Meaning & Analysis
A person can consciously choose to initiate a loving relationship, but they lack the same power to consciously and easily extinguish their feelings of love once they have taken root.
Insights
The Involuntary Nature of Emotion
Love is depicted as an overwhelming and involuntary emotional force. Once engaged, it operates on its own terms, independent of rational will, highlighting the uncontrollable nature of deep-seated emotions.
Consequence and Entrapment
The act of starting a relationship is portrayed as a significant, binding commitment with unforeseen consequences. It suggests that entering love is akin to stepping into a powerful current; the choice is to enter, not to control the journey.
Shift in Agency
The proverb highlights a fundamental power shift. The individual holds power in the beginning—the 'free choice'—but cedes that power to the emotion itself, becoming subject to its whims and duration.
Irreversibility of Experience
Initiating love is presented as an irreversible experience. Even if a relationship ends, the emotional imprint remains, suggesting that one can never truly 'end' the internal transformation that love causes.
Psychological Veracity
The proverb captures a profound psychological truth about emotional attachment, resonating with modern concepts of limerence where love is experienced as an involuntary, often obsessive, state that rational thought cannot easily dispel.
Literary and Romantic Tradition
This idea echoes themes in courtly love and Romantic literature, where love is frequently depicted as a fateful, overwhelming force that operates beyond individual control, often leading to tragic ends. The choice to love is a gateway to destiny, not just a decision.
Free Will vs. Determinism
Philosophically, the proverb frames the experience of love within the classic debate of free will versus determinism. The initial choice is an act of free will, but it unleashes a deterministic emotional process that renders the individual powerless.
Gendered Context
While the proverb uses 'man', its sentiment is universal. Historically, however, it may reflect a particular fascination with love as a force capable of subduing masculine rationality and self-control, a common trope in Renaissance and later literature.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The proverb is built on the direct contrast between 'to begin' and 'not to end', and the presence versus the absence of 'free choice'. This sharp opposition creates a memorable and impactful statement.
Paradox
It presents a classic paradox: a voluntary action (beginning love) leads to an involuntary state (being unable to end it). This inherent contradiction makes the proverb intellectually engaging.
Aphorism
The proverb's concise and definitive structure makes it a powerful aphorism, easily quoted to convey a complex truth about the human condition in a simple form.
Transcription
Quotations
In loving, ech one hath free choyce, or ever they begin, But in their power it lyeth not, to end when they are in.
A man hath free arbitrage to begin Looue, but not to ende it.
A man hath free choice to begin loue, yet it must be with moderation, for to end it being begun is often impossible.
Enter upon Love when you will; but give over when you can.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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