Meaning & Analysis
An elderly man who falls in love, particularly with a much younger person, is said to be hastening his own demise due to the physical and emotional strain of the relationship.
Insights
Folly of Unnatural Pursuits
The proverb serves as a moral warning against defying the natural course of life. An old man's passionate love is depicted as an undignified and foolish pursuit that disrupts the peace expected of his age, thereby inviting ruin and death.
Exhaustion of Vitality
Love and romance require a vitality—physical, emotional, and financial—that an elderly person may no longer possess. The act of loving is metaphorically framed as an exhaustive expense of one's remaining life force, leading directly to ruin.
Social and Financial Death
The 'death' can be interpreted as social and financial ruin, not just a literal end. An old man's infatuation often led to public ridicule and the squandering of his estate, representing a death of his reputation and legacy.
Cultural Anxiety
The proverb reflects a deep-seated historical and cultural anxiety surrounding May-December romances, which were often viewed as unnatural and transactional. The 1582 quotation comparing a young woman to 'Greene Iuy' strangling an 'olde Tree' vividly captures this perception of such relationships as parasitic and destructive.
Literary Trope
This proverb is part of a long satirical tradition in Western literature, seen in works like Chaucer's 'The Merchant's Tale', which mocks the folly of elderly men who, in seeking to recapture youth through a young partner, only succeed in hastening their own humiliation and demise.
Psychological Bias
Psychologically, the proverb reveals a societal bias against elderly passion and sexuality. It frames late-in-life desire not as a valid source of happiness but as a pathetic and dangerous deviation from the expected tranquility of old age, thereby reinforcing restrictive generational roles.
Rhetorical Devices
Personification
The proverb personifies death as an entity that can be embraced, creating a powerful and macabre image of the old man actively and intimately welcoming his own destruction through his infatuation.
Irony and Juxtaposition
A stark juxtaposition is created between 'love', an emotion associated with life and vitality, and 'death'. This ironic pairing suggests that the man's pursuit of life's greatest pleasure perversely becomes the direct cause of his end.
Metaphor
The entire phrase is a potent metaphor where 'love' symbolizes the broader folly of an old man attempting to recapture youth, and 'hugging death' signifies the inevitable and self-inflicted consequences of this attempt.
Transcription
Quotations
Greene Iuy, which catcheth an olde Tree, maketh quicke worke for the fire: and the imbracements of a faire Woman, hastneth an olde man to his Graue.
Old men who play with young maids, embrace death.
Old Men, that dandle Madams, hug Death.
Old men, when they marry young women, are said to make much of death.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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