mole, a prouerbe applied to theim that lacke iudgement in thynges that are plaine.
Blinde as moales.
By this Argument you may playnely perceive unlesse you wilbe wilfully blind like a want [mole].
In heav'nly things ye are more blinde then Moals.
Who sees not now their shape, and nakednesse, Is blinder then the sonne of earth, the mole.
(He is as).
Your reward is to be drunk-blind like moles, in the wine-cellar.
As blind as a beetle; as a mole; as a post.
Cross References
- OTTO, no. 1739
- ST., no. 254.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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